Alongside the studio albums, occasional live albums and compilations, there is
another album type that might show up in an artist's catalogue: The Remix
Album. That little package of 12" extended remixes that gets sandwiched
between studio album releases which may consist of a handful of usually 6 - 8
previously released, or forthcoming, 12" single tracks. As an avid
collector of a band's recorded output, you may already own most of the tracks
on there, or if you missed out on the now hard to find
12" releases, it's a good way of obtaining the mixes in one go, often at a
budget price. To some it may be
viewed as a cashing in of repackaged material, and to others a chance to obtain
the extended and re-edited tracks aimed at the dancefloor. My reference point lies
in the early to mid-eighties where
bands such as the Pet Shop Boys
followed up their debut album Please
with the six track remix album, Disco.
Soft Cell had followed up their debut album, Non Stop Erotic Cabaret, with NonStop Ecstatic Dancing, and Howard Jones had followed his debut Human's Lib with
the straight to the point album, The 12" Album. We've also seen Madonna's
You Can Dance collection and also The Human League's follow up to Dare with
Love and Dancing released under the name The League Unlimited Orchestra.
The Thompson Twins did things a little differently, and
instead of releasing a separate
remix package, they added them to limited edition releases of their albums. In
fact, for their albums Quick Step and Side Kick and Into The Gap, a limited run
of the cassette album release came with either an extra cassette, or a second
side of various remixes. Their 1985 album Here's To Future Days contained
a 12" single of five remixes including exclusive mixes of some of the
album track all with different titles. As someone who finds artist's catalogues
fascinating, these sorts of releases add
extra interest to the run of singles and albums that make up a band's recorded
output.
The remix collection has never really gone away, and often
you will find artists, doubling up their CD releases with an extra disc of
dancefloor reworking’s, if not a standalone release.
While the PetShop Boys have continued their Disco series with a remix album popping up every
few years, they also included a second CD of remixes to accompany their
Fundamental and Yes albums, titled Fundamentalism and Etc, respectively.
As for the remixes themselves, these were often either
extended versions of the single releases, with added instrumental passages to
turn a 4 minute pop track into anything up to 7 or 8 minutes. Other mixes may
include additional sounds, riffs and hooks. One of my favourite remixers was
always Shep Pettibone,
whose remix work would pop up on records by Pet Shop Boys, New Order, ThompsonTwins and Madonna, and while usually staying faithful to the song structure, he
would often add lots of extra percussion sounds. If it was a 12" mix that
opened with cabasas, shakers, cowbells and extra hi-hats, then it might just be
a Shep mix. Then there are remixes which take just a few elements of a track and add a new backing track giving a
different feel to the original track. It could be a dance version of a
previously mid-tempo ballad. Or a chilled out ambient mix of a previous up-tempo pop track.
And so with my recent Production material that has followed
the classic release structure of 7", 12" and album (albeit in digital
form), I now pay homage to the Remix Album concept with a collection of six new
remixes titled Proud. Among them are examples of previously mentioned remix ideas and little
tributes to some of the artists, remixers and releases that sit in my
collection.Now available at https://production.bandcamp.com/album/proud
Related Blog Posts:
Record-Rewind-Remix
The Single
