Some Songs Considered

“Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell (Remix)” – Das Racist & Wallpaper 
(Words/music: Das Racist & Wallpaper, digital download 2009) 

Essentially one joke prolonged to the point where it’s a little twisted, “Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell” benefits from this lively remix.  DJ Wallpaper breathes some life into the beat, giving the track the legs it needed to get past the line that makes up almost all of its lyrics.  Perhaps it’s the commitment to the joke (three and a half minutes with only a few digressions!), or maybe it’s the moments where they go off script, but “Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell” initially seduces with its goofy charm and somehow manages to stick around. It may not be one for the ages, but it’s 2010 and I’m still sucked into it every so often.

It’s an auspicious introduction that may only scratch the surface.  Das Racist released their first mix tape – the first material past “Combination…” and “Rainbow in the Dark” that I’ve heard from them.  “Rainbow in the Dark,” which thankfully namedrops Ronnie James Dio near the end, expands the group’s lyrical range, giving more of the odd free associations only hinted at in “Combination…”  Most of the time, they are goofy rather than outright stupid, and occasionally the turns of phrase brush up against brilliance.  The jury is out as to whether this is a one-joke machine, but even if it is, it’s one that got far more mileage than I might have guessed.

More on Das Racist: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“Hyperballad (Brodski Quartet Version)” – Björk
(Words/music: Björk, Nellee Hooper, Marius De Vries, available on Telegram, One Little Indian 1997)

In “Hyperballad,” Bjork’s narrator leaves her lover every morning, goes to a cliff, and tosses objects over the edge in some type of personal cleansing ritual.  This narrator also contemplates her own mortality by wondering what types of sounds she’d make as she lands against the jagged rocks.  She returns to her lover and says that she goes through this “so I can feel happier / to be safe up here with you.”  It’s romantic in the sense that she’s confronting personal demons – materialistic obsessions, a fear of death, or whatever – in order to break down any barriers between her and her lover.  It’s also kind of crazy; we might expect our partners to go for an early morning jog or a drive around the neighborhood to clear their mind rather than throwing carburetors and discarded dishware off a ledge.

This clash of emotions (put bluntly – the romantic meeting the weird), captures the experience of listening to a Bjork album; enjoying the beautiful moments means accepting (and occasionally finding beauty) in the strange quirks.

The Brodsky Quartet remix of the song only heightens both extremes.  The original starts as a shadowy echo and swells along with the narrator’s storyline.  However, the string quartet treatment gives the song an ironic ultra-modern feel.  If the original felt like a cold autumn sunrise, this sounds like the sparsely decorated flat the couple shares.  At times (perhaps when the light shines in the window), the strings and Bjork settle on a beautiful chord, only to find the strings take a quick turn toward something more dissonant.  When compared with the version on Post, Bjork sounds less settled on this version.  If the album cut is Bjork finding peace in her sunrise tosses, the string quartet version feels like the unsettled version that drove her to throw things in the first place.  Still, both arrangements have these moments of clarity where everything locks in, Bjork sounds heavenly, and the arrangement follows suit.  I suppose this is how littering off of a cliff ends up even vaguely romantic.

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

“Knife (Girl Talk Remix)” – Grizzly Bear
(Words/music: Grizzly Bear and The Clipse, arranged by Greg Gillis, non album track)

With the formal promotional cycle for Veckatimest gearing up, Grizzly Bear prepares to step into the spotlight as the “band of the moment.”  I’ve only heard a few new songs, but these new songs seem worthy of the band’s swelling audience.  For the most part, Grizzly Bear’s first two albums are acquired tastes. Proponents tell you that this is “patient” music – compositions that require a few listens to appreciate.  While this usually suggests dense arrangements, these songs require patience due to their unorthodox sounds.  At times, Yellow House jars the listener with dissonant chords only to follow with gorgeous vocal harmonies, creating this deliberately raw sound infused with a strangely dark, slightly sinister undercurrent.  “Knife,” Yellow House’s breakthrough track, combines both the sublimely sinister with the melodically beautiful.  The members of the band intertwine their vocals, presenting countermelodies for each melody – the Beach Boys are the frequent touchstone, yet it’s far more unsettling than anything on Pet Sounds.  Allmusic calls it a “hazy love song” and from the vocal introduction through the first two lines it’s a fitting description.  Then, when it feels like it might get comfortable, Ed Droste changes the course by singing “with every blow / comes another lie.”  Ultimately, the song seems more about betrayal by a loved one than being in love, but the band plays with this tension through the entire song – dark harmonies undercut every beautiful melody, creating a woosy, slightly disorienting, and darkly beautiful song.

Greg Gillis must hear something similar, as he turns “Knife” into a weirdly compelling hip hop hook.  By adding vocals from the Clipse’s “Wamp Wamp” and a few extra percussion sounds, Gillis hones in on the aesthetic feel in the original song.  While most of his work as Girl Talk feels like iTunes run through a blender, Gillis seems to approach this mix in a way that focuses our attention on the original’s melody.  Ed Droste becomes an unwitting Nate Dogg by providing the melodic hook, and the bits of vocals scattered throughout the verses makes the track seem haunted.  If the original sounds dark and beautiful, Gillis emphasizes the ghastly qualities to the vocals.  Sure, it neuters the nuances in the original track, but Gillis shows how to use a remix to highlight a specific part of the original song.  The net result is an adventurous and exciting remix, and while few would suggest Yellow House raises testosterone the way this remix might, it shares the same adventurous, experimental spirit as the parent album.

More on Grizzly Bear: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“Video Tapez (f/ Del tha Funky Homosapien)” – Amplive
(Words/music: Radiohead, remixed by Amplive, available on Rainydayz Remixes, Self Released, 2008)

If The Beatles is the band that crosses generation gaps, Radiohead is the band that crosses gaps within my generation.  In high school, Radiohead was the one band that all of my friends, whether they were into metal, punk, jam bands, or Brit-pop, agreed on.  They are a musician’s band, a geek’s band, and (often forgotten) a hell of a rock band, so I understand this strange crossover appeal.  Of course Radiohead, like the Beatles, has its detractors (even if many do so just to be contrarians), but it amazed me in the late ‘90s to see so many people with different musical interests agree on such an odd band.  It helps that Radiohead constantly push the envelope – with In Rainbows alone, Radiohead turned the system backwards by self releasing an album digitally and then negotiating with labels to issue the physical product, not to mention several successful public remix campaigns spurred by the band releasing “stems” of different isolated instrumental tracks calling for remixers of all skills to take part. 

Looking back, Amplive’s Rainydayz Remixes collection seems inevitable – in addition to Radiohead’s history of innovation, Thom Yorke’s solo album The Eraser featured more distinct beats, lending a track to the “Us Placers” collaborations between Pharell, Kanye West, and Lupe Fiasco.  Even The Beatles, the other critic-proof English rock band, received a remix treatment that made its DJ famous.  The skeptic in me wants to think that Amplive took on this endeavor for similar ambitions, but that’s not the point.  Rainydayz Remixes turned out just as I imagined – some of the tracks are forgettable and some are interesting.  In particular, the remix of “Videotape,” here redubbed “Video Tapez,” might be the sole example of a remix that improved on the original. I hadn’t heard the In Rainbows songs in any of the live recordings before the album came out, but my friends who had seemed most disappointed with the mellowing out of “Videotape” when compared with its more dynamic live version.  Amplive takes the slow piano line and gives it a quicker, stuttered feel; this works especially well on Thom Yorke’s vocals, turning his mournful vocal into a viable hook.  I’m not saying this is what “Video Tape” should sound like (I like the In Rainbows version, specifically for that weird percussion at the very end), but it’s interesting to hear how someone who had an entirely different agenda for the album interpreted the song.  Judging from his Youtube “thank you” disclaimer, Amplive seems thrilled that the band (potentially) heard his remixes, and I’d be curious how Rainydayz Remixes and the remix sites for “Nude” and “Reckoner” will influence the band going forward.   It also makes me wish I did something with those “Reckoner” stems I downloaded.

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

“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