Sade & Remixing

Elson Trinidad (elson@westworld.com)
Thu, 15 Aug 1996 16:08:36 -0700


At 04.36 PM 8/15/96 +0000, mrfliz@pop.interport.net wrote:
>
>> Now I have a question for the more music-biz minded (mr fliz?)...
>> Does Sade have to approve a remix? As far as I understand it, usually the
>> artist has little or no input as to how his/her music is remixed. I believe
>> that the label usually has the right to re-process and re-release waht ever
>> it wants. Is this so?
>
>depends on how much juice you got. unless it says something else in
>the contract, and it probably doesn't, Sade is creating music for the
>label, after which they may do whatever they damn well please.

It really depends; yes, it's a case of whether some artists have power to
approve or disapprove of remixes. The case against remixes can be made like
this: Some songwriters (including myself, sometimes), believe that a song,
or at least certain songs, should be the way it was written, arranged and
recorded - and should remain in history as it is. It's like a life, and that
it should stand on its own merit. Remixes might be looked upon as "cosmetic
surgery" perhaps giving a superficial facade to what is intended to have
more meaning.
It could come from bad experience; when an underground remix was made of
"Pearls" a couple years back, which became pretty popular in the club scene,
Sade totally disapproved of it, believing it took away from the song's
sentiment and overall mood.

This is not to say I am *totally* against remixes. IMHO, it would be fun to
hear some songs done a different way, but others should be left alone, from
an artistic standpoint. If people are gonna dance to your song, then it
should be a challenge for a songwriter/artist to make it danceable. On the
other hand, I believe "weak" or "filler" songs on an album should deserve to
get a reinterpretation to breathe new life into it. Of course, it's been
said that there's "No such thing as a bad song, only a bad arrangement or a
bad performance."

But as we all know, more times than none, it's not the filler songs that get
remixed, but the hits. Major labels have a field day coming out with "Remix"
albums of certain artists, particularly commerical R&B/dance artists. Why?
There's money to be made from sales, and little money to be spent on artist
royalties (in the case of most commercial R&B/hip-hop, the artists
themselves do not write the songs, just the producer (usually Babyface) or
an outside songwriter. Boyz II Men severed their ties with Motown records
because the label wanted to release a remix album of existing hits while
they wanted to record new material.

Of course, there are creative dance mixes done of generally non-dance songs;
I thought the remix of Suzanne Vega's "Tom's Diner" was cool; and we all
know what happened to Everything But The Girl (though eventually hearing the
Todd Terry remix 476 times a day on the radio eventually made me nauseate
and long for the original).

Elson
-30-
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Elson Trinidad

Los Angeles, CA, USA
elson@westworld.com * http://www.westworld.com/~elson
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