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Originally posted by SYSTEM-J I honestly don't understand your reasoning at all. Does a groove have to be unique to be infectious? And if everything about this track outside the melody is as generic as you're claiming (to the point I've apparently induced a false consciousness about why I enjoy it), then why are you banging on about a requirement to be "faithful" to it? You can take the melody line and whack it in any genre going, and by your reasoning the only iconic element of the track is retained. Also, Sacred Cycles is a terrible contrary example, given that the vast majority of the remixes only ever use samples from the first 30 seconds of the intro.

Yes, treating a classic to a remix requires a faithfulness to what's essential about it, and in cases such as Greece 2000 there's...just not a whole lot to be faithful to. You have that classic, rigid division between buildup and climax, the percussive buildup itself- infectious as it may be- could belong to any number records from that time, and a melody that's naturally going to remain perfectly in-tact if you're trying to pass your project off as a remix of Greece 2000. When Kilixpree remarked:

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Originally posted by Kilixpree the good thing is that this way these guys can't damage the track that much, which is always good.

...he's exactly correct, and brushing up along the same point I'm making. A remix of Greece 2000 is going to sound like Greece 2000, and most of your efforts are going to involve setting it in a different genre, tuning it to a different groove, and in either case just reframing the same thing you're already heard a million times before. This isn't a criticism of track or of that period of dance music, it's just the nature of classic anthems, and the limitations involved in remixing them.

And yes, it seems reasonable to suspect that the buildup is so memorable because of its relationship to that unforgettable lead melody. How many equally infectious buildups to disappointing payoffs can you actually remember, or continue to enjoy in their own right?

If Sacred Cycles overshoots the point in the opposite direction, I don't believe it does so by much. Yes, most remixes just involve that searing synth so as to link themselves to the original, but this is still illustrative of my point. Whereas remixing only a little of Sacred Cycles is sufficient, not remixing enough of Greece 2000 is inadequate (and again, it doesn't exactly offer future remixers a whole lot to work with). Something like Sacred Cycles offers a bunch of moving pieces rather than any one dominant sound, which lets a remixer rework, disperse, and diffuse them in and across entirely different musical setting. In that regard, remixes can often go a step further and become reimaginations, and I just don't see those possibilities opening up with something like Greece 2000.

Different pieces of dance music have different remix values, and Greece 2000 is at or near the lowest rung of what's worth a producers time.

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He traded sands for skins, skins for gold, gold for life. In the end, he traded life for sand. Afari, Tales

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Originally posted by Paradox Lost Whereas remixing only a little of Sacred Cycles is sufficient, not remixing enough of Greece 2000 is inadequate (and again, it doesn't exactly offer future remixers a whole lot to work with). Something like Sacred Cycles offers a bunch of moving pieces rather than any one dominant sound, which lets a remixer rework, disperse, and diffuse them in and across entirely different musical setting.

And yet almost every single remix of Sacred Cycles jettisons every single one of those "moving pieces" in favour of a couple of bars of the intro that were sampled from Genesis. Thus utterly invalidating your entire point.

As long as a classic remix has an iconic element of the original which will garner the reaction borne of recognition from the crowd, the rest of it can do anything the remixer wants in the name of making a good tune. In the case of Sacred Cycles, the iconic element is that little Genesis sample at the start. In the case of Greece 2000 or Café Del Mar, it's the hook line.

In fact, I find it particularly self-defeating that you cite Café Del Mar, given the version everyone knows is an update mix, and that practically nobody knows the original version(s). Café Del Mar is a textbook example of how an iconic hook has been re-purposed as a Balearic trance tune, a breakbeat tune, and latterly as a big emotive tech house tune, and been a massive club smash three or four times over in the process.

Put simply and uncharitably, you are talking tosh.

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Mixes:
> Back To Deep [Deep Trippy House]
> Terra Nova [Modern Progressive Trance]
> Rough & Ready [Modern Trance]
>A Different Energy [Good Modern Trance]
> The Edale Mix [Panoramic Beats]

The art of remixing is pretty simple, imo. Make a unique track using elements from the original, without simply sounding like a copy/unnecessary remix.

Another remix of a classic track, hardly even resembling the original, if at all:

yea edits are pretty scummy effort wise, had to do one once because desperate. You need a lot of heart to produce shit. can you tell this is a remix or is it too-far out there? I used to be on some next-level shit once upon a time.

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Originally posted by MSZ can you tell this is a remix or is it too-far out there?

I can tell it's a remix from the same melody that's used. It doesn't sound like a simple re-edit, but rather like a new track/remix.

btw, the SDP remix of "Everytime" embraces the other side: the only thing that remotely reminds me of the original is the vocal. Whatever, love it

quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J And yet almost every single remix of Sacred Cycles jettisons every single one of those "moving pieces" in favour of a couple of bars of the intro that were sampled from Genesis. Thus utterly invalidating your entire point. As long as a classic remix has an iconic element of the original which will garner the reaction borne of recognition from the crowd, the rest of it can do anything the remixer wants in the name of making a good tune. In the case of Sacred Cycles, the iconic element is that little Genesis sample at the start. In the case of Greece 2000 or Café Del Mar, it's the hook line. In fact, I find it particularly self-defeating that you cite Café Del Mar, given the version everyone knows is an update mix, and that practically nobody knows the original version(s). Café Del Mar is a textbook example of how an iconic hook has been re-purposed as a Balearic trance tune, a breakbeat tune, and latterly as a big emotive tech house tune, and been a massive club smash three or four times over in the process.

I should have mentioned the the Case & Slide remix of My Lexicon. Or the Pariah remix of Stage One. Or literally any other example of varied composition, so you'd stop latching on to the way Sacred Cycles has been invariably remixed as though it were some kind of death blow against my argument. It isn't. I referred to Sacred Cycles as an example of a record who's identity is not singularly tied into a distinct hook, but instead offers a bucket's worth of material from which to work into something far more interesting than what Greece 2000 has inspired. And yes, Cafe Del Mar.

Your detailing of its remix history- successful or otherwise- just colors my point about the limitations inherent to this type of record. The update polishes off some of the rougher edges, but is even *less* varied since it eliminates the secondary melody. From there, there's little, meaningful difference between the '97 update and the Nalin & Kane remix. Or the Marco V remix. Chicane, Humate, and a slew of other remixes too numerous to mention. What you heard in 1997 was basically the Cafe Del Mar 'Needs More Mar' remix, which would go on to become people's frame of reference for the original and gave it a whole new lease on freshness. That redundancy is mostly due to the limitations in remixing an original that positions a melody as its centerpiece (and is why Dutch trance remixes only had so many places to go), but in the case of hook driven anthems, they offer almost nothing else, and so you're just left with variations on a theme- slightly worse than your average trance remix package. The never-ending litany of Cafe Del Mar remixes is equivalent to the menu at Taco Bell, in that there seems to be a whole lot of variety, but what you're really looking at is the same four ingredients stretched out across two dozen items.

So far all your attempts to justify the existence of these classic remixes has been in the waves of wide-eyed recognition inspired by their hooks once they've been teased out, and I never denied that had some value. That's all fine on the floor, but really, nothing triggers my skip finger faster in the car than yet another iconic hook propelled by a buildup invented in the absence of anything else to work with. This would be fine in terms of an original piece of music, but that these are conceived as remixes insists upon seeing them in terms of their relationship to the original, and that relationship is rarely an impressive one.

Put glibly, the inflated value you push on to this collective dreck is bullshit, and I'm not buying it.

___________________
He traded sands for skins, skins for gold, gold for life. In the end, he traded life for sand. Afari, Tales

Last edited by Paradox Lost on Jan-24-2019 at 05:58

Sacred Cycles (particularly the Quivver remix) is a death blow to your argument that a good remix of a classic must do anything. There is no "must". There is only a good remix and a bad remix. And is it any surprise that the better producers, often the prog guys, make the better remixes, even with the most economical of ingredients? Look at Andy Ling - Fixation. A trance anthem composed of purest hook. Now look at Tarrantella and Redanka's complete rebuild. Great tune, great remix, completely different to the original. It is only bad remixers that don't build a new track around the iconic elements.

___________________
Mixes:
> Back To Deep [Deep Trippy House]
> Terra Nova [Modern Progressive Trance]
> Rough & Ready [Modern Trance]
>A Different Energy [Good Modern Trance]
> The Edale Mix [Panoramic Beats]

Its just the original pitched to 120 bpm. I thought it was a joke but its on beatport.

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Soundcloud: Anthony Aquino
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