Is Remixed Music Art?
 

Hey All, My name is Keron, I am currently doing a documentary on remix culture and i signed up for this forum to possibly get a couple ideas from all the members here so if you can take some time to answer a couple of my questions that would be cool...

Is Remixed Music a Legitimate Art form?
Do you think its creative?
Is remixing music a reflection of post modern society that has made it so popular in today's society?
Do you think that there are cultural/generational boundaries of remixing music?
Is it Legal or is there a loophole in copyright laws that doesnt apply to remixed music?




Also, is there anyone in the Hudson Valley/Ulster area of NY that is a credible source that is willing to do an ON CAMERA interview

there many times where I prefer the remix to the original. But for some reason it just SEEMS like it might be easier to improve on something then start from scratch. Not a music creator.. but I always look out for remixes on my favorite songs because they are often more interesting.

Remixing can take talent. If your a Dj you know how hard it can be, however sometimes remixes are just awful. Sometimes they are better.

Sort of takes talent, but i don't think it's art.

Sometimes you can do some really cool stuff. Most of the time it's generic and boring.

Yeah, I'd definitely call it art - just as much as creating the original music. It involves a creative process and you can't just ignore that because they used something else as a starting point, especially when remix artists often completely overhaul a song's composition.

Thats more like destruction of art to me... am I wrong here?

Its not the destruction o art, its the creation o a new interpretation. Endtroducing is one o the most creative albums ever concieved... and there isnt an original note on it

Sure.

Absolutely.

I would say so.

Yes and no. I think most people above a certain age don't really get it, but that doesn't mean that they all don't get it.

I have no idea, but there certainly seem to be a lot of remixes that are done with the approval of the original artist. I'd imagine those are completely legal.

I suppose its like any other type of music. Some is good and some is crap.

At it's best yes. At it's worst no.

Well, if you consider the 90% of rap out there which samples other songs to scavenge their "beats" art, then I suppose remixing existing songs is a form of art as well.

Are we making knocks at Hip Hop now?

No, I'm just making a point that calling something "art" is rather tenuous when you are using someone else's song as an existing base or hook.

As for Hip-Hop...I'll take The Roots, A Tribe Called Quest, etc, who play and compose their own music with pride, over any of the over-sampled crap that has charted in the last decade in that genre.

So painters that take real life objects or photos aren't making art?

Ever heard of Jasper Johns? How about Andy Warhol?

There wasn't a cent of originality about those men & they're still some of the most respected artists out there.

If I stole your English paper, rearranged a few sentences, slapped my name on it, turned it in, and it got accepted without any qualms...does that truthfully make it my paper even when everyone else has no problem with it?

And Sam, I think something like that speaks volumes about how little historians care about which came from what rather than whether or not their lack of originality is something to be respected.

That doesn't answer my question, but no. That's not what sampling artists do though. They use another musical piece and make it their own by inserting it into the song to make their own music. They usually won't straight off sample the whole song, unless they're Apathy. Plus they have to give credit to the artists who they sampled.

Basically, what Sam said. I almost used Warhol too.

economize on the abyss: not only save oneself from falling into the bottomless depths by weaving and folding back the cloth to infinity, textual art of the reprise, multiplication of patches within patches, but also establish the laws of reappropriation, formalize the rules which constrain the logic of the abyss and which shuttle between the economic and the aneconomic, the raising and the fall, the abyssal operation which can only work toward the raising and that in it which regularly reproduces collapse

Uh.................looks like someone ordered the wrong mushrooms on their Domino's order?? :crazy:

lawl

should mention that I lifted that from derrida, but it seemed to relate quite well

Maybe so dude, but good god, you turn every damn thread into Thus Spoke Zarathustra!! :laughing:

it's your fault for encouraging him

anteater if you have listened to 'It Takes A Nation Of Millions to Hold Us Back' and still don't consider it art I feel sorry for you. Bob Dylan appropriated other, better folksters' protest spirit/style/chords/clothes and is still considered art. Almost everything is a reappropriation of existing forms

True that.

I think people are under the impression that I completely despise sampling, which is wrong. 'It Takes A Nation..." was great, and Entroducing... by DJ Shadow is a masterpiece, but I ....fear, I suppose, that the seeming greater and greater acceptance of sampling (especially as less instances of the original artists actually get credited emerge) in more and more genres of music, especially as we head into this century, is going to eventually drive down people's desire to actually pick up their instruments and PLAY something they try to write themselves.

And also, even if Dylan carried on the sentiments, style and the 4/4 chord of others, were his lyrics and compositions not his own? Also, he played his own damn guitar: he didn't sit up there on stage and just talk every once in awhile while somebody's recorded playing blared out of nearby speakers.

I'm sorry but bullshit. I'm not a huge fan of Jasper Johns but both he and Warhol were very original.

So you don't respect people who just sing while other people instruments like, say, Ella Fitzgerald?

it's really the fault of whoever started the thread for connecting post-modernism and sampling. derrida's metaphor of 'folding back the cloth of the abyss' works quite well in the context of musical aesthetic development--we go through modernism, which is an attempt to reach the 'ground,' or 'foundation' of aesthetics, and ends up staring into the abyss (it either tends towards complete discord and alienation of man from his creation or complete simplicity in which man is no longer required to maintain his creation) to avoid this fate, post-modernism re-appropriates the very dissolution of aesthetic values, which is best characterized by sampling, since it synthesizes conflicting styles haphazardly, and yet develops its own 'rules of re-appropriation,' which extend both to the legal field as well as to slowly emerging artistic guidelines, which often manifest as genres. for instance, turntablism is often seen as being more 'legitimate' than laptop-generated remixes.... generally re-introducing a performance aspect to the music reinforces its legitimacy as an artform, despite the fact that all post-modern art reproduces the dissolution of artistic legitimacy. so there's a powerful irony there that can keep us interested for now.

yeah but this isn't the mid 80's, sampling hasn't just arrived on the scene to infiltrate our happy suburbs. Your poor understanding of how samples were used in the boom (before the early 90's clearance laws were passed) shows; for one PE was more like dense sound collage, and tracks that are built around a sampled drum break/ jazz figure/ whatever still need hooks and choruses written for them if that's the format the artist chooses.

I'm a bit flabbergasted at having to argue hip-hop's corner in this day and age, but lyrically and musically it's every bit as relevant as Bob f*cking Dylan, more so even, and the music arose from minority cultures unable to afford expensive instruments and amplifiers. You look at the Kinks, playing the working class lads, they were all in fact thoroughly middle grammar kids, do you think anybody else could afford an electric guitar in the 60's? You work with what you've got
And if rabble-rousing negros are not your bag, you might want to check out My Life In the Bush of Ghosts for one, and tell me exactly how that is unoriginal and irrelevant.

Besides this thread is about remixes, not hip-hop, and outside of MOR sponsored turds like Kanye West you will not find a lot of sampling anymore, it's far too costly and time consuming when you have digital studios

.

It's true, there are a lot of dance/club mixes that blend together, but every now and then, there's a remixer who does something interesting, takes things to another level.

Nowadays, in R&B music, at times a "remix" ends up sounding very different from the original (even emlodically)- but that's another story.

I'd say it's an art form- after all, in regular musicmaking, there's stuff that's generic and bland, as well, in every genre.

It's no less a valid art form than using a riff that's probably been used in hundreds of songs before.

Exactly. I wonder if people who look down on sampling realize how much quoting other songs has been a staple of genres like jazz since time immemorial.

Kruder & Dorfmeister are some of the best remixers out there and their mix albums are fantastic. The K & D Sessions double album is a must have if you love Electronic music.

I think of sampling as musical collage. If its all you do then you're an amateur. If you use it sometimes it can be great. If you alter what you use, you are introducing originality and making it your own. Its not a problem that people are sampling... its a problem when people get rich adding nothing to whatever they are sampling. In hip-hop there are original lyrics even if everything else is stolen. And by the way... I'm sorry but its not enough to throw your own ****ty MIDI 4/4 grove underneath one or two samples and call it your own.

thanks again all.. i am still intrigued on where this conversation is going because a lot of you brought up a lot of strong points. If i use a couple, i will make sure that you are quoted in my piece, i will for sure send you a PM to do so.

Also another question do discuss is has the evolution of music and technology and the way it is created today changed the way we view music or at least remixed music?

Has remixed music been looked at as better or worse than the original song? (can i even ask that question being that it has to do with subject matter?)

I'm a massive Nine Inch Nails fan....they (He) has lots of awesome remixes, I consider Trent Reznor to be artist in many area's of entertainmet. "Just a mainstream example"

I should put down the pipe:confused::confused:

A friend of mine who was working on his music performance degree (percussion) had an argument with a coworker (a part-time DJ) while working at a music store. The DJ claimed what he did- spinning records- was no different than any other musician. My friend argued that a "real musician" requires years, even decades, of practice to master an instrument. It requires extensive knowledge of theory and thousands of hours of practice. Being a DJ, or remix artist, does not.

To prove his point, my friend spent his spare time at the store in the DJ room for a couple days. In a very short amount of time, he could do everything the DJ could- if not better because of his background. In turn, he asked the DJ to play some of his college percussion music, some of which were drumset solos and 4-mallet marimba pieces that even grad students spend months practicing.

Obviously the DJ couldn't do it.

It might take some skill and talent to do a remix or be a DJ at a club, but don't kid yourself and pretend you're in the same league as an actual musician.

One of the biggest things I got out of going to art school was learning the difference between technical ability and artistic ability. Sounds like your friend still confuses the two.