Various
Artists: Motown Remixed Vol. 2
(Motown)
Bob Marley and the Wailers: Roots,
Rock, Remixed (Quango)
Billie Holiday: Remixed
& Reimagined (Columbia)
I’d like to draw a line in the sand: Chill out with the remix collections!
If you’re going to remix such classic artists as Bob Marley, Billie
Holiday, and the Motown catalogue, please try to get some recognizable
talent. I’m sure it’s cheaper for a label to assign a remix
and release an album full of them to help their bottom line, but it’s
getting to be ridiculous. I’m looking forward to the time where
a Bob Dylan remix album comes out with a
Paul
Oakenfold remix that plays during a commercial for Doritos.
Making a disc of Latin remixes of Motown might sound sketchy, but here’s
another volume. Marley might seem unremixable, but some individuals might
be moved to get up from their smoke-filled couches to dance to some of
the upbeat mixes from the likes of King Kooba, DJ Spooky and Afrodisiac
Sound System. Billie Holiday’s tracks are the oldest of the bunch,
and she sounds odd in sample form on many of the songs. Ladybug Mecca
from Digable Planets has a duet of sorts with Lady Day, GXR goes ambient,
and Tony Humphries and Charles Feelgood take Billie to the club.
Perhaps
I’m being a little harsh. There’s some good material to be
found in here, and hopefully younger listeners will use these discs as
a gateway to finding what was so great about the originals in the first
place.
Various Artists: Motown Remixed Vol. 2:
Bob Marley and the Wailers: Roots, Rock, Remixed:
Billie Holiday: Remixed & Reimagined:
By Nick Hyman
7/2007