We Invented the Remix Part 1

Summary

Hit Parade | We Invented the Remix, Part 1

Host: Chris Molanphy
Producer: Benjamin Frisch
Release Date: February 19, 2022

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Episode Overview

In this rich, encyclopedic episode, Chris Molanphy traces the multi-decade history and cultural evolution of the remix. Through storytelling, audio excerpts, and chart trivia, Molanphy explores how the remix transformed from a DJ’s dancefloor tool into a pop music juggernaut, redefining hits, genres, and even chart rules. Starting with current remix smashes and rewinding through pivotal historic moments, the episode investigates what actually counts as a remix and why it matters.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Modern Remix as Cultural Phenomenon

• Cold Heart (Pnau Remix)
  Opens with the current success of “Cold Heart (Pnau Remix)” by Elton John & Dua Lipa—a mashup-turned-radio hit blending four Elton John songs.
  • “This catchy Frankenstein’s monster of a track is termed a remix… But this recording is a lot of things: a mashup, an Elton John cover, a reboot of a 32-year-old Elton hit under a different title.” —Chris (05:30)
• The remix now encompasses mashups, genre-bending collaborations, and tracks that sometimes eclipse the originals.

2. The Remix: Origins and Definitions

• Explores early examples, questioning what historically qualifies as a “remix”:
  • Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel’s “The Sound of Silence”
    The original was acoustic; producer Tom Wilson overdubbed electric instrumentation to capitalize on the ‘60s folk-rock sound without the artists’ knowledge—becoming the pop version everyone knew.
    • “Paul Simon hated it. But … the folk-rock remix of ‘The Sound of Silence’ revived their career.” —Chris (10:04)
  • The Beatles’ “The Long and Winding Road”
    Phil Spector’s controversial orchestral overdubs transformed the song for release, which McCartney despised.
    • “Dripping with newly added strings and choirs. The rearranged version of ‘The Long and Winding Road’ topped the Hot 100…” —Chris (13:10)
• These early “remixes” often involved adding instrumentation or altering arrangements post-recording.

3. Remix Culture’s Roots: Jamaica to the Bronx

• The art of the remix started with dancefloor ingenuity, not on records, but in live performance:
  • Jamaican Sound System & Dub Innovators:
    DJs like Lee “Scratch” Perry and King Tubby began altering tracks live to get the biggest reactions; eventually, dub became an art in itself.
    • “Yu Roy would toast over dub tracks by the likes of King Tubby, who could push and pull elements in and out of the recording on the fly.” —Chris (21:10)
  • Hip-Hop Origins:
    Kingston-born DJ Kool Herc brought these manipulative DJ techniques to the Bronx, pioneering “the very history of rap music and hip-hop as the history of the remix.” (21:51)

4. Birth of Studio and Commercial Remixing

• Tom Moulton—the Remix Architect:
  Began with reel-to-reel spliced edits for clubs, creating the first “remixed” disco records by extending dance tracks to keep energy up.
  • “One 45-minute tape took him 80 hours to compile.” —Chris (22:13)
  • BT Express’ “Do It (‘Til You’re Satisfied)” [28:00]
    Molanphy credits Moulton’s extended mix as the first hit commercial remix preferred by DJs and audiences, even though the band initially disliked it:
    • “BT Express absolutely hated his extended mix. But then, when it became a smash, they stole credit for it.” —Chris (32:30)
• 12-inch Singles & Disco Edits:
  1976’s “Ten Percent” by Double Exposure (remixed by Walter Gibbons) is cited as the first commercially available 12-inch remix.

5. 80s and the Remix Becomes the Definitive Version

• Duran Duran’s “The Reflex” (Nile Rodgers Remix) [37:00]
  Rodgers’ remix revamped album tracks into radio and dancefloor gold—his version became the canonical single and Duran Duran’s first U.S. #1.
  • “Nile Rodgers’ remix…added rhythmic elements and vocal chops that weren’t on the original album cut. The remix became the de facto version of the song.” —Chris (37:47)
• George Michael’s “Monkey” (Jam & Lewis Remix) [40:00]
  A case where the single is virtually a new recording, not just a tweak—demonstrating remixes as top-to-bottom reinventions.

6. Remix Mania in the Late 80s & Early 90s

• Pop and Rap Crossovers:
  • Suzanne Vega’s “Tom’s Diner” (DNA Remix) [45:43]: A folk acapella turned crossover club hit through creative bootlegging.
    • “Suzanne Vega, charmed by the dance remix, suggested that A&M acquire the rights to it instead.” —Chris (46:27)
  • SWV’s “Right Here/Human Nature” [52:30]: Teddy Riley’s remixed version, sampling Michael Jackson, achieved chart-topping status.
  • Everything But The Girl’s “Missing” (Todd Terry Remix) [53:30]: The house remix became their only major U.S. hit.

7. Label & Chart Implications of Remixing

• Molanphy discusses how labels use remixes for second (or third) chances at chart success:
  • Jewel’s “You Were Meant For Me” [55:45]: A folk ballad gets a pop-friendly re-record for single release, fueling lasting radio presence.
• Hip-Hop and the “Remix as Badge of Honor”:
  • Craig Mack’s “Flava in Ya Ear” (Remix) [58:13]: Puff Daddy (Sean Combs) assembles an all-star posse cut, creating a new hit from a fading track.
  • The Notorious B.I.G.’s “One More Chance” and Puff Daddy’s “It’s All About the Benjamins”: Each “remix” is essentially a new track, not just a tweak—a trend that becomes industry standard.

8. Remix Redefines the Charts

• The episode concludes with Jennifer Lopez, whose 2001 “I’m Real (Murder Remix)” (featuring Ja Rule) blurred the lines so much that Billboard had to rewrite its chart rules, showing just how powerful and pervasive the remix concept had become in pop music.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On “Cold Heart (Pnau Remix)”:
  “This catchy Frankenstein’s monster of a track is termed a remix…But this recording is a lot of things: a mashup, an Elton John cover by Dua Lipa, a reboot of a 32-year-old Elton hit under a different title. Like, just in general. What is this thing?” —Chris (05:28)
• On “The Sound of Silence” Remix:
  “Paul Simon hated it. But at a moment when Simon and Garfunkel were about to break up in the wake of their early failure, the folk-rock remix…revived their career.” —Chris (10:04)
• On Tom Moulton’s Influence:
  “One 45-minute tape took him 80 hours to compile.” —Chris (22:13)
  “Moulton told Bill Brewster…‘BT Express absolutely hated his extended mix. But then, when it became a smash, they stole credit for it.’” —Chris (32:30)
• On Redefinition of the Remix in the ‘80s:
  “Nile Rodgers’ remix added rhythmic elements and vocal chops that weren’t on the original album cut. The remix became the de facto version of the song.” —Chris (37:47)
• On Remix’s Power in Hip-Hop:
  “Puffy would not take that lying down. For the remix of Flava in your Ear, Puffy brought in a hip hop army…” —Chris (58:13)
• On Chart Impact:
  “This matters, because this classification affects how Billboard tallies remixes for its charts…The artist and especially the record company want both versions to count toward the song’s chart position, and they engineer remixes to ensure that both do.” —Chris (17:01)

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Timeline of Important Segments

• [02:30] Introduction of “Cold Heart (Pnau Remix)” as an example of the modern remix phenomenon
• [07:41] Brief on “Old Town Road (Remix)” and how remixes break chart records
• [10:04] Early remixes: “The Sound of Silence” by Simon & Garfunkel
• [13:10] “The Long and Winding Road” and the transformation by Phil Spector
• [18:52] Jamaican sound system and dub’s foundational influence
• [22:13] Tom Moulton’s breakthrough edits and first club remixes
• [28:00] “Do It (‘Til You’re Satisfied)” and the DJ’s growing power
• [37:00] Nile Rodgers’ game-changing remix for Duran Duran’s “The Reflex”
• [40:00] George Michael’s “Monkey” as a radical, near-total revamp
• [45:43] The DNA remix of Suzanne Vega’s “Tom’s Diner”
• [53:30] Everything But The Girl’s dance breakthrough via Todd Terry’s “Missing” remix
• [58:13] Puff Daddy, Craig Mack, and the era of the hip-hop remix posse cut

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Conclusion

Chris Molanphy’s deep dive demonstrates that the remix is far more than a club tool; it is a force that has shaped not only what the public hears and loves but also the very rules of the music business. From overlooked album cuts to unlikely smash hits, the journey of the remix—through technical innovation, cultural shifts, and industry maneuvering—has had an indelible impact on pop history.

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"Creativity was always at the root of the remix, which is more than a technique, it's a culture.”
—Chris Molanphy (18:52)

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Stay tuned for Part 2, where the story continues with the remix’s impact in the 21st century and its enduring legacy on the charts.

Transcript

[Chris Melanfy]

You're listening ad free on Amazon Music. Hey there Hit Parade listeners. What you're about to hear is Part one of this episode. Part two will arrive in your podcast feed in a couple of weeks. Would you like to hear this episode all at once the day it drops? Sign up for Slate Plus. You can try it for a month for just $1, and it supports not only this show, but all of Slate's acclaimed journalism and podcasts. Just go to slate.com, you'll get to hear every Hit Parade episode in full the day it arrives. Plus Hit Parade the Bridge, our bonus episodes with guest interviews, deeper dives on our episode topics, and pop chart trivia. Once again to join, that's slate.com hitparadeplus thanks and now please enjoy part one of this hit Parade episode. Welcome to Hit Parade, a podcast of pop chart history from Slate Magazine about the hits from coast to coast. I'm Chris Melanfy, chart analyst, pop critic and writer of Slate's why is this song number one series on today's show 32 years ago, in the winter of 1990, pop legend Elton John was climbing the charts, as he so often did with his 46th American Top 40 hit, a plush ballad called Sacrifice. For the man born Reginald Dwight, this was just another day at the office. Sacrifice eventually peaked on Billboard's Hot 100 at number 18. In a career with so many hits from youm Song to Benny and the jets to I'm Still Standing, Sacrifice could have been forgotten. But not this year. There's a good chance you've heard a version of this song just in the last few weeks, thumping from your radio, and I do mean thumping. The version you've probably heard sounds more like.

[Benjamin Frisch]

Hard done by you.

[Chris Melanfy]

This recording is on the Hot 100 right now. It was a top 10 hit, peaking at number seven just a few weeks ago. Its official title is Cold Heart Panau Remix. The name Cold Heart is taken from a lyric in the original verse of Sacrifice and and it is credited to Elton John and Dua Lipa. Oh yeah, did I mention this version is a duet? Well, sort of. Dua Lipa, the British Albanian pop star currently enjoying a wave of hits of her own, sings a remake of a completely different Elton John song on the verses, 1972's classic Rocket Man. Lipa never actually sings the titular words Rocketman. She is singing the I think it's gonna be a long, long time part.

[Benjamin Frisch]

And I think it's gonna be a long, long time.

[Chris Melanfy]

In fact, Cold Heart Panau remix includes pieces of four different Elton John songs, all mashed together. In Dua Lipa's part, she also sings lines from Elton's Kiss the Bride, a 1983 number 25 hit. Those lines are thrown into the Cold Heart blender too. I'll let you find the fourth Elton John song yourself. A brief allusion in Coldheart to a 1976 deep cut of his called where's the Shoe? R.A. my point is this. This catchy Frankenstein's monster of a track is termed a remix. Indeed, Panau remix is right there in the title, with credit given to the Australian dance music duo and production team Pnau. Spelled P Nau by the way. But this recording is a lot of things. A mashup, an Elton John cover by Dua Lipa, a reboot of a 32 year old Elton hit under a different title. Like just in general. What is this thing? Whatever you call it. Cold Heart Panau Remix represents virtually all of the things a remix has become. Half a century after the concept was invented. Do it. What began as a DJs art form designed to keep dancers on the floor longer. Soon migrated to the pop charts where a remix could reinvent a dormant album cut into a radio smash. Eventually, remixes of certain hits became the definitive version of the song, And other remixes turned acts who never had hits before into chart toppers. Hits didn't even need to be uptempo dance tracks to get the remix treatment, And in rap, so called remixes could be remakes in all but name, rebuilt from the ground up.

[Rosemary Bellson]

Benjamin's baby.

[Chris Melanfy]

By the 21st century, remixes were giving pop stars a bit of hip hop cred. And mixing up genres to set all time chart records.

[Benjamin Frisch]

Yeah I'm gonna take my horse through the old town road I'm gonna ride till I can't no more.

[Chris Melanfy]

Today on Hit Parade, we will trace the multifarious history of the remix, a musical term with a universe of meanings, rethinks, reboots, reinventions, re recordings, even instances where the so called remix came before the supposed original. How is that even possible? And speaking of the seemingly impossible, in a way, the most pivotal remix in chart history was the one so transformative it compelled a change in our understanding of what a remix even is. It was a perky pop song that started out sounding like. Before turning into this. And that's where your hit parade marches today. The week ending September 8, 2001. When I'm real Murder remix by Jennifer Lopez featuring Ja rule hit number one on the Hot 100. The woman also known as J Lo, who was topping both the box office and the charts that year, needed an assist to keep her star rising, a so called remix that led some chart watchers to cry foul and led Billboard magazine itself to rewrite its rule book. Two decades later, Lopez is still making headlines for her movies and her romances, but an under heralded part of J. Lo's legacy is what she did to the definition of the remix was I'm real Murder remix even a remix at all. Hello darkness my old friend. Where does the history of the remix on the charts begin? Does it even involve a dance record? Could this mellow, folky song be it? This is the original version of the Sound of silence, recorded in 1964 by a pair of 22 year olds just signed to Columbia Records named Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel. Accompanied only by an acoustic guitar, the Sound of Silence was on Simon and Garfunkel's debut LP or Wednesday morning 3am Produced by Tom Wilson, the album was a flop. But when Wilson heard that a handful of DJs were spinning the folky Sound of Silence, he had the idea to throw some rock instruments behind the tender ballad to make it more commercial. Just as folk rock acts like the Birds and Bob Dylan were breaking on the charts, Tom Wilson's remix sounded like this. In Restless Dreams I walked alone Narrow streets of cobblestone. Wilson did this without asking the duo's permission. Paul Simon hated it. But at a moment when Simon and Garfunkel were about to break up in the wake of their early failure, the folk rock remix of the Sound of Silence revived their career. It was the only version most pop fans ever knew, and it topped the Hot 100 just after Christmas 1965, turning Simon and Garfunkel into one of the top selling acts of the late 60s. And speaking of the late 60s, what about this mellow diddy, the Long and Winding Road? This of course, is the Long and Winding Road, the original recording from the Beatles 1969 Get Back Sessions. Famously or infamously, if you're Paul McCartney, this recording was remixed heavily before the public ever heard heard it. When the Fab Four were on the brink of breaking up in 1970, producer Phil Spector was brought in by the Beatles new manager Alan Klein to review the Get Back Sessions and yes, remix them, turning them into the group's final album, Let It Be. And Phil Spector did not have a light touch. His version of the Long and Winding Road sounded like this.

[Benjamin Frisch]

The Long and Winding Road.

[Chris Melanfy]

Dripping with newly added strings and choirs. The rearranged version of the Long and Winding road topped the Hot 100 in June of 1970. Paul McCartney loathed it, but it was the Beatles swan song, their last number one hit. So the folk rock revamp of the Sound of Silence, the schlocky reboot of the Long and Winding Road do these count as the first hit remixes? It's certainly tempting to say no.

[Benjamin Frisch]

No.

[Chris Melanfy]

Tom Wilson's remix of Silence was the only version most pop fans knew, and Phil Spector's Road was literally the only officially released version in 1970. And it's not like Phil opened the Beatles record by shouting out Wall of Sound Remix. Or Apple Records in the house or this is a Phil Spector exclusive. More seriously, though, Die Hard, Simon and Garfunkel and Beatles fans were aware that these tracks had been monkeyed with somehow. These chart topping hits are not remixes, as that term came to be understood. Really, in 1965 and 1970, very few people outside of the recording industry knew what a remix was, But the very qualities that make one want to disqualify Wilson's Sound of Silence or Spector's Long and Winding Road would later be accepted in the world of remixing a remix hated by the original recording artist. That's not uncommon. We'll talk about a couple of examples in this episode. A remix of a ballad. Sure, that happens now. A remix as the only known version. That's happened too. In the us for example, the only known version of the dance classic situation by Yaz AKA Yazoo in England is the Francois Kervorkian remix. If you're American, you may not know there was another version.

[Benjamin Frisch]

Moving through the doorway of a nation.

[Chris Melanfy]

A remix that piles on new instrumentation. These days, many remixes do. Sebastian Baum's celebrated 2019 remix of New Order's dance rock classic Blue Monday showcased to great effect in the trailer for the movie Wonder Woman 1984, and is really a full orchestral cover of Blue Monday seamlessly mixed with New Order's original track. This, in part, is what we will be exploring in this episode, trying to discern the boundaries of what a remix even is, or how we classify it. This matters, because this classification affects how Billboard tallies remixes for its charts. If the main version of a hit song sounds like this, But a popular radio remix sounds like this, The artist, and especially the record company want both versions to count toward the song's chart position, and they engineer remixes to ensure that both do. Moreover, a truly novel remix can cross a song over to a whole new audience, for example, when the Kazakh DJ producer Iman Beck took Roses, a straight up 2016 hip hop track by Guyanese. American rapper St John, Sped it up and threw a new beat behind it, turning it into this. It became a global smash, topping the pop charts in a dozen countries. And here in America, in the summer of 2020, Rose's Iman Beck remix crossed genres. Number four on the Hot 100, number one on the dance chart, even number 22 on the adult top 40.

[Benjamin Frisch]

Char.

[Chris Melanfy]

Examples like Roses show how transformative and how creative a remix can be. Creativity was always at the root of the remix, which is more than a technique, it's a culture. And remix culture dates back longer than you might imagine. Originally, those roots were not in the US at all. What's tricky about the history of the remix is that its early innovations weren't really on records at all. They were mostly performed live. The Jamaican sound system pioneered in Kingston consisted of at least one turntable or more and custom built speakers, amplified to emphasize heavy bass lines. As far back as the 40s and 50s, Jamaican DJs set up these sound systems to entertain large crowds, flipping and cutting between records based on whatever drew the biggest reaction.

[Benjamin Frisch]

Get all the garbage out of sight.

[Chris Melanfy]

Pioneers like Lee Scratch Perry would take American R and B records like the Coasters Yakety Yak, give them a Jamaican patois and then manipulate them in front of the crowd. By the turn of the 70s, this had been elevated into an art form known as dub, spearheaded by studio and sound system pioneers like Osborne Ruddock, AKA King Tubby. These dub wizards would provide backing tracks for toasters, vocalists who were essentially Jamaican proto rappers such as Ewart Beckford, better known as Yu Roy.

[Guest or Additional Contributor]

Wait it's down and tell the people.

[Chris Melanfy]

Yu Roy would toast over dub tracks by the likes of King Tubby, who could push and pull elements in and out of the recording on the fly. All of these developments eventually spawned American hip hop. Kingston born Clive Campbell, the legendary DJ Kool Hercules brought the techniques of the Jamaican sound system and the live manipulation and elongation of records to the Bronx, New York. In short, the very history of rap music and hip hop is the history of the remix.

[Guest or Additional Contributor]

Herc's merry go round meant that instead of playing whole records, he would play just the instrumental breaks. That part right there wouldn't break. I had to come in with Bongarak.

[Chris Melanfy]

As for the recorded remix, dance music scholars agree it was pioneered in the early 70s by a model turned producer named Tom Molten. His first such creation was itself not a remix, strictly speaking, but a Re edit a dance mix Molten cut together on reel to reel tape for Fire Island Club. The Sandpiper on his mix spliced the old fashioned way. Molten seamlessly compiled a string of rock and soul records with propulsive breakdowns. He excised the less danceable segments to inspire non stop dance floor ecstasy. One 45 minute tape took him 80 hours to compile. The renown Tom Moulton earned with that tape eventually led to actual remixing, producing official authorized extended mixes of club bound songs in the studio at record label behest. Which makes Molten the progenitor of what is likely the first actual chart hit remix as we understand it today. Do IT till you're satisfied was a conga and horn inflected jam by Brooklyn based funk group BT Express. The BT stood for Brooklyn Trucking. BT's label Scepter Records was one of the first to target singles at the nascent disco market and in 1974 they invited Tom Molten to have a go at remixing do it till you're Satisfied. Molten's remix added a longer keyboard breakdown and he nearly doubled the track's length from just over three minutes to just shy of six. As on his Fire island tapes, the song's extension felt effortlessly propulsive. The remix for do it would Prove Definitive. As BT Express's single was climbing the charts, Moulton's Do It Mix came to be preferred by radio DJs. The record ultimately reached number two on the Hot 100 and number one on the R B chart. In late 1974. Moulton told Bill Brewster, author of the book Last night a DJ saved my life, that BT Express quote, absolutely hated his extended mix. But then when it became a smash, Moulton claims they stole credit for it, reportedly fibbing to Soul Train host Don Cornelius that they had recorded the track at that level length. Quote I was so mad, molten told Brewster. But the very fact that Molten's mix was so organic sounding made BT Express's lie seem plausible. Just months after his smash BT Express reboot, Tom Moulton was involved in another remixing landmark when he was invited to work on Gloria Gaynor's 1975 album Never can say Goodbye. Moulton built the LP's side a comprising just three songs, Honeybee, Never can say goodbye and Reach Out. I'll be There as a seamless disco sweet. Mind you. Songs flowing directly into each other had been tried on rock LPs dating to the heyday of the Beatles or the Moody Blues, but Tom Moulton's edit of the the Never can say Goodbye album aimed to keep the dance floor rolling for a solid 18 minutes. Once again, the artist was skeptical. According to author Bill Brewster, the first time Gloria Gaynor heard Moulton's handiwork, with its long rhythmic instrumental passages, she told him, I don't sing much. But Gaynor grew to appreciate Moulton's work when it helped make the album a hit. Never can say Goodbye reached number 25 on the Billboard Top LPs chart, remarkably high for a disco album in early 1975, more than a a year before similar seamless albums by Donna Summer or Casey and the Sunshine Band. And on the Hot 100, the album's title track, Never can say Goodbye reached number nine in January of 75. One of disco's earliest hits, Tom Moulton even helped invent a musical format the 12 inch single, when he started pressing his mixes not on 45 RPM vinyl, but on LP sized platters in order to maintain their length and take advantage of the bigger discs wider grooves. For a while, 12 inch singles were seen as a gimmick, then a promotional only tool for club DJs. But the 12 inch came into its own thanks to another remix by celebrated producer DJ Walter Gibbons. 10% was a track by Philadelphia soul and disco group Double Exposure. They had recorded the single with an orchestra providing disco backing and the band and the string section recorded more jamming than could fit on a 7 inch single. Producer Walter Gibbons took that extended jam and rebuilt 10% specifically as a 12 inch. It became the first first commercially available 12 inch vinyl single. Though not a big hit, 10% only reached number 54, pop number 63 R&B in 1976. In the club, dancers and other DJs were in awe of Walt Walter Gibbons work. Quote this record just seemed endless. Fellow producer remixer Arthur Baker later said. I was like how is he doing this? He must be so quick. I went up to the booth and it was just one record, unquote. So began the era of the remix as reinvention. Another Gibbons remix of 1977's Hit and Run by Loliotta Holloway sold 100,000 copies as a 12. And Frank Francois Kevorkian's remix of Musique's in the Bush, a lewd single popular at Studio 54 and other Dionysian nightclubs, topped Billboard's Disco Club Play chart in 1978. None of these extended mixes were big radio or or mainstream chart hits. Both Hit and Run and in the Bush missed the pop top 40. But by the late 70s, remixes were starting to cross over with the General public hits like the seminal I Feel Love, which we talked about in our Donna Summer episode of Hit Parade, had already begun acclimating the public to the sounds of electronic dance production. One year after I Feel Love was a hit, soon to be legendary dance producer Patrick Cowley created a bootleg remix. Working only from a vinyl copy of the track, Cowley added his own synth and drum parts, transforming I Feel Love into a new, nearly 16 minute high energy masterwork. Mixmag would later call it, quote, a psychedelic freakout. Cowley's reinvention of summer's classic took several years to see official release or to become a hit beyond the clubs. In fact, when it finally hit the British charts in the in late 1982, Cowley himself was gone, one of the first casualties of the then little understood and rarely diagnosed disease, aids. Just weeks after Cowley's death, a shortened edit of his I Feel Love Remix reached number 21 on the British pop chart. It was the first remix of many average pop fans heard, at least in the uk. By then, remixes were becoming more widely commercially available. By 1983 and 84, remixes of certain mainstream pop hits were generating Top 440 radio airplay. Arthur Baker's stadium rocking reboot of Cyndi Lauper's Girls Just Want to have Fun helped pump up the song's rotations on urban top 40 stations and gave Cindy, a number one club hit on the Hot 100. Girls peaked at number two. Some producers didn't even outsource their remixes. Nile Rogers, who, as we discussed in our chic episode of Hit Parade, was on a roll in 1983, producing smashes like David Bowie's number one let's Dance, would often do remixes of his own tracks. Nile's own retake of InXcess's Original Sin made that song only a number 58 pop hit, into a top 20 club hit. But what hadn't quite happened by 1984 was for a remix to become the definitive version of a pop chart hit. Nile Rogers would be the one to change that when he was commissioned by the top new wave era pop act of their day, Duran Duran. Again, as I noted in our chic Nile Rogers episode, the Fab Five brought in Rogers to salvage a track from from their 1983 album Seven and the Ragged Tiger. The LP led off with this song called the Reflex that had a solid hook but didn't sound either club or radio ready. Duran Duran wanted Rogers to do with the Reflex what he had done on remixes for inxs, David Bowie and Daryl Hall. And John Oates and Nile delivered. Nile Rogers remix of the Reflex added rhythmic elements and vocal chops that weren't on the original album cut that flip, flip flex thing. Nile created that. The remix became the de facto version of the song. Played on radio stations nationwide. The reflex became Duran Duran's first ever Hot 100 number one hit in June 1984. It took a few years for another act to score a Hot 100 number one. Reinvented by its remix, it would involve another white British act turning to a black American production team. The white Brit was wham's George Michael. George Michael had already dipped his toe in the waters of remixed hits, WHAMS Everything She Wanted Waltz, which hit number one in 1985, generally received more airplay in its extended mix, which was the basis for the music video. It added live crowd sounds and a whole extra verse. But George Michael would go much further after he split with WHAM partner Andrew Ridgely. His 1987 solo debut, Faith included a track promoted only at black radio, Hard Day, which reached number 21 on the R B chart and whose preferred version was its Shep Pettibone remix.

[Benjamin Frisch]

Sweet little boy with such a big mouth Hot sweats can get you into hot water.

[Chris Melanfy]

Even more radical was what Michael did several singles later. After the Faith album had spun off multiple number one hits, he went deep into the LP for its sixth single, an ethereal cut called Monkey. Normally a very self contained artist, he wrote everything on the Faith lp, often performing all of the instruments himself. George Michael was never satisfied with his album version of Monkee. For once, he was going to involve outside producers. And he was especially impressed with this remix of Janet Jackson's 1986 six number three hit nasty. This remix was produced by the same two men who'd produced Nasty for Janet in the first place, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. George Michael was impressed by that. The Minneapolis duo had added chords to their original production, but maintained the song's funk. So George asked Jimmy and Terry what they would do with his deep cut, Monkey. Basically, the sonic craftsman told him, throw most of it away. Jam and Lewis's version of Monkey wasn't really a remix. It was a re recording with very few elements of the original LP cut retained. They brought George Michael into their studio to re record his vocal in what they called a more funky style. The duo did keep samples of Michael's vocal voice from the LP version, cutting between his old and new vocals and adding drum machines and other effects. As with Duran Duran's the Reflex, the remix made the track a Chart topper Monkey reached number one on the Hotel 100 and even number eight on the R&B chart in the summer of 88. But what distinguished Monkey from the Reflex was that Nile Rogers had ingeniously rearranged elements of Duran Duran's track that were already on the record. Jam and Lewis took George Michael's track, burned it to the ground and rebuilt it from scrap. This was the new cutting edge of remixing and it was only the beginning. From the late 80s through the 90s, remixes, including those with re recorded elements from, were big business. And often the way laconic album cuts became radio or club smashes, let's run through a few of them, many of which you may be familiar with. New Order, the British post punk dance rock band, were frequent employers of remixers. Their LP tracks like 1986's Bizarre Love Triangle were meticulously crafted to begin with, punctuated by their celebrated bassist Peter Hook. But the band was not shy about bringing in star remixers for their singles like Arthur Baker or John Robyn. For their 1987 singles compilation Substance, New Order went even further, including only 12 inch mixes instead of the original LP cuts. Taken from Substance. Shep Petty Bone's kinetic take on Bizarre Love Triangle came to be regarded as the definitive version of the song. By the 90s it became a late blooming radio perennial and even briefly a hit, reaching number 98 in 1995. Or what about this 80s rap classic.

[Guest or Additional Contributor]

Thinking of a Master Plan? This ain't nothing but sweet sweat inside my hand so I dig it to my pocket all my money spent so I could default.

[Chris Melanfy]

As noted in a couple of previous episodes of Hit Parade, Paid In Full was the title track of the landmark 1987 debut album by Eric B and Rakim. Again, as with Bizarre Love Triangle, Paid In Full was already great raw material featuring superb features flow from MC Rakim over the famed Ashley's Roach clip beat. But then British DJ duo Cold Cut took a pass at it.

[Guest or Additional Contributor]

Pump up the volume. Pump up the volume.

[Chris Melanfy]

Producing the now legendary seven minutes of Madness remix. Cold Cut added film dialogue and samples of James Brown and Israeli singer Ofra Haza. Original DJ Eric B reportedly hated the Cold Cut remix, but it turned Paid In Full into a cross cultural hit, reaching number three on Billboard's Club Play chart in 1988, the biggest Eric B and Rakim hit outside of Billboard Billboard's rap chart. Then in 1989, Express Yourself was chosen as the second single from Madonna's acclaimed Like a Prayer album. The original LP cut was this horn inflected Latin flavored jam. But for the music video directed by David Fincher, Madonna commissioned a remix by Shep Pettibone. Yep, him again. The Pettibone remix of Express Yourself is now the definitive version. Notably, Madonna included this mix a year later on her best selling compilation the Immaculate Collection. By the time express yourself hit 2 in July of 89, most radio stations were spinning the remix. Then entering the 90s hit remixes got even more radical.

[Rosemary Bellson]

I am sitting in the morning at the diner on the corner I am.

[Chris Melanfy]

Waiting Neo folky Suzanne Vega opened her 1987 album Solitude standing with a stark acapella track called Tom's Diner, a prosaic pickeresque story song about a woman observing patrons at a restaurant while drinking a cup of coffee. By the way, there is an actual Tom's Restaurant in uptown Manhattan near Columbia University. Vega herself attended Barnard College. Tom's restaurant was later used as the exterior for Monk's Cafe on Seinfeld.

[Rosemary Bellson]

Anyway, I open up the paper, there's a story of an actor who had.

[Chris Melanfy]

Vega never intended Tom's Diner as anything more than an album cut. But to UK producers Nick Batt and Neal Slateford, who called themselves DNA, that acapella track was begging for a remix. So they borrowed a then popular beat from the British dance group Soul to Soul, fused it with Vega's vocal and turned the folkie into a house music diva. First issued as a bootleg titled oh, Suzanne, the remix of Tom's Diner could have died quickly. A and M Records, Suzanne Vega's label, briefly considered siccking their lawyers on DNA. But then Vega, charmed by the dance remix, suggested that A and M acquire the rights to it instead. Credited to DNA featuring Suzanne Vega, Tom's Diner hit number five on the Hot 100 and even number 10 on the R&B chart by late 1990. Or how about this total reboot?

[Guest or Additional Contributor]

See, I was restin that department.

[Chris Melanfy]

On arrested developments, hit 1992 CD three years, five months and two days in the Life of People Every Day was a languorous album cut that quoted the chorus hook from Sly and the Family Stone's 1969 number one hit Everyday People. Like George Michael's monkey originally, people Every Day didn't sound like much of a hit, that is, until Arrested Development totally flipped it. For the Metamorphosis mix of People Every Day, which was not a remix so much as a remake. Arrested Development coupled the original Sly Stone interpolation with a sampled bassline from jazzman Bob James. Issued as a single, the reboot was a smash reaching number eight on the Hot 102 on the R and B chart around the same time. This track was also an RB hit. In 1992 and 93. Vocal trio SWV, aka sisters with voices hit the charts with Right Here Twice. The original version reached number 13 on the R B chart in the fall of 92 and barely cracked the Hot 100. Then New Jack Swing producer Teddy Riley had the idea to place the song's vocals over a lush sample of Michael Jackson's name 1983 hit Human Nature. Retitled Right Here Parentheses Human Nature, SWV's remixed song re entered both charts, eventually reaching number two pop number one R&B. By then, even major megastars like Mariah Carey were dropping radical remixes for her fall 93 chart topper Dream Lover. Carrie commissioned a remix with house DJ producer David Morales. Together they remade Dream lover as a 10 minute house track for which Mariah re recorded her vocals as Stereogum1's columnist Tom Bryan recently pointed out, the deaf club mix of dream lover, with its 4 4thud and disorienting ping pong synth loop is quote, virtually un recognizable. As Brian also notes, the Dream Lover remix foreshadowed Mariah Carey's future as a remix queen. Her most famous example came two years later, the bad boy remix of her 1995 smash Fantasy. Produced by rapper impresario and Bad Boy label president Sean Combs, then known as Puff Daddy, it featured rap breaks from the loopy old Dirty Bastard of the Wu Tang Clan. Critics as well as Mariah Care. Carey herself have since credited the ODB remix of Fantasy with starting her pivot away from the centrist pop favored by her label chief and then husband Tommy Mottola, and toward more hip hop directed material while Mariah was sitting at number one in late 95 and early 96 with Phantom and its follow up One Sweet Day. More on that song later. Yet another reinvention was climbing to number two, and as with Suzanne Vega, this act had never been near the DJ booth at a dance club before. Missing was an aching, wistful ballad by Everything but the girl from their 1994 LP Amplified heart. By 94, the duo of Tracy Thorne and Ben Watt had spent a decade recording sophisticated jazzy albums and singles in America. They'd scored a couple of adult contemporary hits, but no major pop hits in its original form. Missing probably wasn't going to change that. Even in their native UK, the moody single could do no better than 69 until in 1995, everything but the Girl gave the track to American House music producer Todd Terry. I'll bet you've heard this version. Terry's four on the Floor reinvention of Missing topped charts around the world, from Italy to Iceland, Canada to Denmark. Missing Todd Terry remix also became Everything but the Girls only major US pop hit, a number two Hot 100 smash that rode the chart for a then record 55 weeks. Thorne and Watt were so pleased with this success they converted Everything but the Girl into a dance act, later scoring number one hits on Billboard's club chart like 1996's Wrong and 2000's Temperamental. Everything but the Girl weren't the only soft pop act remixing their tracks in the 90s, but those remixes weren't always tailored for the dance floor. Consider the Alaskan folky turned torch balladeer Jewel. When it was issued on her 1995 album Pieces of youf Jules, yous Were Meant For Me sounded like this. More than a year later, when Atlantic Records decided you Were Meant For Me should be a single, they first tried having it remixed by producer Juan Patino into something a little rockier.

[Benjamin Frisch]

You were meant for me and I was meant for you.

[Chris Melanfy]

When that didn't catch on, Atlantic sent Jewel back into the studio to record you Were Meant For Me again. The final version, which you're now likeliest to hear on AC radio to this day, is not radically different from her original album cut, just a bit poppier and brighter. This finally got Meant for me to number two on the Hot 100. Atlantic and Jewel then pulled the same gambit with another Pieces of youf deep cut called Foolish Games, which, as we discussed in our B Sides episode, was originally the supporting track on the youe Were Meant For Me single.

[Benjamin Frisch]

Games Are Tearing Me Apart.

[Chris Melanfy]

Again. As with Meant For Me, the re recording of Foolish Games didn't turn it into a banger, it simply upped the drama and made it a little radio friendlier. The remixed Foolish Games reached number seven in late 1997, more than two and a half years after Jewel's Pieces of youf album came out.

[Benjamin Frisch]

These foolish games are tearing me apart.

[Chris Melanfy]

What this also meant, however, was that the 12 million people who bought the pieces of UCD were getting versions of Jules hits that weren't the ones they were hearing on the radio. Of course, in the world of rap, special remixes unavailable on an album were a badge of honor. And nobody wore that badge more proudly than the man then known as Puff Dead.

[Guest or Additional Contributor]

Here comes the brand new flavor in your ear Time for new flavor in.

[Chris Melanfy]

Your ear Flava in your ear was a loping 1994 hit for Bronx rapper Craig Mack, produced by Sean Combs, who again went by Puff Daddy back then. By October, Flava had peaked at number 16 on the Hot 108 on the R and B chart and was starting to slip. But Puffy would not take that lying down. For the remix of Flava in your Ear, Puffy brought in a hip hop army. His newest rapper for Bad Boy records, Christopher Wallace, aka the Notorious B.I.G. plus, LL Cool J, Rampage, Busta Rhymes and oh yeah, Craig Mac, who was nominally still the lead artist, dropped just days after the single had seemingly peaked on the charts. The Flava remix literally turned the track around, sending it back up to new peaks of four R&B and number nine pop in November of 94. Thanks to that remix, Flava in Ya Ear went platinum, not least because it was the only way fans could own the track. It would not appear on a Bad Boy album for a decade. Puff Daddy rode this insta remix gambit to chart success multiple times. For example, he turned a notorious BIG Deep cut called One More Chance from this. To this smash version with guest vocal vocalists Faith Evans and Mary J. Blige. A number one R B, number two hit in 1995. Once he started rapping himself, Puffy would even rethink his own tracks often. Fundamentally, 1997's It's All about the Benjamins started as a rap posse cut with Puffy, Biggie, Lil Kim and rap troop the Locks. But then Combs rebooted it as a rock saw, an uber posse cut that included all of those original original rappers plus rockers Tommy Stinson, Fuzz Bubble, Rob Zombie, and on drums, Foo Fighters, Dave Grohl. It was the George Michael monkey gambit on steroids. A so called remix that was not just a self cover, not just a Jewel style freshening up, but a top to bottom overhaul. The Sean Combs philosophy, basically that anything could be a remix became coin of the realm on the charts as the 21st century approached. As influential as Puffy was on the trajectory of the remix, however, this concept would reach full flower not on one of his productions, but on the music of a woman he began dating in 1999. A dancer and actress who was now launching a singing career. Sean Combs actually produced a track on her debut album called Feelin so Good. It would be the first and last time Puffy produced a single for his then girlfriend, Jennifer Lopez. There were rappers on Feelin so good, the MCs, Fat Joe and Big Punisher, But this was an amuse Bouche for what look Lopez would do just a couple of years later. When we come back, the rechristened JLo1 ups Puffy with an even more brazen remix and forces the hands of the Billboard umpires. Non Slate plus listeners will hear the rest of this episode in two weeks. For now, I hope you've been enjoying this episode of Hit Parade. Our show was written, edited and narrated by Chris Melanfy. That's me. My producer this month is Benjamin Frisch, and we also had help from Rosemary Bellson. June Thomas is the senior Managing producer and Alicia Montgomery, the executive producer of Slate Podcasts. Check out their roster of [e-mail] podcasts. You can subscribe to Hit Parade wherever you get your podcasts, in addition to finding it in the Slate Culture feed. If you're subscribing on Apple Podcasts, please rate and review us while you're there. It helps other listeners find the show. Thanks for listening and I love look forward to leading the Hit Parade back your way. We'll see you for part two in a couple of weeks. Until then, keep on marching on the one. I'm Chris Melany.