A song isn’t necessarily “finished” just because it’s been recorded; any producer will tell you that the mixing is what really makes a record. Subtle tweaks and shifts in emphasis can bring new tones to a recording; a new instrumental backing might place the song in a different context altogether. Smart artists know this, and use remixes to explore differing shades of meaning in their work.

It’s the right strategy for the times. The de-emphasis on The Album as a cohesive whole, as a side-effect of the shift to digital content, means that The Song is again king — creating a climate where, say, LCD Soundsystem can release five radically dissimilar versions of “All My Friends” simultaneously, each with a particular emotional affect, without having to commit to any one of them as the “definitive” version.

It’s liberating for the artist, keeping your options open like that, but it’s a fraught position. There are a lot of choices to make, and things can go wrong as easily as they go right. And these choices are difficult enough for a living artist, still in the process of building a catalog; how much more so, then, for an artist who is no longer with us, and whose extant recordings have become a part of the cultural canon? How do you take something that is already complete, already definitive, and make it new again?

Now take those questions and multiply them by a factor of Johnny. Fucking. Cash.

On Johnny Cash Remixed (Compadre Records), released this week, a number of producers —including Pete Rock, Teddy Riley, and Mocean Worker — tackle what seems like a fool’s errand, not so much by remixing per se; rather, they drop Cash’s vocals into new and diverse musical settings. (more…)