What are some good remixes of popular (that is, good) songs? Ones that make you think, "Wow, this rules."

I just heard a sample of a dancish remix of Nirvana's Smells like Teen Spirit (by the Warp Brothers), so I have to get that.

My contribution:

• Warp Brothers - Smells like Teen Spirit (Nirvana)

• 16 Horsepower - Sinnerman (Unknown)

• The both of the Scala remix CDs - On The Rocks and On The Rocks: Dream On

• Scala - With or Without You (U2)

• Scala - Engel (Rammstien)

• Orgy - Blue Monday (New Order)

What is a remx?

The are all crap, the recipe is:
1. Take a popular good song.
2. Add a techno drum and a buffoon who says "cool" things once in a while.
3. If budget permits it, add a girl who says something childish & sexy (yes they try to combine it) once in a while.

So my answer to your question is: none.

Not remix, but great: Daft Punk - Discovery.

I completely agree with Kent. There is no such thing as a good remix. There are exceptions of course, but they are extremely rare, like for example that Depeche Mode remix album (Enjoy The Silence is good).

I disagree. There are many good covers (which really is the same thing as a remix in my book).

Try anything by Gregorian.

I like Thuderdome Megamix but I think it is not exactly a remix in the sense OP meant.
Also I doubt a lot of people would like it.

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Actually I think it might have been called something else. Unfortunately I can't check right now because I don't have it at work.

It's quite funny actualy. I have 24cd's of their music but not the one song I like best

Do we count the various hundreds of A vs B remixes that seem to have slightly fizzled out recently? If so then surely credits have to go to the usual suspects, e.g. Eminem (The Real Slim Shady) vs Fatboy Slim (Rockafella Skank), The Black Album (not the Metallica one, obviously), probably even the Richard X Gary Numan/Adina Howard thing that the Sugababes redid.

Starcraft - Metallica - One (NIN War Remix).mp3 (Excellent one)
Starcraft Comedy - Kerrigan Having Sex With Duke.mp3

It is hard to call the second a remix but it is nice, mostly zerg death sounds, and Kerrigan's:P

Listen to any of the Scala ones. It's a girls choir and piano singing things like Engel. With or Without You (originally by U2) is beautiful.

So it's the Langley Schools Music Project as an explicitly commercial effort?

I don't know who that is. But after a quick google, I think it's still safe to say that I prefer to the Red Hot Chilli Peppers (Scala) to the Beach Boys (Langley).

But those aren't even real songs...

Another one:

• Universal Hall Pass - Ring of Fire (She has such a pretty voice...)

Sido - Weihnachtssong
Fler - NDW

German, but great!!!

Of course the Langley Schools Music Project record has a serious disadvantage with respect to being able to cover Red Hot Chilli Peppers songs in that it was recorded in the 1970s. Then sold only to parents of the children, it didn't make it to national distribution until "discovered" in 2001. They also do David Bowie, Paul McCartney, The Carpenters (yuck!), The Beatles, The Eagles and the Bay City Rollers among others.

Aha, so you like little girls! And even admit it in public.

Unless it's "I'm Afraid of Americans," I think we have pretty different musical tastes.

I so want to provide some previews, but I can't find them anywhere. The only real option I have is cutting and encoding some 30-second clips. But that's a somewhat decent amount of work.

Oh baby! Though, they don't look that terribly young.

OOOCCCCCCRRREEEMIIXXX

Look for Weird Al's stuff, usually nice.
Check also Wyclef Jean

RemixFactory vs Starcraft
EDIT: And like FMC said - Weird Al Yankowich

Yeah, but most of them suck (no, not all). And that's only game-related.

That's parodies not covers though.

Gosh, looks like I'm the only one who knows of any on this forum.

Oh, no, I remembered my favourite remix of all time! It is of course the Two Lone Swordsmen remix (vocal version) of United by Throbbing Gristle. It always sticks in my head.

The Phones Disco Edit of Banquet by Bloc Party is also very good but only because it is pretty much identical to the original but for a slight extra beat over the vocals. And there is a remix of Y Control by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs that I've heard in clubs a few times but I've no idea who did it.

Hehe, my last post rimes badly with my sig. Of course there are some good ones, I just thought of all the non-techno -> techno conversions which seems to pop up everywhere. They play Crazy Frog in clubs now days, it really says a lot about what people are "supposed" to like.

It also says that you either live in a small area or have been going to the wrong clubs! Anything with cheese or even a cheese dedicated night is to be avoided like the plague.

Labeling all electronic music under techno shows great ignorance and lack of exposure to post early-90's electronic music.

What once was House (including subgenres like Dance),is these days called 'Electronica' by the marketing thugs. I guess they couldn't live with trying to sell music that was invented by gay people and had to coin a new name.

Yep. Definite lack of exposure here. Handbag (aka Eurodance) has been out of the picture for a decade now. Even Aqua. (good riddance!)

Usually the non-electronic->electronic conversions are pretty much crap, You can't polish a turd, as they say.

Some real good remixes (as in remixes that transform an originally good song into something extraordinarily great) are:
Madison Avenue - Everything You Need -> Mobin Master 12" Remix
Energy 52 - Cafe Del Mar -> Hybrid's Time Traveller Mix & John '00' Fleming Remix
Juno Reactor - Pistolero -> Headrillaz 'Sandinista' Mix

For future reference, remember the basic classes of electronic music. The examples mentioned are not any definite official examples, they're what i think are something that display the qualities each genre represents.

House - dance, reggaeton, etc - stuff that makes you you just want to dance. stereotypical example: Faihtles - Insomnia
Trance - goa, psytrance, acid, etc - Music that makes you lose track of time, live the music and just dance. It's possible to be at a dance party where the party lasts 8 hours and the music doesn't stop for one split second, and you don't even notice it.
Sterotypical example: (regular) trance: Rank 1 - Beats at Rank-1 Dotcom goa/psy (the more druggier side of things): Astral Projection - Dancing Galaxy
Breakbeat - R'nB, hip-hop, rap, breaks, etc - You all know what these are
Stereotypical example: Do i have to bother?
Jungle and its subgenres - Music that appeals to your basic instincts. Very rhythmic, contageous and primal.
Stereotypical example: Black Sun Empire - Firing Squad
Downbeat - Ambient, chill, etc - In essence, relaxed electronic music, and that's what this music is for - calming your pulse without having to resort to guitars. The difference between ambient and chill is that your mother might buy an ambient cd, chill usually comes as the last track on a trance album.
Stereotypical example: Agnelli & Nelson - Sidewalk Driller
Techno - Detroit, noise, etc - the roughest sibling of house and trance, this is music that is rough, violent and fear-inducing.
sterotypical example: Juno Reactor - Mutant Message
Hardcore - happy hardcore, gabber, etc - Stuff that has the sole purpose to make 40 000 dutch people go up and down at the same time for eight hours straight.
Sterotypical example: Critical Mass - Happy Generation

And let's not forget Ishkur's Guide to Electronic Music

Regarding remixes, I love the Remixes Paul Oakenfold does with some of the U2 songs. On Creamfields (Buenos Aires 2005) he played a Remix of U2 - Vertigo that blew everyone's (40000+ on the stage itself) minds

Ishkur's is good, but opinionated.

I agree, yet it is easy to make the distinction of the music genres. I think he also intended not to be taken too seriously

Yes, but calling some genres shit just because he thinks so is, IMHO, dumb.

With every release he's toned down his opinions, though.

I forgot to mention: Pras - Haven't Found totally 0wns the original, U2 - I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For, even though it's not a remix per se and falls a little out of the scope of this thread. Then again, this is the derail central.

Ha, and on that note, I recently discovered "Come Una Pietra Scalciata" by Articolo 31, which is a hip-hop version of Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" in Spanish that samples the original. Sounds pretty cool/weird.

In theory, yes. In practise, there is a slight difference (although with modern recording technology, it's more a marketing thing than a technical difference). A "remix" is (a part of) the original recording, with extra stuff added, while a "cover" features the original composition, but no original audio material.
Covers I like, let's see:
Los Van Van: "Tim-Pop con Birdland" (featuring the original "Birdland" by Joe Zawinul)
Phil Collins: "Tomorrow Never Knows" (Lennon/McCartney)
Björk: "Like Someone In Love" (Jazz classic; forgot who wrote the tune, shame on me)
Klimax: "Oye Como Va" (Tito Puente, but definitely influenced by the 1970s cover by Santana)
N.G. La Banda: "Longina" (again, don't know who wrote the thing, but it's definitely pretty old, I'd say 1930's or 40's)
Joe Cocker: "With A Little Help From My Friends" (Lennon/McCartney)
Robbie Williams: "A Love Supreme" (basically, "I Will Survive", but altered just enough to avoid copyright issues. Clever boy.)
Cake: "I Will Survive"
Die mächtigen Kassierer: "Das Mädchen von Ipanema" (Garota de Ipanema). Once there was a nice text in Portuguese. Then the composer's wife translated it into English. Then a bunch of drunk Germans translated the English version into German. It's certainly not beautiful, but it's funny as hell.
Manolín "El Médico de la Salsa": "El Puente" (from "El Puente - Live in Miami". Using the Star Wars theme by John Williams).

I like Nightwish's covers of Megade(a)th's Symphony of Destruction (I heard Nightwish's version first, and I have to say I like it better than the original), and Sonata Arctica's Over The Hills and Far Away (never heard the original so I can't compare). Other covers I like:
Alien Ant Farm - Smooth Criminal (originally by Michael Jackson; I like the cover better, but I did hear it first)
Disturbed - Land of Confusion (originally Genesis; which one I like better depends if I'm in the mood for 80s synth or heavy metal)
Disturbed - Shout (originally Tears for Fears; I like the original better, but it's a nice alternative)

Can't think of any others currently...

All Mixed Up - The Cure

An entire album of remixes by the Cure themselves, one of the rare times when remixes out-do the originals.

Not really.

A remix is essentially just a song taken and done again in a different way. There doesn't have to be original audio present. Hell, you can even omit the vocal track if you want and replace it with a cow mooing the same melody, if you want.

A remix can be a cover, or it can be the same track done differently by the original artist, or just one member of the whole group.

It's definition is at best very ambiguous.

Tobias is right.

re·mix
tr.v. re·mixed, re·mix·ing, re·mix·es

To recombine (audio tracks or channels from a recording) to produce a new or modified audio recording: remixed a popular ballad and turned it into a dance hit.

Sonata Arctica has done a version of Over the Hills and Far Away? Are you sure you're not just thinking of Nightwish again?

Don't you fellows realize that that definition is 25 years old and things have changed since then?

Maybe back then it did only mean that. Since, the concept's gone broader. Just compare these three remixes of Energy 52 - Cafe Del Mar: Cosmic Baby's First Impression (the other of the two "originals", there is no such thing as one single original version of Cafe Del mar)), Three'n'One remix and Hybrid's Time Traveller Remix. The only things common between those three are the melodies and chords. There's not one byte of audio preserved from the older tracks. They're entirely new versions, the underlying notes are however the same and identifyable.

These days remixing is like making a cover with much creative freedom. One could say the term 'remix' has grown to include the term 'rearrange'.

It's like telling someone else's story in your own words.

Just because the word is (arguably) bastardized by expanding it to mean much more than what it did 25 years ago, doesn't mean thousands of producers should stop using the word, even if the new broader meaning is what it means to everyone. No, it's the definition of the word that has to expand to reflect the new meaning.

It's one of those electronic music things. We have our own vocabulary for these things,you know?

Did anyone mention Du Hast (starcraft remix)?

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and Matrix II Trance Mix

Hmm.. well, I did a quick Google and found references to 'Sonata Arctica - Over the Hills and Far Away (Nightwish cover)'. Looking at Wikipedia though, it appears Nightwish did a cover of the song after Gary Moore, and the version creditted to Sonata Arctica is actually done by Thyrfing.

Oh, and another cover I like: Zeromancer - Send Me An Angel (originally by Real Life, I think).

miran: check out
duran duran - strangelove (bombthebass remix)
The instrumentals would be good for some quirky starcontrol-esque game

Here's some I can think of off the top of my head (although some may just be songs based off a sample, and not a proper remix)

Kiss AMC - A Bit Of.. (remix of U2's New Year's Day)
Electroset - How does it feel. (remix of New Order's Blue Monday)
Eric B and Rakim - Paid in full (Coldcut remix)
Various Utah Saints songs.

AE.

fuzinavl, Cyber Dogs rules!