Tuesday, March 29, 2011

blog ten

For this blog, I had a pretty good time going through my all-time favorite remixes.  I also found myself listening to some pretty bad ones on YouTube because obviously anyone can upload and share.  Despite weeding through some questionable ones, I picked my current favorite.  Right now a remix that I like is a remix by Bassnectar of the Pixie’s song “Where Is My Mind.”  I enjoy this particular song because it does not mess with the parts of the original Pixie’s version that I like, it simply embellishes upon it to add a little “dance-ability.”

Three of the statements made by Lessig seemed to correlate with the particular remix I chose.

“As the mix increases, the diversity of the culture than can flourish in the digital age grows” (42).

I thought that this passage correlated to the remix due to both of the artists that participated.  The original song, “Where Is My Mind,” came out in 2003.  While it is a little older, it has kept its popularity over time and has even gained more of a fan-base due to its spot on the Fight Club soundtrack.  The remix, by Bassnectar, has enabled this song to become even more widespread to a much larger and more diverse audience.  In fact, the more remixes the original version will go through will allow this song to be known throughout generations of people who like all different kinds of music.  

“Remix is an essential act of RW creativity.  It is the expression of a freedom to take ‘the songs of the day or the old songs’ and create with them” (56).

Now, 2003 does not seem that long ago, but when I actually thought about it, it was the difference of me being an 8th grader, and a senior in college.  That’s a WHOLE 8 years.  From middle-schooler to “adult.”  By taking an old “song of the day” like the Pixies Song, Bassnectar was allowed to create along with the original version.  Bassnectar is actively participating in RW culture and creativity.  With the freedom to do this, Bassnectar—in my opinion—is paying homage to a perfectly wonderful song, and placing it back in the limelight.

“As Johan Söderberg says, ‘to me, it is just like cooking. In your cupboard in your kitchen you have lots of different things and you try to connect different tastes together to create something interesting.’  The remix artist does the same thing with bits of culture found in his digital cupboard.  My favorites among the remixes I’ve seen are all cases in which the mix delivers a message more powerfully than any original alone could, and certainly more than words alone could” (71).

I chose this passage as my last quote not only because I think it relates, but I really liked the how the “digital cupboard” was described.  Artists out there are able to remix or sample songs based on the tools that they have that stem from software; to the actual music they have heard.  This particular song must have stood out or been somewhat memorable to Bassnectar, in order for the Pixie’s song to be used as a tool.  The last part of the quote is not necessarily true in regards to this particular song, but I do think that certain remixes can be thought of as more powerful.  It truly depends on the listener.  For instance, if someone who was solely interested dubstep, they would surely think that Bassnectar’s remix did more justice to the song than even the original. 



6 comments:

  1. That’s an interesting remix; I have to say that I prefer the original, but for me the original has a bit of nostalgia going for it.

    I liked how you talked about the remix bringing the original song into the limelight again. I (think I) remember someone making a similar observation on “Copyright Criminals”, with old song receiving more attention because of remixes made with them. It shows that with a remix citation system (that most people adhere to), things made in an RW culture can enhance the value/reputation of previous works as well as creating interesting new ones.

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  2. A new flavor is sometimes all it takes to bring new relevance to a work - even if fans of the original would hate it, it still brings the quality of the original composition in a new context.

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  3. Actually, the Pixies song "Where Is My Mind" came out in 1988 (it's the 7th track on one of the best albums ever, Surfer Rosa. Yes, I'm old.) That being said, your post has even more relevance given it's 15 years older than you thought it was. Thus, the nostalgia factor plays even a bigger role here. In a way, the Fight Club (1999) use of it totally sold it to an entirely new generation and gave it new life. In doing so, it sold it to the remix generation. Thus, the remix of the Pixies. Tahdah!

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  4. That is a great song. Both artists are awesome. I thought that you did a very thorough job on connecting the remix to Lessig. I also agree with what Tom mentions, the idea of just modifying or a new "flavor" can really remake the idea and re-popularize older work.

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  5. Love the remix. Your research was definitely complete and especially liked Lessig's quote, “Remix is an essential act of RW creativity. It is the expression of a freedom to take ‘the songs of the day or the old songs’ and create with them” (56). We need to apply that to our daily actions and just maybe we'll find something we've never heard of before. By remixing, we create and improve on works of the past. Nice post.

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  6. You know what? I did not even know about the pixies in fight club. Sounds weird i know but i am not that big of a movie junkie. I rarely watch movies and there are plenty of popular movies i have not seen. However, I did know that placebo and pixies had this song. Both of those versions sound completely different (i like the placebo version best. In RW, thats what you get. Someone is going to take a piece of music and turn it into something way better and just like I prefer the placebo version, other users might prefer other versions.

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