RemixCulture

Quora Answer : Do musicians outside the genres of rap/hiphop/electronic do remixes too?

Jan 9, 2014

The thing is that rap / hiphop / electronic etc. are based on a particular idea : overlaid cells of music that repeat. You can do a lot of interesting remixing of this music by

a) swapping some of the cells for alternatives, most commonly replace the drum loops with others in another style.

b) changing the order (to elongate if you want the music to dance longer). Or to shift between "songlike" structure which takes you on a lyrical journey or to a "build-up" / "drop" structure which is more about raising excitement levels when people dance.

Other genres of music may be built on other values : the quality of the singer's voice, the delicate dialogue between two instruments. The musician's virtuosity or tasteful improvisations. The complex long-term harmonic / melodic evolution.

The problem is that you can't "remix" this without losing something that was important in the original. Of course, popular songs in any genre tend to have good tunes, and tunes can survive a great-deal of transformation (hence there can be many great "covers" of a good song. Including ones refixed in electronic / dance / rap versions.) So remixing pop song works out OK.

But a rock song may be based on the personality of the musicians and the energy generated by their interaction. Take away the drummer and replace with a different beat. Lose the guitar solo. Suddenly those virtues are disrupted. There's a much stronger sense that something essential is being lost when you try to remix other genres of music. It's a riskier proposition. More likely to "fail" in the sense of producing something inferior to the original; or that comes across as a crass attempt to grab commercial success.)