Remixes have changed significantly over time. In the past, the term was more literal. The elements of a song, each recorded in a studio on individual tracks, had to be mixed to make a song. This was normally the job of the producer, but starting in the age of disco (at least) and carrying over into dance music in general after that, remixing became a thing. Often this meant repeating elements, and extending the song, but it also sometimes meant using the elements in a different arrangement to highlight different aspects of it. Only very occasionally was a new element recorded, but even then, it was usually subtle, and very small. Through most of the 80s, this was the standard use of the word remix, and although a few people attached their name to remixes, they were often the same people who did production on the albums anyway, so it was just an extension of their work there (this is what someone like Mike Saunders or Gareth Jones would have done, for instance.)
Now, keep in mind that in the 80s, I didn't listen to very much of what we'd call EDM yet—I was still more in New Wave, or what retroactively we've started calling synthpop. Stuff like Depeche Mode, Erasure, the Pet Shop Boys, Ultravox, etc. An important element of this type of music is, of course, the pop song structure and the vocal melody (and backing vocal harmonies.)
Here's an example; a rather lengthy one, but still. Ultravox's #3 (in Britain) hit "Dancing With Tears In My Eyes" in original (well, remastered) version, and the very long "Special" Mix, which doesn't really use any new elements, but which extends the song significantly and highlights stuff that fades more into the background in the original version. Note the intro, where the bass-line is a bit exaggerated, for instance—it's present in the original version, but you don't really notice it until the remix calls attention to it. That intro just goes on forever and ever, by the way, which wasn't necessarily a requirement of these remixes. But making them Extended was not unusual. Most of the actual vinyl 12" singles (as well as later cassette and CD singles I bought during the 80s were mostly made up of these types of remixes.)
Gradually, remixers started adding a bit more. There are, for example, four remixes of "A Little Respect" by Erasure on the 12" single I bought. Two of them are variations of the kind of remix I mentioned above. The Big Train remix adds more stuff. It's subtle, but certainly noticeable And then... there's the 12" House Mix. By the end of the 80s, a significant change had started to come over the world of remixing, which this remix is an example of. Remixes were now an excuse for the remixer to be the star. A number of remixes were built almost from the ground up, with all new instrumentation, and the original was only nodded at in passing as the vocals were layered in, sometimes modified or filtered to give it a different sound. I hated with a passion some of these remixes, which were terrible house songs that bastardized the originals rather than ones that added something significant or interesting.
Here's my sample of this kind of crap; from the "World In Your Eyes" CD single; one of the first really disappointing things I bought by Depeche Mode (partly because I didn't love the song in the first place, and thought that some good remixing could really improve it. The same had been done with earlier singles from Violator, including "Personal Jesus" with the "Holier Than Thou Approach" and the "Pump Mix"; both of which were little removed from the earlier 80s paradigm, but which significantly improved the song from the album version. Or, for that matter, the same was true with "Enjoy the Silence" where a mediocre album version was vastly improved by the "Hands and Feet Mix".
With "World In Your Eyes" the strange housey remixes that almost completely ignored the original song were all we got, just about. Not that other 12"ers I bought during this era didn't have a mix or two of that type, but for the most part, they were rare, while good remixes were more common. I added those two links above for reference, but I actually get bored with the original, and actively dislike the remix.
But there was an upside to this. If you ignored the fad of house-sounding remixes that swept through the synthpop genre, what we also started to get were remixes that were a little more daring, making the song sound like it had a different mood, or different tone, or maybe that it was a collaboration between two different bands altogether. In fact, that's an interesting side effect of it; bands started to become as remixers in addition to for their own work. Here's an early example; Anything Box's "Jubilation" in original album version, plus some remixes from the 12" (or CD) single.
For a more "mature" example of this same phenomena, here's a turn of the millennium song, "Annie, Would I Lie to You" by Iris. The original version is first, then the "Children Within Bunker Mix" which, as you might expect, makes the song sounds almost like the vocalist from Iris did a collaboration with the Children Within, who remade the synths from the ground up.
This is more or less still the situation today in the synthpop (and futurepop and other related genres) scene today, and for the most part I like it. That doesn't mean that I like every mix, of course, but it does mean that for the most part, you can tell what a mix is likely to sound like if you have any familiarity with the remixer. It also means that we get a lot of variety in our remixes, which is an improvement from the old days when you had remixes that all sounded mostly the same (listen to the remixes for "New York New York" by MCL for instance. Good luck telling by ear which one you're listening to, unless it's the Razormaid Remix (not the Razormaid Mix, which is different) which at least adds a subtle new sound to a few places.)
And MCL is a good spring board from New Wave to EDM, since it's basically an early EDM song—there isn't much to go on with a verse-bridge-chorus structure, or a vocal melody, or anything like that, which is what is also true for most EDM songs. Some do have vocals, but quite often it's just a sample, or a monolog, or some other minor element of the song rather than the backbone around which the song is built. This means that remixing in this new paradigm, where it's more than simply remixing existing elements, is a complicated process. What exactly does it mean to remix, when it's nothing but instrumental elements, and you're expected to create new ones to give the song a different spin of some kind? But not too different, because you still want to recognize it as the same song? It really blurs the distinction between the artist and the producer/remixer quite a bit, just as it blurs the distinction between a remix and a cover version of the song itself.
Ironically, speaking of vocals, some of these early EDM remix hits made songs famous by removing vocals. Here's two examples of that: the Cameron Paul remix of C.C.C.P.'s "American-Soviets" and the most famous of the Jam & Spoon remixes of Age of Love's "Age of Love"
And this is what got me thinking about all of this in the first place. All week I've been really digging Dave Joy's "First Impression." It's a great song. But one of the things that is really interesting about it is that there seem to be more good remixes of this song than just about any other song I've got in my collection. It even dwarfs the number of good remixes I have for "Acid Nightmare" by A*S*Y*S or "The Answer" by Tommy Pulse, or even of "Enjoy the Silence" by Depeche Mode. Well, maybe it doesn't dwarf the number of "Enjoy the Silences" that I have. But it certainly matches it. It's surprising how many versions of this song there are. And, it's surprising how many of them are versions that I like. I've had a really hard time picking a favorite, and even if I do, it's a close thing, because a bunch of other versions are really cool too.
Here's where all of this comes together, though—the original version is called the "Original Skyline Mix" but along with that was a remix by Dave Joy (the artist) and DJ Loudness, as well as one by another hardtrance artist known as S.H.O.K.K. It's the S.H.O.K.K. mix that took off and made the song a hit. And it sounds quite a bit different from the original, to the point where it's almost another song altogether. Those three were the original release, but there were several additional releases over the years, down until we got the 10th Anniversary release with a bazillion remixes. But the curious thing is that the newer remixes tend to be remixes of the S.H.O.K.K. remix; containing elements that are unique to that version, rather than of the original song.
Anyway, the whole thing is kinda curious, and I've already rambled way too long on a very esoteric topic, but listen to the "Original Skyline Mix", the "S.H.O.K.K. Remix" and the more recent "Nomad Remix" to see what I'm talking about.
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