Remix

Recently I had a discussion with my boss on the concept remixing, or more so how everything is really biting off of something else. The conversation arose when I mentioned that Schooly D (I had just finished filming his show for our website), the old school gangster rapper responsible for the Aqua Teen Hunger Force theme song, had gotten into trouble for using parts of Led Zeppelin's famous song "Kashmir", in which my boss replied that they themselves had ripped it off from somebody else. Also mentioned was the Nirvana biting off of Boston.

Well I just have to say this is the age we live in. Of course this "biting" off of other people has its various levels of severity, but it seems it has become the norm as long as some kind of permission is granted as well as credit is given when its due. Depending on the platform, be it music production, web design, or animation, permission may not be required as long as certain things are considered.

I would say society had just been moving towards this, in that it NEEDS remixes of everything. In a world reaching overpopulation, where you feel more alone standing in a giant crowd rather than in a room by your self; people need familiarity, people need things to connect to. That's why remixing everything has grown to such a standard. If people can connect to a single piece in the production (be itt music, web, tv) they are automatically comforted and more likely to stay tuned as long as this blanket of familiarity resides.

Originals are fantastic, but what really is a true original anymore? Everything samples everything, everything is influenced be everything. Most of us have probably heard that there are only some 7 basic story lines, so how fresh can the new "fresh comedy" really be? Remixes though have the potential to be they're own originals if the design is innovative enough. Just this modular piece from the past serves the purpose of producing this "blanket of familiarity".

I myself actually do not have a criticism for this remix trend. Being a DJ I love all the different remixes that come out in response to the newest "scene" (underground popular) song, and I know my audience loves them even more. Returning to all platforms of potential remix, one can look at it like this: each production has a potential to create a spark, a spark of interest within a mass of people, the remix simply takes that spark further to reach new audiences that may not have been as familiar with the old spark, but then also bring something new to those familiar with the previous spark. This spark grows and grows, crossing different demographics and various audiences, before dying out and being taken apart to be sampled by a very new spark, or to be brought back to life by a fresh new spin on that spark. And so it goes.


-Piotr Bednarczyk