Remixes have been a constant since the late ’70s. Artists have been holding remix contests since at least 1983, when Tommy Boy advertised for a prize to the chancer(s) who best recast G.L.O.B.E. & Whiz Kid’s “Play That Beat, Mr. DJ” and inadvertently birthed unto the world Double Dee & Steinski, the latter of whose What Does It All Mean? overview was released this year to great (and deserved) acclaim. R&B and hip-hop and disco and indie rock and house and techno and dub and mainstream pop with its different mixes for different formats and even country (what’s Up!, Shania Twain): all not only utilize the remix, each genre has its own set of rules for it. And between NIN and Radiohead’s fan-made deconstructions grabbing headlines and cut-up disco ruling clubland, not to mention the usual fusillade of hip-hop mixtape posse cuts, dance producers trading tweaks as normal, and—fuck it—Girl Talk, 2008 is a Year of the Remix if any has been.
After being threatened with an unmasking at the hands of a tit-happy British tabloid, the man behind Burial’s Untrue has come forward on his MySpace page with the picture at left and a blog post: “for a while theres been some talk about who i am , but its not a big deal i wanted to be unknown… More »
Untrue, by the pseudonymous artist Burial, is heavily favored to win this year’s Mercury Prize, which is given to the best British album of a 12-month timeframe. But if Untrue should win as expected, the man behind the album will have to come out on stage and perform a song from the record–effectively revealing himself to the world and dispensing with any mystery the album might have at that point. So The Sun, not content with just showing boobs on its inside pages, is going to ruin the fun for everyone and unmask the guy before next month’s ceremony! “Conspiracy theories are rife as to who is behind the tunes, with producers NORMAN COOK and APHEX TWIN in the frame,” the paper writes, although the more savvy people who read Drowned In Sound are pooh-poohing that idea, saying that the writer only came up with the first two DJ names he could think of in the name of starting controversy. Ooh, burn!
Fresh off last year’s coronation of the Klaxons as the best band in Britain, this year’s Mercury Prize nominations feature quite a range of popular music, from summer jam tournament runner-up Estelle to a few acts that will send you scurrying to Google.
For those of you tired of poring over the Jackin’ Pop albums and singles lists, we turn now to the Enthusiasm 40 list, which complies the albums that got the most amount of points from the least amount of votes. More »
