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In the day and age of the remix and the powerful sway that club mixes hold, acts can be made or broken depending on who remixs their songs and how good/popular those remix’s are. But it goes further. Acts that may not have even caused that much of a storm at all can become seminal acts simply through the remix. Let’s have a look at some.

The first was a couple of years ago now. A little known band with an obese lesbian front woman was making it’s way to the UK. They were The Gossip. The music was pretty generic Indie music but I distinctly remember the first time I realised they’d be big. NME released a remix album and on it was the Soulwax Nite Remix of Standing In The Way Of Control. The clubs picked it up and it became huge. Have a listen to the two different versions.

Compared with (starts properly from a minute in):

The Soulwax remix was so popular that it was played on the radio and in clubs meaning that for a while everyone thought that the remix was the original. The Soulway remix is more popular on Youtube and it was also used in the popular programme Skins making it more popular. The Gossip obviously rode on the success of this remix.

More recently La Roux has shot to fame off the back of a Remix. Till a few months ago the only La Roux people knew was the song played in the club which was the Dubstep Remix by Skream. I remember my DJ mate Flight Commander played the original version of In For The Kill at the night Sextape. People stopped dancing and asked what the shit remix of La Roux that the DJ put on.

Here’s the Remix that everyone knows and loves:

And the original:

The original sounds hollow and empty compared to the remix. A point proven by the fact the 2 biggest videos on there, the remix has a million more views than the original.

You have to ask yourself, would La Roux have been so commercially successful if people hadn’t been wooooooo – ing along to the Skream Remix in every club ccross the land? Would the Gossip for that matter? Probably not. They may not have even scratched the surface past a select few people who were “into music”.

Both these acts owe a lot to the people who remixed their tracks. The weird thing is that with the rise of the home studio this route to success is going to become more and more prevalent. Bring on the Remix’s!