“19-2000 (Soulchild Remix)” – Gorillaz
(Words/music: Gorillaz, available on G-Sides, Virgin Records 2002)

I’ve never been a huge fan of the remix, probably because I have at most a passing interest in dance music (which is directly related to the fact that I don’t dance).  Sure, there’s some cool remixes and mashups out there, but I save the scouring for other people – if it’s good enough, someone will send it to me or play it for me, and then it will be in my life.  That might sound like a kind of self-centered approach, but it’s true.  I’d rather hunt down new songs to listen to than listen to a favorite of mine with a pulsing drum beat and time warped vocals.

This isn’t to say that I don’t like remixes at all.  When a remix highlights a different element of a song that’s obscured or understated in the original mix, it forces us to look at the original in a different light.  Of course, the post-modernist in me likes the idea of taking something old and “making it new” by turning it into a new song.  In the case of “19-2000,” the remix renders the original track obsolete.  On their self-titled debut, 19-2000 is a slow, plodding song with absolutely inane lyrics (“I’m buying lead Nike shoes” - for real, Damon Albarn?).  The groove is kind of nice and the Talking Heads/Tom-Tom Club’s Tina Weymouth contributes some nice backing vocals in the pre-chorus section, but that’s about it.  The Soulchild remix, the version you probably know from commercials (and the radio perhaps), breathes life into the song.  Sure, there’s some new beeps and a piano vamp (and drums that don’t sound like they were recorded in a submarine), but the biggest difference is about a 20% shift in tempo.  By turning an unnecessarily slow track into a lively, fun bounce takes the emphasis away from the actual words (do yourself a favor and try not to think about them) to the infinitely more fun “na na na na na”s and uncontrollable head bopping.

To be fair, there’s a place for both the original “19-2000” and the remix.  I haven’t listened to the first Gorillaz album since it came out, but I don’t think the original is necessary for pacing or aesthetic cohesiveness.  So if I could go back in time and fix this (I’m not usually one for revising history, but I’ll make an exception this time just as I made an exception with my remix rule) I’d put the Soulchild mix on the album and swap the slower version onto the B-sides collection.  After hearing the “remix” the original almost sounds like a re-imagining of Soulchild’s mix – the slower tempo makes the groove deliberate and gives it a sort of dark doo-wop feel at times.  This slower mix better fits my definition of a “typical” remix – interesting to hear once, inessential, and in the way of the version I’d rather hear.

More on Gorillaz: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm