& a blog

"talent imitates, genius steals"

this is a long lost response to something i read in a lev manovich essay almost eight months ago. that something was:

if we now try now to develop a better historical and theoretical understanding of remix era, we will be in a better position to recognize and understand whatever new era which will replace it.

the quote was from “what comes after the remix?” and when i stumbled upon it, i was halfway through writing a paper on the idea of the aesthetics of informatics. i actually hit briefly upon the idea that info.art could be that which was beyond the remix aesthetic, and wrote parenthetically to the instructor braxton soderman, i wish i had time to develop a taxonomy of the remix.

given a moment, i have decided to at least tenatively develop that taxonomy.

the remix, as manovich historicizes it, is born of a tradition of sampling. it is quotational, but not only in the sense that journalism cobbles stories from sound bites, but also from the idea that the quotation can be divided, resampled, taken out of context, repeated and manipulated. in short, the remix is always allowed to be a new fiction of the fact it originates from.

the extension remix

let me be more specific. the first taxonomic level of the remix is the extension. this is the differentiation between values like “album version” and “radio edit.” the extension remix is always about time, and by virtue of its name, almost universally represents the idea that the original serving (designed for short, potent commercial play) denied the listener an elaborated concept worked to completion.

the translation remix

the second taxonomic level of the remix is the translation. with the translation, a song is re-adapted from its primary genre to a secondary genre. generally this translation is at the service of club culture, as well known pop-songs are frequently given treatments to make them acceptable in a dance venue. in sharp contrast with the extension, the translation is almost done by a secondary producer, which is to say that the band/studio responsible for the original song generally outsource the work of the translation to a well-known DJ or club producer, whose responsibility becomes making the song a cross-over success.

unlike later remix aesthetics, which will be discussed, the translation is often constrained by the need to have the remixed songs still contain the song’s original singer, singing the original lyrics, in generally the same order. which is to say that the song still reflects a pop structuration. there is still a verse-chorus-verse-bridge-chorus shape to the song, and this makes the translation feel… cheap.

the mash-up

just past the translation is the mash-up. this terrain, made world-f#@!ing famous by girltalk, is all about the superimposition of well-known songs within one another. the most quotational of remix forms, the mash-up at best constructs an homage and at worst creates superficial allusions that say “oh listen to that, and that. my wasn’t that something?”

to not overly diminish the mash-up, one must remember that the better mash-up is not one that sounds like one song put into another but two songs deconstructed and rewoven together. they should become a indivisible new unity, that while clearly frankensteined from two or more other sources still sounds like a cohesive one. the original masters of this were not greg gillis or internet amateurs, but a group of underground belgians who made techno by night as soulwax, and then made american pop-music mashups by day. like mash-up itself, they decided to name themselves after the multiplicious culture of recombitant music remixes: “2manydjs.”

the most important element of the successful mash-up is the value of dissimilarity between the original songs which is then considered against the fluency with which they are then brought together. below, two choice examples of successful mash-ups are measured by just this criterion as they manage to overcome genre and bpm (beats per minute) differences to become a cohesive whole.

the radical reconstruction

the penultimate remix aesthetic could be considered the final stage of the remix in that it represents the last clear indication that a given work is derivative from an original, and wants to acknowledge that original. this penultimate level is called the radical reconstruction. like the mash-up, the radical reconstructive remix begins by breaking apart a cohesive whole into song-elements, and then curating certain elements into the new. in sharp contrast to the mash-up, the radical reconstruction often includes new elements, riffs, synth-leads, beats, and other musical components that were not in the original song. this is not to say that the new elements will be entirely new; in fact, they are often abstractions of given song-elements that have been reinterpreted by the remix dj when he/she decided to redo the song’s melody with a moog keyboard or angelic synth line. consider the vampire weekend remix below by the teenagers, which clearly acknowledges the structure of the original song, but also imposes some wholly new material.

for what it’s worth, i got this remix through hipster runoff as they did a recent testament to the potency of the teenagers as a remix collective.

the radical reconstruction remix is really the ultimate remix, as it represents (generally) an ideal balance between the introduction of new material, and the reintrepretation of existing song-elements. unlike the transition, which is superficially the restructuring of only rhythm and song pacing, the radical reconstructive remix must change the tone of the song, both playing as an homage to the original but taking it towards something new. in this way, the r.r. could be considered the montage remix as it reframes a way of looking at a work, but does so using pre-existing vantages.

the deep abstraction