Why? Dear God, WHY?
Now, I know remixing is a well established part of dance music, and there are cases where a remix can breathe life into a song (the remix of 'Beautiful Liar' is a case in point), but there's been a couple of cases lately where I've thought "Why?". Take the Utah Saints, who have taken their classic Something Good, which still has the power to make me leap up and down with joy, and turned it into Something Good '08, which, erm, doesn't, because it's covered with a pointless and intrusive bassline.
They’re not the only ones up to no good, though. The fantastic Toca’s Miracle from Fragma, which also had a great low-budget video, shot in a Middlesex University sports hall, has been ‘updated’ to Toca’s Miracle ‘08, which slows the track down, making it considerably less exciting.
Sigh. Are the yoof of today really that unable to cope with the originals? As the tracks are not altered that much either, the whole enterprise seems to be a waste of time from my point of view, but then I’m not the one earning money from it. Utah Saints may be satisfied, but it’s the aural equivalent of premature ejaculation for me.
About this entry
- By Tanya Jones
- Posted on Friday, April 18 2008 @ 10:32 am
- Categorised in Music
- Tagged with youtube, utah saints, fragma
- 5 comments
Well, if you linked to the Something Good '08 video, e.g. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMLCrzy9TEs rather than just an audio track, you would understand - because the new video is awesome. ;)
By Matthew
April 19, 2008 @ 2:02 pm
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Yes, because the quality of a music track should be judged by its video.
By Seb
April 19, 2008 @ 2:39 pm
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Glad to know you agree, Seb :) Or at least, missed the winky smiley in my original.
By Matthew
April 19, 2008 @ 7:07 pm
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Have you seen the youth of today? Either they hang around in dark clubs pretending to be mature by listening to music that would make Zippy and George want to commit suicide or they think songs that contain random shouting and nonsense is the next intellectual level!
For example, when I sent the link of Utah Saints, Something Good (Good choice by the way, that brings back memories) to a friend he replied with this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzKgCneinFc
I've sat in cars with people explaining how the lyrics in this type of music talk about world poverty and how the world would be a better place if we all just sat down and talked about it. Mad I tell you!
By Scott
April 20, 2008 @ 9:37 pm
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I think, of course, that it just comes down to money. Will they make money off it? Then they'll do it.
As to the question "Why would anyone buy it?" I think these remixes tend to be close enough to the original that the quality of the song just about shines through, and, though it seems slightly daft to me, people would much rather buy a new track than listen to an old one, even when the new version is just a less good version of basically the same thing.
And the awesome video does help.
It's a cover, rather than a remix, (but the same phenomemon, IMHO) but the Toploader version of King Harvest's Dancing in the Moonlight http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=jeZcsPAZOXA ), is my own personal bête noire along these lines. It's a very simliar cover, but at the time, hardly anyone (myself included) seemed to realise it was a cover at all. Which I found infuriating (once I did find out).
The fact that they then turned out to be a one hit wonder made it all the more galling.
McFly's version of Jellyfish's Baby's Coming Back http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=yrdF2sNO8lg, is another irritating one. I can deal with the cover existing. It's just the similarity, combined with the lack of acknowledgment that riles me so. Arrgh! (Atomic Kitten's version of Eternal Flame didn't bug me half as much, for example.)
Phewf. Rant over.
By Rich Cheng
June 03, 2008 @ 3:23 pm
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