From Beeps to Beats to Popularity – The Root of the Remix

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The Root of the Remix

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January 27, 2012 • Forrest Ramon, Staff Reporter  
Filed under A&E, Top Stories

The term, Remix has been tossed around a lot in music lately. But what are the roots of the modern remix? It all dates back to late-1960s/early-1970s in Jamaica. People who had a knack for music, deconstructed and “rebuilt” them to suit the tastes of the clubs and the people in them. Producers and engineers like Ruddy Redwood, King Tubby and Lee “Scratch” Perry were only a few who manged to use the element of stripping down music simply the vocals at first. Soon enough more effects were added such as, dropping separate instrumental tracks in and out of the mix, isolating and repeating hooks, and adding various effects like echo, reverberation and delaying tracks.

This method soon transferred into the mid-70s only this time they were using tape edits and loops to get people on the dance floor as well as keep them there. One man who was known for doing this was Tom Moulton, the creator of the dance remix. Believe it or not most people confuse Tom Moulton for a DJ which is a common misconception thanks to his Mix Tapes which soon hit the jackpot in the big apple. Eventually we went from a “fix-it” man on pop records, to specializing in remixes especially mixed for the dance floor scene.

As to disco in the mid-1970s the dub and disco remix cultures met through Jamaican immigrants to the Bronx, energizing both of them to help to create what we know today as hip hop music. Some of these notable figures were included DJ Kool Herc and Grandmaster Flash and some techniques such as Cutting and Scratching became apart of this culture creating live action music collage. One of the first mainstream successes of this ype of remix was the 1983 track “Rockit” by Herbie Hancock, remixed by Grand Mixer D.ST., Malcolm McLaren and the creative team behind ZTT Records at the time would feature the “cut up” style of hip hop on such records known  as “Duck Rock.”

In the 1980s extended remixes were given to clubs and commercial outlets on vinyl 12-inch singles usually lasting 6 to 7 minutes. These Remixes usually consisted of the original song with instruments usually added to several choruses. While some were as simple enough as two copies of the song “stitched” end to end. Since this was all available do to advancing technology, As the cost and availability of new technologies allowed, many of the bands who were in charge of their own productions like,Yellow Magic Orchestra, Depeche Mode, New Order, Erasure, and Duran Duran, experimented with the more intricate versions of the extended mixes.Madonna began her music career by writing music for dance clubs and used remixes extensively to propel her career forward. That and one of her early boyfriends was a DJ by the name of John “Jellybean” Benitez, who created several memorable mixes of her work.

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