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August 2007
REMIX, REMAKE OR DUB?
By DJ MARK BISSON
Dance music has acquired quite a few different names over the years including House, Disco, and Electronic Music. The one thing all dance music has in common is the standard four by four beat that originated in the Seventies with R&B and Disco Music. A little terminology clarification may help those who are not familiar with dance music lingo.
A remix is when a producer, or remixer, takes a non-dance song and makes it “dance friendly” by adding a four by four dance beat to it, along with any other “bells and whistles” they choose. One of the more popular remixes (of a pop song) of recent would have to be “Don’t Cha” by the Pussycat Dolls. Ralphi Rosario, one of the hottest remixers working today, took the original song and turned it into an extended dance remix that became one of the most played dance songs of 2006. Most music artists ranging from Cher to Michael Buble’ to Mary J. Blige have had dance remixes of their songs. A remix can also be when a remixer (other than the original producer of the song) creates his or her own mix, or version, of the song. An example of this would be Antoine Clamaran’s remix of the dance song “The World Is Mine”. David Guetta, the producer of the song released his original mix, and yet Antoine Clamaran created his own mix of the song, which became the most popular and most played mix of the song.
A cover, or remake, is when a previously recorded song is re-sung, or re-done, by an artist or producer, different than the original singer or producer of the song. A popular recent example of this would be “You Spin Me” by Inaya Day. This is a cover of the song “You Spin Me Round (Like A Record)” by the group Dead or Alive.
A dub is a remix of a song in which only a portion of the vocal or instrumental (of the original song) is used to create a new song. A very popular example of this would be “Call On Me” by Eric Prydz. This song from 2004 used a portion of the vocal by Steve Winwood from his song “Valerie” and created a whole new song from it.
Some hot tracks for the summer are the Tracy Young remix of “Stand Back” by Stevie Nicks, Inaya Day and Bill Bennett’s amazing remake of the Big Pig song “Breakaway”, and the Ralphi Rosario dub mix of “Pegate” by Ricky Martin.
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