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Hit Parade: We Invented the Remix Part 2

Slate Daily Feed

Slate Podcasts

News, Business, Society & Culture

41.1K Ratings

🗓️ 25 February 2022

⏱️ 61 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Today on Hit Parade, we continue tracing the history of the remix. From Jennifer Lopez to Billie Eilish to Lil Nas X, the remix has become a ubiquitous part of contemporary pop chart battles. In part 2 we continue to story of how the remix became the defacto mode of reviving flagging singles, resulting in some of the most dominant pop songs of all time. Sign up for Slate Plus now to get episodes in one installment as soon as they're out. You'll also get The Bridge, our trivia show and bonus deep dive. Click here for more info. Podcast production by Benjamin Frisch Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Welcome back to Hit Parade, a podcast of pop chart history from Slate magazine about

0:09.9

the hits from Coast to Coast.

0:11.9

I'm Chris Malanfee, chart analyst, pop critic, and writer of Slate's Why Is This Song Number

0:17.4

One series on our last episode.

0:20.7

I ran down more than three decades of remix history.

0:25.6

How DJs and producers went from extending tracks for dance floor ecstasy to reinventing

0:32.8

them from the ground up.

0:35.2

We are now at the turn of the millennium, and a dancer turned actress turned singer is

0:42.1

about to score a chart topper so radically rethought she will change the rules of the remix.

0:55.4

On her very first album, 1999's On the Six, Jennifer Lopez and her team at Sony Music

1:04.8

aimed her singles at multiple audiences.

1:08.8

For example, waiting for tonight, a Latin house banger, was serviced not just to top 40

1:16.5

radio stations, but also Spanish language stations in a version called Un Anoce Mas, and

1:24.7

to club DJs in a remix by house producer Hex Hector.

1:40.3

The Hex Hector remix was actually a hit first, topping Billboard's club play chart more

1:47.5

than a month before the pop version peaked at number eight on the hot 100.

1:53.8

From Lopez even recut the waiting for tonight video with Hex Hector's version to reinforce

2:01.0

her club credentials and keep the track fresh.

2:12.4

All this was Child's Play compared to the promotional blitz that greeted Jennifer Lopez's

2:19.5

second album, 2001's J-Lo.

2:23.4

By the way, the disc that permanently established that well-known nickname.

2:29.1

Lopez's management wanted to affirm her as a queen of all media, so Sony Music dropped

...

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