The Best Remixes

I'm sort of surprised this thread doesn't exist on here yet.

I've come across a couple of great remixes today - so I wonder if you all have similar resources:

Jay-Z vs Air - Blue Magic (The Knocks Remix)
http://hypem.com/#/track/796802

Jay-Z - American G-Funk (The Knocks Remix)
http://hypem.com/#/track/796804

Sure…the first one made Trent cream his panties ;D

Nine Inch Nails - Only (Mindless Faith remix)


Nine Inch Nails - The Hand That Feeds (Timeshift mix by Mindless Faith)

callat703 wrote:
I'm sort of surprised this thread doesn't exist on here yet.

I've come across a couple of great remixes today - so I wonder if you all have similar resources:

Jay-Z vs Air - Blue Magic (The Knocks Remix)
http://hypem.com/#/track/796802

Jay-Z - American G-Funk (The Knocks Remix)
http://hypem.com/#/track/796804

Not to nitpick, oh wait it's the internet, but these examples would be best described as mash-ups not remixes. 

http://rcrdlbl.com and http://fairtilizer.com are good sources for finding remixes

of late these very favs of mine

Feist - 1234(Van She remix)
Tracey Thorn - King's Cross (Hot Chip Remix)

Well, nitpicking aside, is there really a demonstrable difference between a remix and a mash-up?  Aren't they essentially the same thing?  Clearly a mash-up uses more of an original source material, but it is essentially being "remixed" into a different form to back a different song.

I understand the distinction - but isn't a mashup just a degree of specificity within the category of remix?

A mashup is typically the cut and pasting of two different tracks together some times with other samples.  The reason there are often Rap tracks mashed up with pop/rock tracks is due the fact that rap artists often release A Capella versions of their songs making them easily mashable.

Remixes usually involve the reworking of a track by manipulating the existing elements to extended them, make dub versions, etc.  Most often today remixes are done in order to create crossover hits, such as Everything But The Girl did with "Missing" when Todd Terry was brought in to do the remix for it.  In the case the remixer is creating an entirely new musical track to go along with the vocals.  This time of remix is currently very much in vogue, with the likes of Bloc Party releasing entire albums of remixes. 

kosmo wrote:
A mashup is typically the cut and pasting of two different tracks together some times with other samples.  The reason there are often Rap tracks mashed up with pop/rock tracks is due the fact that rap artists often release A Capella versions of their songs making them easily mashable.

Remixes usually involve the reworking of a track by manipulating the existing elements to extended them, make dub versions, etc.  Most often today remixes are done in order to create crossover hits, such as Everything But The Girl did with "Missing" when Todd Terry was brought in to do the remix for it.  In the case the remixer is creating an entirely new musical track to go along with the vocals.   This time of remix is currently very much in vogue, with the likes of Bloc Party releasing entire albums of remixes. 

Yes, this is true - but in order to "mash up" a song with another one, you often have to manipulate the existing elements in order for it to work or for the songs to fit together.  For example, in that Jay-Z tune above where it is mashed up with Air, the tempo of the original Air track is slowed.  Or take "A Stroke of Genius," if you want to hit on one of the early examples of mashups, where Christina Aguilera was paired with the Strokes.  The Strokes tune was recut and rearranged to fit the Aguilera vocal track. Remixes often use outside samples of some kind, whether they be drum loops, keys, vocal samples, or whatever else a remixer would like to incorporate.

I guess my point is that the distinctions are nuanced; essentially, a mashup is just a more specialized form of remix, involving an additional song brought into the picture.

ok i'll concede that mash-ups are a form of remixing, but to be treated as little more than simply novelties that i'm surprised that people are even still bothering to do anymore…

and speaking of cut-up artists, i found the most recent Girl Talk CD to be incredibly uninteresting to the point of being annoying, it just didn't have the same spark or cleverness of "Night Ripper"

kosmo wrote:
ok i'll concede that mash-ups are a form of remixing, but to be treated as little more than simply novelties that i'm surprised that people are even still bothering to do anymore…

and speaking of cut-up artists, i found the most recent Girl Talk CD to be incredibly uninteresting to the point of being annoying, it just didn't have the same spark or cleverness of "Night Ripper"

I don't disagree on Girl Talk.

And yes, perhaps a mashup can be dismissed as novelty - but at the same time, I think it is interesting to hear how people meld songs together to form something new.  I'll still defend some of the bigger mash up projects - most notably the Grey Album and while I'm not a fan, the Girl Talk records - as relevant and important artistic statements.

Wow so after all this clarification, anyone else want to post REMIXES? :D

Here's a MASHUP I did awhile ago with one of our tracks and The Prodigy's "Firestarter" This was done live using two CDs, not using any special  studio program to change the time, etc :)

Singularstarter


And this will probably make people cringe or dig it. I kinda dig it :)

Gwen Stefani vs Front 242 "Hollaback/Headhunter"

kosmo wrote:
Most often today remixes are done in order to create crossover hits, such as Everything But The Girl did with "Missing" when Todd Terry was brought in to do the remix for it.  In the case the remixer is creating an entirely new musical track to go along with the vocals.   

hehe "most often today"????? Wasn't that remixed from 1994 though? :P

MindCage wrote:

kosmo wrote:
Most often today remixes are done in order to create crossover hits, such as Everything But The Girl did with "Missing" when Todd Terry was brought in to do the remix for it.  In the case the remixer is creating an entirely new musical track to go along with the vocals.   

hehe "most often today"????? Wasn't that remixed from 1994 though? :P

it's the one that always comes to mind when talking about remixes done to reach a crossover audience, it's also resulted in numerous attempts to have similar success afterwords…

plus it proves how old and stale i am….

Mashups are almost always illegal/unauthorized, whereas most remixes are commissioned by a record label.

(There are, of course, unauthorized remixes out there as well.)

kosmo wrote:

MindCage wrote:

kosmo wrote:
Most often today remixes are done in order to create crossover hits, such as Everything But The Girl did with "Missing" when Todd Terry was brought in to do the remix for it.  In the case the remixer is creating an entirely new musical track to go along with the vocals.   

hehe "most often today"????? Wasn't that remixed from 1994 though? :P

it's the one that always comes to mind when talking about remixes done to reach a crossover audience, it's also resulted in numerous attempts to have similar success afterwords…

plus it proves how old and stale i am….

Probably the biggest crossover audience song would have to be Delerium's "Silence" featuring Sarah McLaughlin, plus the 10,000 remix versions that are out there. :)

Christine wrote:
Mashups are almost always illegal/unauthorized, whereas most remixes are commissioned by a record label.

(There are, of course, unauthorized remixes out there as well.)

I'm not sure illegal would be the right term since the majority of mashups are done by DJs in their live sets. Now, if they're putting an album out which features these, that's a different story.

As for remixes, yeah they're either commissioned by the artists or label. That's how you're able to get the raw tracks like just the vocals like we did for the NIN remixes ;)

Wasn't that remix of Suzanne Vega's "Tom's Diner" a huge seller?  It of course started life as an unauthorized remix….  One of the most annoying things I've ever heard was an artist sound checking a cover of that remix :p

and i can't be bothered to look it up, but wasn't there significant numbers for the remixes involving the Postal Service and the Shins at some point

DJs are almost never creating mashups on the fly.  If you hear a mashup in a DJ's live set, odds are that he/she is playing it from MP3, bootleg 12", CD-R, etc.

Like Kosmo Vinyl, I had the impression that the heyday of the mashup was years ago.

Christine wrote:
DJs are almost never creating mashups on the fly.  If you hear a mashup in a DJ's live set, odds are that he/she is playing it from MP3, bootleg 12", CD-R, etc.

Like Kosmo Vinyl, I had the impression that the heyday of the mashup was years ago.

I guess I'm special than since I do my mashup mixes live and not prerecorded. :)

I've gotta agree the mashup heyday was about as long as The Darkness' musical career, and about the same time period too… Hmmmm

>>>Wasn't that remix of Suzanne Vega's "Tom's Diner" a huge seller?
What about the Junkie XL Elvis thing… I think that was actually a #1 hit in Britain

>>>DJs are almost never creating mashups on the fly.
This is more of a sound-collage approach, but Vicki Bennett aka 'People Like Us' does her clever mashups live:  http://www.peoplelikeus.org/radio.htm

any song by the orb remixed by anybody, including the orb.

I've found that I'm generally a HUGE fan of Jacques Lu Cont/Thin White Duke/Stuart Price remixes. Ditto this for Beyond the Wizard's Sleeve. BTWS's remixes of Midlake's "Roscoe" and Goldfrapp's "Happiness" are pretty fucking phenomenal and turn already great songs into phenomenal tracks.