A remix album is an album consisting of
remix
A remix (or reorchestration) is a piece of media which has been altered or contorted from its original state by adding, removing, or changing pieces of the item. A song, piece of artwork, book, video, poem, or photograph can all be remixes. The o ...
es or rerecorded versions of an artist's earlier released material. The first act who employed the format was American singer-songwriter
Harry Nilsson
Harry Edward Nilsson III (June 15, 1941 – January 15, 1994), sometimes credited as Nilsson, was an American singer-songwriter who reached the peak of his commercial success in the early 1970s. His work is characterized by pioneering vocal ov ...
(''
Aerial Pandemonium Ballet'', 1971).
As of 2007, the best-selling remix album of all time is
Michael Jackson
Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American singer, songwriter, dancer, and philanthropist. Dubbed the " King of Pop", he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century. Over ...
's ''
Blood on the Dance Floor: HIStory in the Mix'' (1997).
History and concept
''
Aerial Pandemonium Ballet'' (1971) by
Harry Nilsson
Harry Edward Nilsson III (June 15, 1941 – January 15, 1994), sometimes credited as Nilsson, was an American singer-songwriter who reached the peak of his commercial success in the early 1970s. His work is characterized by pioneering vocal ov ...
is credited as the first remix album.
It was released after the successes of "
Everybody's Talkin'" and ''
The Point!'', when he decided that his older material had started to sound dated.
Neu!
Neu! (; German for "New!"; styled in block capitals) were a West German krautrock band formed in Düsseldorf in 1971 by Klaus Dinger and Michael Rother following their departure from Kraftwerk. The group's albums were produced by Conny Plan ...
's ''
Neu! 2
''Neu! 2'' is the second studio album by the krautrock band Neu!. It was recorded in January 1973 and mixed in February 1973, both at Windrose-Dumont-Time Studios in Hamburg, Germany, and released in 1973 by Brain Records. It was officially r ...
'' (1973) has also been described as "in effect the first remix album", as many tracks see the duo "speed up, slow down, cut, doctor, and mutilate the material, sometimes beyond recognition".
In the 1980s, record companies would combine several kinds of
electronic dance music, such as
dance-pop
Dance-pop is a popular music subgenre that originated in the late 1970s to early 1980s. It is generally uptempo music intended for nightclubs with the intention of being danceable but also suitable for contemporary hit radio. Developing from a ...
,
house
A house is a single-unit residential building. It may range in complexity from a rudimentary hut to a complex structure of wood, masonry, concrete or other material, outfitted with plumbing, electrical, and heating, ventilation, and air cond ...
,
techno
Techno is a Music genre, genre of electronic dance music (EDM) which is generally music production, produced for use in a continuous DJ set, with tempo often varying between 120 and 150 beats per minute (bpm). The central Drum beat, rhythm is typ ...
,
trance
Trance is a state of semi-consciousness in which a person is not self-aware and is either altogether unresponsive to external stimuli (but nevertheless capable of pursuing and realizing an aim) or is selectively responsive in following the dir ...
,
drum and bass
Drum and bass (also written as drum & bass or drum'n'bass and commonly abbreviated as D&B, DnB, or D'n'B) is a genre of electronic dance music characterized by fast breakbeats (typically 165–185 beats per minute) with heavy bass and sub- ...
,
dubstep,
hardstyle, and
trap into full-length albums, creating a relatively low-overhead addition to the catalogs and balance sheets.
Soft Cell
Soft Cell are an English synthpop duo who came to prominence in the early 1980s. The duo consists of vocalist Marc Almond and instrumentalist David Ball. The band are primarily known for their 1981 hit version of " Tainted Love" and their pl ...
's ''
Non Stop Ecstatic Dancing'' (1981) and
The Human League
The Human League are an English synth-pop band formed in Sheffield in 1977. Initially an experimental electronic outfit, the group signed to Virgin Records in 1979 and later attained widespread commercial success with their third album ''Dare' ...
's ''
Love and Dancing'' (1982) are credited for inventing the modern remix album. Since this time, this kind of release is not only seen as an easy cash-in for an artist and their label, but also as an opportunity to provide a second lease of life for a record.
In the world of
reggae
Reggae () is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1960s. The term also denotes the modern popular music of Jamaica and its diaspora. A 1968 single by Toots and the Maytals, " Do the Reggay" was the first popular song to use ...
music, it is not uncommon for a whole album to be remixed in a
dub style.
[Dub: soundscapes and shattered songs in Jamaican reggae, p.2]
Jennifer Lopez's album ''
J to tha L–O! The Remixes'' is listed in the
''Guinness Book of World Records'' as the first remix album to debut at No.1 on the
''Billboard'' 200 chart.
List of best-selling remix albums
See also
*
Dub music
Dub is an electronic musical style that grew out of reggae in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It is commonly considered a subgenre of reggae, though it has developed to extend beyond that style.Dub: soundscapes and shattered songs in Jamaican r ...
*
List of best-selling music artists
The following list of best-selling music artists includes those music acts from the 20th century to the present with claims of 75 million or more record sales worldwide. This information cannot be listed officially, as there is no organization ...
Notes
References
{{Lists of best-selling albums
Album types