My First Re-Mix

Have you ever listened to a Radiohead song and wished you could give it the Danger Mouse treatment? Maybe combine "Fake Plastic Trees" with DMX's "Ruff Ryder's Anthem." Or "High and Dry with" Afroman's "Because I Got High." That'd be sick. You could even call the album The Blends. (rimshot!)

I'm here all night, folks. Please, tip your waitress.

Aaaaanyhoo . . .

The always forward-thinking Radiohead has just taken the next step in band-fanboy interactivity, teaming up with GarageBand and iTunes to offer their new single, "Nude," as a remixable track. Here's how it works:

1. Purchase all five "stems" from iTunes. Stems are the individual components of the song — guitar, voice, drums, etc.

2. You'll be sent an access code to a ready-to-open GarageBand file. Open. Mix. Repeat as necessary.

3. Upload the finished remix to radioheadremix.com where other rabid Yorkephytes will vote on their "favourite" tracks.

4. Kick back, open a PBR tallboy and wait for Brian Eno to call.

Currently, Toronto's avant noise outfit Holy Fuck — Best. Band name. Ever. — are winning in a landslide.  But that doesn't mean you shouldn't enter. The contest runs through May 1, so there's plenty of time. You don't even need GarageBand to do it as the file works in numerous platforms. You can also download a widget for your Facebook or MySpace profiles so your friends can vote for you. Neat-o.

Anyone else kinda curious to see what Greg Davis could do with this?

Comments

[greg]

i don't like radiohead.
they are hardly a forward-thinking band, in my opinion.

[tyler]

Dismemberment Plan released a whole album of fan-remixes as their final album before they split up a few years ago. Some of it is pretty okay. A kid from VT has one of the better tracks on the album. Yeah, fuck Radiohead! Unless it's a jazz piano trio version of a radiohead song played as intelude music between segments on NPR alongside string quartets doing soulless versions of Nirvana songs. That's cool.

[dan]

Though I do think Radiohead pushes creative envelopes, the "forward thinking" comment referred more to their approach to distribution for "In Rainbows" and using the internet to interact with their fans. To me, they are light years ahead of the curve in that regard.

Anyway, it appears Greg is out. Although the fact that he doesn't like the band makes the idea all the more intriguing for some reason. To each their own.

Let's try this again: Anyone else kinda curious to see what, um, Carrigan would do with this? I KNOW Zack is a Radiohead fan.

[casey]

Reznor does this shit all the time, which is part of the reason he quit his label _ he wanted to be able to let fans fuck with his music without the Universal licensing nazis jackbooting all over everyone.

Dude, I just remixed Greg Davis and it sounds just like Radiohead!

[Sean]

Cursive had a fan remix contest a while ago for their single "Bad Sects" The page can be found here: http://www.badsects.com/

Mirah released an album of remixes recently. It sucked. So does Radiohead.

"I remixed the remix, and it was back to normal." -mitch hedburg

[dan]

My goodness. So much anti-Radiohead sentiment. Who knew?

[ben]

greg can buy and delete the "stems" and do a silent mix. forward thinking seems to be a matter of comparison. Forward sideways backward whatever direction radiohead "thinks" in I'm into it. I mostly like to listen to their music. who knows what they really think.

[Tyler M]

I love Radiohead and I love Holy Fuck but that remix did nothing for me. maybe it's a grower.

it's cool what they're doing here, although I don't know about buying the tracks. I KNOW THEY WEREN'T THE FIRST TO DO IT, BIG DEAL. Dismemberment Plan and Cursive don't sell out 20,000 seat amphitheaters. Nine Inch Nails have done similar things and they're probably about on par with Radiohead in terms of popularity, but they appeal to very different demographics. Chiefly, that Radiohead has a more diverse fan base, as opposed to NIN's which is 90% 14-year-old boys.

I kind of like the instrumental NIN album though. Their music isn't bad when you don't have Trent's high school poetry to focus on.

Sorry, I got off topic.

[tyler]

I like Radiohead, though I haven't really gotten into the more recent stuff.
I wasn't bringing up D-Plan to say they did it first, just, you know, "neat, they did it too and some kid from CVU got on the album..." I like them better than Radiohead, tho.

[ben]

music isn't headed anywhere. it has no direction. it is not ascending toward the light or something like that.

[casey]

I can never remember what the midget exorcist woman said — go TO the light, or AWAY from the light?

[tyson]

ex-burlington duders pretty & nice released a remix of their album 'pink & blue', entitled 'blue & blue' which j referred to as a gay remix album. casey seemed to like it in his seven days review a year ago. you can listen to some of them on theirspace...that was way too many ampersands.

[Msd3k]

I still say that the best Radiohead remix is the clean version of "Creep".

[Ari]

The guy who got on the Dismemberment Plan remix album is my old buddy Erik. Check out his stuff!

[dan]

So very special . . .

[Raph Worrick]

I think getting people to buy your same cheesy song five times over is an excellent idea. In fact, I am willing to sell people individual notes from my songs for much cheaper, say 5 cents a pop. These will be downloadable, or to save wear on the internet and the planet and space on your iPod and so forth, you can simply KNOW the note, or I hope multiple notes, which you purchased, and remix them in your head and give yourself a prize, say a trip to outer space. Now thats forward thinking. Wheres my royalty check?

[Adam]

With a few exceptions this thread is really patronizing without much thought going into comments.
I don't think there is any real creativity behind remixing a track within itself that you haven't created from scratch.

[tyler]

What? Next.

[greg]

wait, i have to buy the tracks if i want to remix it?
F*&#$#K that!