The Remix Lives On In Europe
As far as I listen to radio, I have noticed that Deep House covers are widely spreading in all Europe lately. You just have to listen to the Florian Kempers’s last productions who revisits in a deep way “Everybody’s Free (to Feel Good)”, a title which appeared before in the Romeo+Juliet movie soundtrack in 1996, Julian Cross who samples “Forget Me Nots”, a song by American R&B singer Patrice Rushen first released in 1982 (and reinterpreted by Will Smith for the Men in Black movie in 1997) or the quite new singles of The Avener or German DJ Robin Schultz.
As a sign of this new trend, numerous DJs prefer nowadays to give a small remix to old tunes than create new beats. And it seems that Tracy Chapman remains fashionable because her title “Fast Car” inspires the world nearly 30 years after his release. In fact, after the version of Swedish DJ Tobtok a few months ago, Jonas Blue gives his own version, which is one more time chart material. No need to tell you about Sam Smith’s cover of the same tune in 2014 recorded for a BBC Radio 1 live session…
Another classic got re-imagined by a dance label. This time Cheat Codes and Kriss Kross Amsterdam revamped the Salt-N-Pepa’s famous “Let’s Talk About Sex” 25 years after the original version. The track jumps into the 21st century, rejuvenated with some bubbly electro pop music made popular by the likes of Justin Bieber/Skrillex/Diplo/Major Lazer/DJ Snake/Avicii, aka future deep house DJ team or something like that…
It is not a new phenomenon. For ages musicians had the habit to use oldies to produce new sounds and reinterpretations. Everybody knows Kurt Cobain and the huge “The Man who Sold the World” from David Bowie and everybody remembers of Jeff Buckley’s “Hallelujah” in 1994 previously sang by Leonard Cohen.
But this time, deep house covers has invaded radio waves and nightclubs. I suddenly realize that contemporary “musicians” or – how could we call them ? – composers are not able to compose anymore! They feel obliged to search through musical archives to publish new songs and finally they have nothing new to tell with their music. This eternal renewal becomes distressing and boring over time.
Do we have to follow and undergo this lack of inspiration ? Does EDM have to content with plagiarizing old-fashioned sounds? These days, we consume everything fast and easy listening is maybe a kind of answer to our need of constant novelty…?
I hope things will change soon for the audience pleasure. I recently discovered a new form in EDM which almost reconciles me with this kind of music. Could mashup be the future for dance music next ? Basically a mashup is a composition created by blending two or more pre-recorded songs. To illustrate I just mention Xavier Rudd. Xavier Rudd is a well known Australian singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He has been remixed by Italian DJs Time Square. The result is called “Follow the Sun”, a pretty good mashup as far as I am concerned!
You can listen to it here:
