30 Day Song Challenge, Day 18: A Song Every Bar Band Should Know

Sooooo…mainly because I think more like a DJ and less like a person in a band, I’m just changing this to “A song that should be in every DJ’s set.” Bar bands and DJs are both in the business of keeping people drinking and in the venue, keeping the crowd lively, and catering to audience taste, right?

Every DJ should always have a banger remix of whatever that venue’s crowd will be into.

Assuming a general Top 40/mainstream hip hop crowd, I’d pick:

Bitch Better Have My Money, R3HAB Remix

This remix speeds the original up noitcebly (there’s even a little noticeable up-pitching in the vocal track), and adds a LOT of rhythmic density and tension-release structures (there’s a soar in the 30 seconds). In all, it ‘lightens’ the track up–the shimmery treble synths that enter in the first verse (after the intro soar) are just one example of how this mix takes the dark Yeezus trap of the original and transforms it into pretty standard EDM. There’s nothing brilliant per se about this remix (it’s no Cedric Gervais “Summertime Sadness”), but it’s a solid banger that takes a song the crowd will be familiar with and will dance to.

 

If it were a more  EDM crowd, I’d pick Green Velvet “Bigger Than Prince” (Hot Since 82 Mix):

 

This is solid, solid Chicago house, re-imagined by one of the best British retro-house artists. I like how the eighth-note pulse that comes in around 0:23 faintly echoes the timbre of the Percolator (another Green Velvet song, done under the alias Cajmere).

 

If it were a goth/industrial crowd, I have two selections. First, bc every goth/industrial DJ needs a good Depeche Mode remix (like, “Depeche Mode EDM Remix” could be its own subgenre); and second, bc I think they also need a more current remix.

Depeche Mode, “A Pain That I’m Used To” (Jacques Lu Cont Remix):

Ok, duh I’d pick the Stuart Price remix. One of the things he’s particularly talented at is taking a rock song and pulling its best groove to the front, totally restructuring its relationship to the rest of the song, and lightening the whole feel into shimmery dance music. (Ok, so Depeche Mode is always just *this* the rock side of some more dance-centric influences: they have one foot rooted in like the first wave of EDM ever (remember Speak and Spell? Vince Clarke’s (Yaz, Erasure) influence isn’t totally gone…), and an ear lent to friends and frequent tour-mates Nitzer Ebb.

 

And for something more current, Front Line Assembly “Echogenetic” (Youth Code Remix):

I like how Youth Code make this grittier and dirtier with their distorted synths, but keep it rhythmically active and totally aggro at the same time. I’m really really happy to see a trend in industrial dance away from psytrance (which sounds dated in a Cyberdog sorta way) and back toward a more EBM-influenced aesthetic (which, though older, sounds less dated?)

 

 

Runners Up: Wiz Khalifa, “See You Again” (Absence Remix) (This significantly improves on the original, taking its maudlin piano-pop and transforming it into a chill out house vibe); the new Eric Prydz “Generate” (Kolsch Remix); Depeche Mode, “Personal Jesus” (Alex Metric Remix).