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Single (music)

Single (music)

In music, a single is a short (usually ten minutes or less) record, usually featuring one or two tracks as A-side, often accompanied by several B-sides, usually remixes or other songs. Most singles have only one A-side and are named after this song, but some may have a double A-side (a famous example being Strawberry Fields Forever/Penny Lane by the Beatles), where two tracks are given equal billing in the title of the single. Rarely, a single will not be identical in name to the featured track — such as the Nine Inch Nails single, Closer to God. In the older record format, there was no "track 1" as the disc itself was reversible, so the difference between an A-side and a B-side was one of promotion. CD singles do have a defined ordering of tracks, so that even on a double A-side single, one track has to come first. Some single releases have been released in two different versions, one with each track first (such as Muse's non-album single Dead Star/In Your World or In Your World/Dead Star, or with two CDs with one track each (such as Kent's single FF/VinterNoll2 Records with more than two A-sides are usually not considered singles, but EPs. The lead tracks (and sometimes B-sides) of singles usually come from an album (either one already released or one about to be) and the release of the single is partly to promote sales of the album. Non-album singles are also produced. A typical number of singles to release from an album is two to four — more is considered exceptional. Singles often feature "radio edit" or "single edit" versions of the main song, which differ from the original recording in being edited to an attractive length for radio play, having expletives censored (often by re-recording with different lyrics), or both.

Situations in US and UK

In the United Kingdom before the early 1990s, singles were released to radio and shops on the same day. As radio airplay increased, the single would climb in the chart, reach a peak position, often about a month later, and then slowly drop out of the chart. Since the early 1990s, record companies have released singles to radio months in advance of their commercial release. This saturates the audience in the song, ensuring that it enters the chart with maximum sales. Thus, today's singles debut at their peak position. This trend has led to the common sight of not one single in the UK Top 75 gaining in the chart. Singles also spend less time at #1 and fall down the chart more rapidly, spending less time overall since they never climb to their peak. In addition, while before the 90s, the first single from an album was released several weeks in advance of the album, today singles are typically released one week, or occasionally two weeks, before the album's release. The trend of single sales declining and no singles rising in the chart has been checked by the recent introduction of digital sales in the UK. Some other strategies are employed in the release of lead singles from an album. On occasion, lead singles are released months in advance of the album they appear on. Two examples are Oasis' "Some Might Say" and Pulp's "Help the Aged". Less commonly, two separate singles are released at the same time to promote an album. An example is the simultaneous release of the Manic Street Preachers' "Found That Soul" and "So Why So Sad". In the United States, since the early 1990s, singles have increasingly not been issued commercially at all. While this precluded them from charting on the Hot 100, Billboard magazine recognised the trend and in December 1998 modified the rules to allow airplay-only tracks, which they call album cuts, to chart. Since then, airplay-only singles have frequently topped the chart. However, the former rule disqualified such long-term airplay #1 hits as No Doubt's "Don't Speak" from charting on the Hot 100 at all. Recently, Billboard too has accounted for digital sales in its calculation of single chart positions.

History

Singles have been issued on various formats, including 7-inch, 10-inch and 12-inch vinyl discs (usually playing at 45 rpm); 10-inch shellac discs (playing at 78 rpm); cassette, 3 and 5-inch CD singles and 7-inch plastic flexi discs. Other, less common, formats include singles on digital compact cassette, DVD, and LD, as well as many non-standard sizes of vinyl disc (5", 8", etc.) The sales of singles are recorded in charts in most countries in a Top 40 format. These charts are often published in magazines and numerous television shows and radio programs count down the list. In order to be eligible for inclusion in the charts the single must meet the requirements set by the charting company, usually governing the number of songs and the total playing time of the single. In popular music, the relative commercial and artistic importance of the single (as compared to the EP or album) has varied over time, technological development, and according to the audience of particular artists and genres. Singles have generally been more important to artists who sell to the youngest purchasers of music (younger teenagers and pre-teens), who tend to have more limited financial resources and shorter attention spans. Perhaps the golden age of the single was on "45's" in the 1950s and early 1960s in the early years of rock music; albums became a greater focus as artists like The Beatles and others created albums of uniformly high quality and coherent themes (one of many examples being the concluding medley on Abbey Road), a trend which reached its apex in the development of the concept album. Over the 1980s and 1990s, the single has generally received less and less attention as albums, which on compact disc had virtually identical production and distribution costs but could be sold at a higher price, became most retailers' primary method of selling music. The single became almost exclusively a promotional tool for radio play and to appear on television via the video clip. Dance music, however, has followed a different commercial pattern, and the single, especially the 12-inch vinyl single, remains a major method by which dance music is distributed. As of 2005, the single seems to be undergoing something of a revival. Commercial music download sites reportedly sell mostly single tracks rather than whole albums, and the increase in popularity seems to have rubbed off on physical formats [http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/08/25/1093246622880.html?from=storylhs]. Portable MP3 players, which make it extremely easy to load many songs from different artists and play them, are claimed to be a major factor behind this trend. A related development has been the popularity of mobile phone ringtones based on pop singles (on some modern phones, the actual single can be used as a ringtone). These are reportedly a very lucrative new business for the music industry. In a reversal of the this trend, recently a single has been released based on a ringtone itself. The Crazy Frog ringtone, which had become a cult hit in Europe in 2004, was released as a mashup with Axel F in June 2005 amid a massive publicity campaign and subsequently hit #1 on the UK charts.

Video singles

In relation to music singles, the industry has released music videos as singles as well. Originally released on very short VHS cassettes (T-15), these eventually were released on LaserDisc as LD-singles (18 cm or 8" format, instead of the full 1'/12"/30 cm LD), and on cDVD as DVD-singles (8 cm or 3" format, instead of the full 12 cm/5.25" DVD).

Track

The word track can have different meanings:
- a railroad track: see rail tracks
- a trail, informal road or pathway
- a copper trace or line on a PCB
- a distinct section (mostly on song) of a sound recording, such as a gramophone record, compact disc, audio cassette and other recording media.
- a circular segment of a hard disk or other storage media
- caterpillar tracks, the large (modular) tracks used on tanks and certain other off-road vehicles or such vehicles themselves (combat vehicles and bulldozers and some excavators.)
- a course laid out for running or racing, commonly oval-shaped, see
- Race track
- track and field
- :Category:Horse racing venues
- :Category:Racing venues
- the measured distance between right and left side wheels of a vehicle, as opposed to wheelbase
- in particle physics, a track is the reconstruction of the path of a charged particle from signals recorded in a detector.
- in film and television production, 'track' has two meanings:
- an instruction given by a film director or television director to move a camera towards or away from the subject it is recording, or
- the equipment used by to create a temporary set of rails on which a Camera Dolly can run to move the camera smoothly (see grip (job)).

A-Side

In recorded music, the terms A-side and B-side refer to the two sides of 7 inch vinyl records on which singles have been released since the 1950s. The terms have come to refer to the types of song conventionally placed on each side of the record, with the A-side being the featured song (the one that the record producer hopes will receive radio airplay and become a "hit"), while the B-side, or "flipside," is secondary.

History

In the era of the 78 rpm shellac records A-sides and B-sides existed, but for the most part radio stations would play either side of the record, and records often had more than one track per side. The "side" did not convey anything about the content of the record. The terms came into popular use with the advent of 45 rpm vinyl records in the early 1950s. It became conventional to release "singles" containing two songs, one on each side of the record. At first, most record labels would randomly assign which song would be an A-side and which would be a B-side. Because of this, many artists had so-called "double-sided hits", where both songs on a record made one of the national sales charts (in Billboard, Cashbox or other magazines), or would be featured on jukeboxes in public places. As time wore on, however, the convention for assigning songs to sides of the record changed. Generally, the song on the A-side was the song that the record company wanted radio stations to play. By the mid-1970s double-sided singles had become rare. Album sales had increased, and B-sides had become the side of the record where non-album tracks or inferior recordings were placed. With the advent of cassette and compact disc singles in the late 1980s, the A side/B side differentiation became much less meaningful. At first cassette singles would often have one song on each side of the cassette, matching the arrangement of vinyl records, but eventually cassette maxi-singles, containing more than two songs, became more popular. With the decline of cassette singles in the 1990s, the A-side/B-side dichotomy became virtually extinct, as the remaining dominant medium, the compact disc, lacks an equivalent physical distinction. However, the term B-side is still frequently used to refer to the "bonus" tracks on a CD single.

Significance

B-side songs are released on the same record as a single to provide extra "value for money". There are several types of material commonly released in this way:
- a different (e.g., instrumental, a capella, acoustic, or remixed) version of the A-side
- another song from the same album, which the record company does not want to release on its own
- a song not considered good enough for the album
- a song that was stylistically unsuitable for the album Since both sides of a single received equal royalties some composers deliberately arranged for their songs to be used as the B-sides of singles by popular artists, thereby making a fortune literally off the back of the A-side. This became known as the "flipside racket". On a few occasions, the B-side became the more popular song. This was usually because a DJ preferred the B-side to its A-side and played it instead. Then the B-side would in a sense become the A-side, by virtue of being the preferred side. Examples:
- Oasis - Some Might Say/Acqueisce
- Gary Glitter - Rock and Roll Part 1/Rock and Roll Part 2
- Salt-N-Pepa - Tramp/Push It
- Gene Vincent - Woman Love/Be-Bop-A-Lula
- Cliff Richard - Schoolboy Crush/Move It
- Kylie Minogue - Giving You Up / Made Of Glass (became a massive hit in Australia)
- Kraftwerk - Computer Love/The Model
- Garbage - Subhuman / #1 Crush (became a Modern Rock #1 when remixed later)
- Rod Stewart - Reason To Believe/Maggie May
- The Living End - Second Solution/ Prisoner of Society
- XTC - Grass/Dear God
- Feeder - Seven Days In The Sun/Just A Day and Tumble And Fall/Shatter
- The Smiths - William It Was Really Nothing/ Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want & How Soon Is Now? (Also, in the case of How Soon Is Now", it was later released as its very own single) Even more rarely, both sides of the single would become hits. This feat was done repeatedly by some artists. Examples:
- Elvis Presley - Don't Be Cruel/Hound Dog
- The Beatles - Penny Lane/Strawberry Fields Forever
- Fats Domino - I Wanna Walk You Home/Walking To New Orleans
- Creedence Clearwater Revival - Down On The Corner/Fortunate Son
- Richie Valens - Donna/La Bamba
- Queen - We Are The Champions/We Will Rock You
- Feeder - Seven Days In The Sun/Just A Day and Tumble And Fall/Shatter
- The Beatles - Day Tripper/We Can Work It Out
- The Beatles - Hey Jude/Revolution
- The Beatles - Hello, Goodbye/I Am The Walrus
- The Beatles - Something/Come Together The flip side of a single does not necessarily contain B-side material. A single containing two songs of normal quality is referred to as a "double A-side". In reference to this convention, Marvin the Paranoid Android released a "double B-side" single in 1981. In rare occasions there are even triple A-side singles, such as "What Becomes Of The Broken Hearted"/"You'll Never Walk Alone"/"Saturday Night At The Movies", the 1996 triple A-side #1 UK single by Robson and Jerome. On some reissued singles the A- and B-sides are by completely different artists, or two songs from different albums that would not normally have been released together. These were sometimes made for jukeboxes, as one record with two popular songs on it would make more money.

Other types of non-primary sound recording

B-sides are different from unreleased material, outtakes and demos. Unreleased material, for obvious reasons, usually doesn't see the light of day. On rare occasions, particularly for reissues, these songs are in fact placed on albums, often with that description after it. In an extreme case, singer Moby's DVD titled "18 B-Sides and DVD" featured 21 of them. Outtakes are songs recorded for an album but, either for technical or artistic purposes, not included in the released album. They occasionally appear on reissues of albums, billed as "bonus tracks". Georgia group REM's album titled "Dead Letter Office", for example, is largely a collection of outtakes from their previous albums. Demos are early versions of songs which, like "unreleased material", seldom see the light of day. Demos of songs often have additional or alternative verses. Often more demos than full songs are recorded, as an artist goes back and retools what is already present. Singers Moby, Prince, and Billy Corgan of now-defunct group Smashing Pumpkins are rumored to have large personal collections of demos. On occasion, artists release albums of compiled B-sides and rare tracks, making it easier for fans to listen to new and unheard material from discontinued singles. Nirvana's Incesticide and The Smashing Pumpkins' Pisces Iscariot are examples, as are the "Switched-On" series of compilations by Stereolab. In 2004, Feeder released Picture Of Perfect Youth, a limited edition album which contained 36 b-sides across two CDs.

B-side collections

- Anthrax - Attack of the Killer B's (1991)
- Broken Social Scene - Bee Hives (2003)
- Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - B-Sides and Rarities (2005)
- The Cure - Join the Dots: B-Sides and Rarities, 1978-2001 [Boxset] (2004)
- Def Leppard - Retro Active (1993)
- Feeder - Picture Of Perfect Youth (2004)
- Five Iron Frenzy - Cheeses...(of Nazareth) (2003)
- Fountains of Wayne - Out of State Plates (2005)
- Gorillaz - G-Sides (2001)
- Green Day - Shenanigans (2002)
- James - Ultra (2001)
- Kent - B-Sidor 95-00 (2000)
- Less Than Jake - B is for B-Sides (2004)
- Manic Street Preachers - Lipstick Traces (2003)
- Moby - Play: The B Sides (2001)
- Moby - 18 B-Sides (2004) (most of the b-sides from album 18)
- Morphine - B-Sides and Otherwise (1997)
- Muse - Hullabaloo (2001)
- Nirvana - Incesticide (1992)
- Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - B-Sides and Rarities (2005)
- NOFX - 45 or 46 Songs That Weren't Good Enough to Go on Our Other Records (2002)
- Oasis - The Masterplan (1998)
- Ocean Colour Scene - B-sides, Seasides and Freerides (1997)
- OMD - Navigation - The B-Sides (2001)
- Pearl Jam - Lost Dogs (2003)
- Pet Shop Boys - Alternative (1995)
- Pixies - Complete B-Sides (2001)
- Shihad - B-Sides (1996)
- Skinny Puppy - B-Sides Collect (1999)
- Smashing Pumpkins - Pisces Iscariot (1994)
- Smashing Pumpkins - Judas O (2001) (limited edition bonus CD to Rotten Apples; a collection of B-sides meant to "sequel" Pisces Iscariot)
- Something for Kate - Phantom Limbs - Selected B Sides (2004)
- Suede - Sci-Fi Lullabies (1997)
- Tears for Fears - Saturnine Martial & Lunatic (1996)
- They Might Be Giants - Miscellaneous T (1991)
- They Might Be Giants - They Got Lost (2002)
- XTC - Beeswax: Some B-Sides 1977-1982 (1982)

Albums featuring extensive b-sides

- New Order - Substance (1987)
- The Smiths - The World Won't Listen (1987)
- The Smiths - Louder Than Bombs (1987)
- Prince - The Hits/The B-Sides (1993)
- Sarah McLachlan - Rarities, B-Sides and Other Stuff (1996)
- U2 - The Best of 1980-1990: Limited Edition (1998)
- Cowboy Junkies - Rarities, B-Sides and Slow, Sad Waltzes (1999)
- U2 - The Best of 1990-2000: Limited Edition (2002)
- Ash - Intergalactic Sonic 7s (incl Bonus CD Cosmic Debris) (2002)
- Mansun - Kleptomania (2004)
- Morrissey - You Are the Quarry: Deluxe Edition (2004)
- Nine Inch Nails - The Downward Spiral: Deluxe Edition (2004)
- Weezer - Weezer Deluxe Edition
- Korn - "See You On The Other Side (Special Edition)" (2005)
- Slipknot - "Slipknot (Digipak)" (2000)
- Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers - Playback (1995) Category:Audio storage

B-side

History

Significance

Other types of non-primary sound recording

B-side collections

Albums featuring extensive b-sides

Remix

A remix is an alternate mix of a song different from the original version, made using the techniques of audio editing. It may incorporate elements of dance music. It is often used to create an upbeat version of a song for playing by disc jockeys in nightclubs. Normally it is based on a musical theme (music) of the original song, but often introduces new themes, resulting in a piece that is inherently more complex.

Roots of the remix

Since the beginnings of recorded sound in the late 19th century, certain people have enjoyed the ability to rearrange the normal listening experience with technology. With the advent of easily editable magnetic tape in the 1940s and 1950s, such alterations became more common. In those decades the experimental genre of musique concrète used tape loops of music and environmental sounds to create sound compositions that were the forerunners of electronic music. Less artistically lofty edits produced medleys or novelty recordings of various types. Modern remixing had its roots in the dance hall culture of late-1960s/early-1970s Jamaica. The fluid evolution of music that encompassed ska, rocksteady, reggae and dub was embraced by local mixing wizards who deconstructed and rebuilt tracks to suit the tastes of their audience. In particular, producers and DJs like Ruddy Redwood, King Tubby and Scientist, and Lee "Scratch" Perry popularized stripped-down instrumental mixes (which they called "versions") of ska tunes using simple four-track mixing machines. At first they simply dropped the vocal tracks, but soon more sophisticated effects were created, dropping separate instrumental tracks into and out of the mix, isolating and repeating hooks, and adding echo effects. At the same time, DJs in New York City were performing similar tricks with disco songs (using loops and tape edits) to get dancers on the floor and keep them there. Tom Moulton invented the 12-inch single vinyl format to allow for punchier sound and greater length. Walter Gibbons remixed the first commercial 12-inch single ("10 Percent", by Double Exposure), and one of the most successful early American remixes, "Doin' the Best That I Can" by Betty Lavette. In the mid-1970s, the Jamaican and Bronx remix cultures met, energizing both. Key figures included Kool DJ Herc and DJ Grandmaster Flash. Cutting (alternating between duplicate copies of the same record) and scratching (manually moving the vinyl record beneath the turntable needle) became part of the culture, creating what Slate magazine called "real-time, live-action collage". One of the first mainstream successes of this style of remix was the 1983 track "Rockit" by Herbie Hancock, as remixed by Grand Mixer D.ST.

Remix Services

With the proliferation of 12" singles, many of which were not friendly to beatmix with, DJ's started to laboriously edit songs by splicing reel-to-reel tape, making their own exclusive versions. Beginning in 1977 with Disconet, the remix service was born. These companies gathered DJs and producers together to create monthly promotional only compilation albums containing re-edits, remixes, or medleys to give DJ's an advantage. Over the years the mixes have varied from simple edits, adding a mixable intro and outro to a song, to full fledged multi-track remixes that barely resemble the original track. Some remix services have focused on a specific style of music (say hip-hop or rock) or type of remix (such as house mixes of pop hits). As of 2005 there have been over 50 official remix services worldwide with at least as many spinoffs, although most of these companies (including Disconet) have long since folded due to financial or legal reasons. All remix services are required to get the original record label or artists permission to edit and release a track, but many bootleg services exist that do not (On-USound, Go Girl!, Blank, etc). As most of these companies required a DJ subscription agreement to buy the records or CD's and each issue is usually limited in quantity from 100 to several thousand, many of these compilations have become sought after collectors items. Once in awhile a remix service version of a song is released commercially by the artist's record label, hence the occasional Ultimix on an CD or CD single, but 99% of remix service mixes are sold only to DJ's on the compilations. Some of these companies helped launch the careers of well known remixers/producers. Chris Cox (formerly of Thunderpuss) worked for Hot Tracks, Armand Van Helden did mixes for Mega-Mixx and X-Mix, and Ben Liebrand did tons of work for DMC. A few companies have also developed their own commerical record labels to release new tracks. It should also be noted that the UK based DMC remix service probably has the most members in the world, with offices in nearly every country, and that they sponsor the yearly World DJ Championships as well as releasing many commercial compilations. Some of the better known remix services (all US based unless stated):
- Ace DJ -- Australia, closed
- Art Of Mix -- closed
- Disconet -- closed
- Discotech -- closed
- DMC (Disco Mix Club) -- UK, 1983 to present
- Hot Tracks and spinoffs (Street Tracks, NRG for the 90's, Roadkill, Hot Classics, etc)-- 1982 to present
- Mixx-It -- closed
- Method Mix -- (Method Mix, Country Rhythm) 2000 to present
- Music Factory Mastermix -- UK, 1985 to present
- Powerhouse -- closed
- Prime Cuts -- closed
- Razormaid and many spinoffs -- 1983 to present
- Remixed Records -- Sweden, mid 80's to present
- Rhythm Stick -- closed
- Ultimix and spinoffs (Funkymix, Looking Back, Rampage) -- 1985 to present
- X-Mix and spinoffs (X-Mix Urban, Club Classics, etc) -- early 90's to present

Megamixes

A megamix is a remix containing multiple songs, often in rapid succession. They can consist of single artist megamixes (just Madonna songs, etc) or multiple artists. Some may follow a theme as well (Christmas, only songs that have "queen" in the title, only David Morales mixes, etc). Often megamixes are also called medleys. Ultimix is the most well-known for these, producing several megamixes every year based on popular songs of the year ("flashback medleys") as well as some single artists megamixes. The UK based DMC and Music Factory Mastermix remix services also do a lot of megamixes. Megamixes are also commonly found on commercial releases, sometimes using the same mix previously released to DJ's on a remix service. Duran Duran even created a "megamix" single called "Burning The Ground" using snippets from their own hits for the 1990 greatest-hits album Decade: Greatest Hits.

Pop and dance music

Early pop remixes were fairly simple; in the 1980s, "extended mixes" of songs were released to clubs and commercial outlets on 12-inch vinyl singles. These typically had a duration of 6 to 7 minutes, and often consisted of the original song with 8 or 16 bars of instruments inserted, often after the second chorus; some were as simplistic as two copies of the song stitched end to end. As the cost and availability of new technologies allowed, many of the bands who were involved in their own production (such as Depeche Mode and Duran Duran) experimented with more intricate versions of the extended mix. Madonna began her career writing music for dance clubs and used remixes extensively to propel her career; one of her early boyfriends was noted DJ John Jellybean Benitez, who created several memorable mixes of her work. The Art of Noise took the remix styles to an extreme -- creating new music entirely using samples. After the rise of dance music in the late 1980s, a new form of remix was popularised, where the vocals would be kept and the instruments would be replaced, often with matching backing in the house music or Hi-NRG idiom. The art of the remix gradually evolved, and soon avant-garde artists such as Aphex Twin were creating more experimental remixes of songs, which varied radically from their original sound and yet were not guided by pragmatic considerations such as sales or danceability. In the 1990s, with the rise of powerful home computers with audio capabilities came the mash-up, an unsolicited, unofficial (and often legally dubious) remix created by editing two or more recordings (often of wildly different songs) together. This method is more difficult to work with, because clean copies of separated tracks such as vocals or individual instruments are usually not available to the public. Some artists (such as Björk and Public Enemy) embraced this trend and outspokenly sanctioned fan remixing of their work; there was once a web site which hosted dozens of unofficial remixes of Björk's songs, all made using only various officially-sanctioned mixes.

Industrial music

Remixing has become very prevalent in heavily synthesized electronic and experimental music cirles. Many of the people who create cutting edge music in such genres as darkwave, synthpop, elektro, and EBM are solo artists or pairs. They will often use remixers to help them with skills or equipment that they do not have. Artists such as Delobbo and DJ Ram are sought out for their remixing skill and have impressive lists of collaborations, yet no solo albums. It is not uncommon for industrial bands to release albums which have half the songs as remixes. Indeed, there have been popular singles that have been expanded to an entire album of remixes by other well-known artists. Some industrial groups allow, and oftentime, encourage their fans to remix their music, notably Nine Inch Nails, whose website contains a list of downloadable songs that can be remixed using Apple Computer's GarageBand software.

Hip-hop and rap

In addition to dance remixes, many R&B, pop, and rap artists use remixes and alternate versions of songs with "featured" guest stars, in order to give them new life, or to make them a hit if they're failing. On January 5, 2002, J To Tha L-O! by Jennifer Lopez became the first remix album to debut at the #1 spot on Billboard's Top 200 albums chart.

Influential 1990s and 2000s Remix Producers (Remixers)

- Above & Beyond
- Almighty
- ATB
- AtJazz
- Basement Boys
- Bini & Martini
- BT
- Victor Calderone
- Coldcut
- D-Code
- M.J. Cole
- Dan-O-Rama (influential producer of music video remixes)
- Dave Jonsen (primarily in the hip-hop genre)
- DJ Screw
- DJ MadMethod
- DJ Tiesto
- Boris Dlugosch
- Fatboy Slim
- Full Intention
- Hex Hector
- Masters At Work
- Maurice Joshua
- François Kevorkian
- Eric Kupper
- David Morales
- Mousse T.
- Joey Negro
- The Neptunes
- Shep Pettibone
- Roger Sanchez
- Spen & Karizma
- Stonebridge
- The Trackmasters
- Thunderpuss
- Timbaland
- Armand Van Helden
- Junior Vasquez
- DJ Aakash

Examples of Popular Hip-Hop and R&B Remixes

- Eric B. & Rakim - Paid in Full - remixed by Coldcut (In the history of Hip-Hop Remix, THE Classic)
- Beyonce - "Naughty Girl" (featuring Lil' Flip)
- Busta Rhymes - "Make It Clap" (featuring Sean Paul)
- Busta Rhymes - "Pass The Courvoissier" (Part II) (featuring P. Diddy and Pharrell)
- Chingy - "Right Thurr" (featuring Trina and Jermaine Dupri)
- Destiny's Child - "Bootylicious" (featuring Missy Elliott & Timbaland)
- Destiny's Child - "Survivor" (featuring Da Brat)
- Jennifer Lopez - "Ain't It Funny" (featuring Ja Rule)
- Jennifer Lopez - "Baby I Luv U" (featuring R. Kelly)
- Jennifer Lopez - "I'm Real" (featuring Ja Rule)
- Jessica Simpson - "Irresistible" (featuring Lil' Bow Wow)
- Joe - "Stutter" (featuring Mystikal)
- Lil Kim - "Not Tonight (Ladies Night)" (featuring Angie Martinez, Da Brat, Left Eye, and Missy Elliott)
- Mariah Carey - "Heartbreaker" (featuring Da Brat & Missy Elliott)
- Mariah Carey - "Honey" (featuring P. Diddy, Mase, & The Lox)
- Mariah Carey - "Thank God I Found You/Make It Last Forever" (featuring Joe & Nas)
- Michael Jackson - "Butterflies" (featuring Eve)
- Notorious B.I.G. - "One More Chance" (featuring P. Diddy, Total, Aaliyah, Mary J. Blige, Faith Evans)
- R. Kelly - "Fiesta" (featuring Jay-Z) Beyonce's "Naughty Girl" is the newest on the list. As it's currently receiving heavy radio play, urban stations favor the remix while pop and dance stations favor the original, Lil' Flip-less version. The rest of the songs received more radio play in their remixed form than in the original. The most obvious example of this is in "I'm Real" and "Ain't It Funny"; both songs only managed very minor success, and only on mainstream radio stations, in their original forms. Once the remixes were released, the songs both fared extremely well not only on mainstream radio but also on rhythmic and urban contemporary stations. Each song became a multiple-week number one at radio, based almost entirely on the strength of its remix. The videos for the original versions of "I'm Real" and "Ain't It Funny" each briefly registered on MTV and VH1 in America. But the remix videos brought them into heavy rotation on MTV, as well as major play on MTV2, BET, and MTV Jams. There is no music video for the original versions of "Fiesta", "Not Tonight", "One More Chance", or "Pass The Courvoissier". On the other hand, no video exists for the remix versions of "Baby I Luv U" or "Naughty Girl". No video exists for "Butterflies" at all. However, all other listed songs have videos for both their original and remix versions.

Examples of Popular Dance Remixes

- Deborah Cox - "I Never Knew"
- Deborah Cox - "Nobody's Supposed To Be Here"
- Deborah Cox - "It's Over Now"
- Deborah Cox - "Something Happened On The Way To Heaven"
- Deborah Cox - "Things Just Ain't The Same"
- Dalida - "Salma Ya Salama"
- DNA - "Tom's Diner" (featuring Suzanne Vega)
- Enrique Iglesias - "Hero"
- Everything But The Girl - "Missing"
- Jennifer Lopez - "Waiting For Tonight" [ Hex Hector Remix]
- Madonna - "Don't Cry For Me Argentina" [Miami Mix]
- Madonna - "What It Feels Like For A Girl" [ Above & Beyond Mix]
- Moby - "Southside" (featuring Gwen Stefani)
- Tamia - "Stranger In My House" [ Thunderpuss Mix]
- Toni Braxton - "Unbreak My Heart"
- Whitney Houston - "It's Not Right, But It's OK" [ Thunderpuss Mix]
- Whitney Houston - "My Love Is Your Love" [ Thunderpuss Mix] Most of the above hip-hop and dance remixes received far more radio airplay than their original versions did. All of the rap remixes that have music videos outperformed the original videos (if they existed at all) on MTV, MTV2, and BET. Several of the dance remixes that had videos also performed as well if not better than their original versions, especially on MTV2, which has had dance-themed programs and video blocks. The video remix for "Missing" was the one most often seen, even on MTV and VH1, since it was the version most often heard on the radio. The remixes of "Hero" and "Waiting For Tonight" got substantial play on MTV2's dance-themed programs, whereas their original videos did not receive much play from the channel. Even regular MTV gave both remix videos about equal attention as their originals, which were more successful at radio. VH1 stuck with the original, pop versions of both. The "Southside" and "What It Feels Like For A Girl" videos were released only in remixed form. On the other hand, "Stranger In My House" and "Don't Cry For Me Argentina" exist as videos only in their slower, original forms, even despite the fact that both songs' dance remixes far outperformed their originals on American radio. "I Never Knew" and "Something Happened On The Way To Heaven" do not have music videos in any version. Most of the above hip-hop remixes arose either from the need for a poppy R&B singer to add more of an urban, rap edge to one of their slower R&B songs, or from the need for a rapper to gain more pop appeal by getting an R&B singer to sing some lines here and there. When a song by a solo artist does not take off, the hip-hop crowd understands that the majority of successful hip-hop songs include a combination of rapping and singing, usually being done by at least two different artists. So, when a song by a solo artist, whether a popular rapper or a singer, fails to catch on, the remix is usually relied on to give the song a second chance. In the case of the above dance remixes, many are slow ballads and R&B songs that were remixed by techno producers and DJ's in order to give the song appeal to the club scene and to rhythmic radio. Up-tempo, dance-oriented songs tend to perform better than slow songs on mainstream American radio as well. So, whether a slower R&B song is remixed as a dance song or a hip-hop song (or, as in the case of Mariah Carey's "I Still Believe", both), it usually increases the song's chances for success on not just one but usually on multiple radio formats and with multiple audiences. See also: Cover version, Bastard pop

Broader context

In a larger sense, remixing can be seen as a major conceptual leap: making music on a meta-structural level, drawing together and making sense of a much larger body of information by threading a continuous narrative through it. This is what begins to emerge very early in the hiphop tradition in works such as Grandmaster Flash's pioneering mix recording Adventures on the Wheels of Steel. The importance of this cannot be overstated: in an era of information overload, the art of remixing and sampling as practiced by hiphop DJs and producers points to ways of working with information on higher levels of organization, pulling together the efforts of others into a multilayered multireferential whole which is much more than the sum of its parts. A remix may also refer to a non-linear re-interpretation of a given work or media other than audio. Such as a hybridizing process combining fragments of various works. The process of combining and re-contextualizing will often produce unique results independent of the intentions and vision of the original designer/artist. Thus the concept of a remix can be applied to visual or video arts, and even things farther afield. The disjointed novel House of Leaves has been compared by some to the remix concept. In recent years the concept of the remix has been applied analogously to other media and products. In 2000, the British Channel 4 television program Jaaaaam was produced as a remix of the sketches from the comedy show Jam. In 2003 the Coca-Cola Corporation released a new version of their soft drink Sprite with tropical flavors under the name Sprite Remix.

Underground remixers

"Underground remixers" are a group of people born mostly in the information age; as opposed to an officially sanctioned remix done with the permission of artist/label by a professional, underground remixers do less-professional mixes that are distributed freely on the internet.

References

- [http://ethnomus.ucr.edu/remix_culture/remix_history.htm Postdigital Remix Culture and Online Performance - exhibition at University of California at Riverside]
- [http://slate.msn.com/id/2068368 "The Remixmasters", Slate (July 29, 2002)]
- [http://web.tampabay.rr.com/twirl/ Remix Services - Past & Present]
- [http://www.remixservices.com/ DJ Remix Service Music Database]

Double A-side

A Double A-Side is a single which has two featured songs, rather than the traditional single with a featured song and an accompanying one. Double A-Sides include:
- "Penny Lane" / "Strawberry Fields Forever" by The Beatles
- "Come Together" / "Something" by The Beatles
- "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)" / "Everybody is a Star" by Sly & The Family Stone
- "Rape Me" / "All Apologies" by Nirvana
- "Straight To You" / "Jack the Ripper" by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
- "He Wants You" / "Babe, I'm On Fire" by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
- "Breathless/There She Goes, My Beautiful World" by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
- "Little by Little / She is Love" by Oasis
- "Something About the Way You Look Tonight" / "Candle in the Wind 1997" by Elton John — the world's most successful single
- "Before Your Love" / "A Moment Like This" by Kelly Clarkson
- "Who Do You Think You Are" / "Mama" by Spice Girls
- "Brain Stew" / "Jaded" by Green Day
- "Holler" / "Let Love Lead the Way" by Spice Girls
- "Bicycle Race" / "Fat Bottomed Girls" by Queen
- "Bohemian Rhapsody" / "These Are the Days of Our Lives" by Queen (1991 reissue)
- "Killer Queen" / "Flick of the Wrist" by Queen
- "Stay (Faraway, So Close!)" / "I've Got You Under My Skin" by U2 and Frank Sinatra "Brain Stew/Jaded" was a slightly exceptional case - the single was treated more-or-less as one song, rather than as a double-A side. The same was intended to happen with a release in 2005 of "Holiday/Boulevard of Broken Dreams", however, they ended up being released seperately. Contrary to popular belief, the single "We Are The Champions/We Will Rock You" was not a double-A side. "We Will Rock You" was a b-side. Bohemian Rhapsody was originally released in 1975 with "I'm In Love With My Car" as the b-side. Category:Audio storage

Penny Lane

Penny Lane is a street in the English city of Liverpool. The area that surrounds its junction with Smithdown Road is also commonly called Penny Lane. Locally the term "Penny Lane" was the name given to Allerton Road and Smithdown Road and its busy shopping area. Penny Lane is now famous worldwide as it is the title of a hit song by The Beatles, written by Paul McCartney, recorded during the Sgt. Pepper sessions, and released in February, 1967 as one side of a double-A sided single, along with Lennon's Strawberry Fields Forever. Both singles were later released on the US Magical Mystery Tour album in November, 1967. The song features contrasting verse-chorus form and was credited "Lennon-McCartney" although Lennon only contributed some lines to the lyrics. McCartney and John Lennon grew up in the area and they spent a lot of time playing on Penny Lane junction as children. The street is an important landmark, sought out by most Beatles fans touring Liverpool. In the past, street signs saying "Penny Lane" were constant targets of tourist theft and had to be continually replaced. Eventually, city officials gave up and simply began painting the street name on the sides of buildings. This is still the case at the Smithdown Road junction, but there is a conventional sign at the other end of the street. The barber shop mentioned in the song was probably a shop owned by a Mr. Bioletti, who has claimed to have cut hair for Lennon, McCartney and George Harrison when they were children. The fire station in the song is where Allerton Road becomes Mather Avenue ("Its a clean machine"). The station is very close to the site of Quarry Bank School which Lennon attended. Mather Avenue leads to Forthlin Road, home of McCartney. One innovative feature of the song was the piccolo trumpet solo played by David Mason. This is thought to be the first use of this instrument (a distinctively higher version of the standard trumpet) in pop music, where it is now (in certain genres) almost a commonplace. McCartney was reportedly inspired to use the instrument after hearing Mason's performance in a BBC radio broadcast of the second Brandenburg Concerto by Johann Sebastian Bach. The promotional film for the song was not in fact filmed at Penny Lane – The Beatles were reluctant to travel to Liverpool and so the street scenes were actually filmed in and around Angel Lane in London's East End. The outdoor scenes were filmed at Knole Park in Sevenoaks, where the promotional film for Strawberry Fields Forever was also shot. Both videos were selected by New York's MoMA as some of the most influential music videos in the late 1960s.

Penny Lane today

It is a tribute to the creative genius of The Beatles that they were able to take an utterly undistinguished suburban road junction and fashion a memorable song on such a flimsy foundation. Prior to securing international fame, Penny Lane's chief renown was as the terminus for several important bus routes out from the city centre and as the site, in the middle of the roundabout, of a very handily located public convenience. The area remained largely unremarkable for the remainder of the 1960s and the 1970s; its most distinguishing feature was, perhaps, the regular arrival there of tour buses laden with bemused-looking tourists who would alight, take a photograph or two, and then get back on the bus headed towards 251 Menlove Avenue. Penny Lane began to evolve into what it has since become in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Towards the end of the 1970s, the businesses that set up shop there included Penny Lane Records, Sven Books (Liverpool's first high-street sex shop), and a wine bar known, at least in the early years, as Harper's Bizarre. In the mid-1980s, the bus shelter and public convenience were converted into a café that intelligently marketed itself as Sgt. Pepper's. Following privatisation, the Merseyside Passenger Transport Executive bus depot, slightly up the hill past Bioletti's, was knocked down was turned into a shopping precinct, complete with a supermarket and a public house. Since then, the general Penny Lane area has acquired a distinct trendiness and desirability. The "alternative" businesses (wholefood outlets, charity shops), the now expanded array of cafés, bars, bistros, and takeaway food emporiums in the vicinity, as well as handily located traditional businesses (Woolworths, WH Smiths, Clarke's and Chalkin's cake shops) make the neighbourhood one of the most sought-after among Liverpool's large student population. Though the song refers to the "Penny Lane junction" on Smithdown Road, the street itself leads down to the Liverpool University student halls of residence.

Quotes

From Journal of Mundane Behavior, February 2001 2(1): :But back to The Beatles: consider if you will, McCartney's "Penny Lane", a portrait of a village virtually teeming with Nowhere Men. Penny Lane is a study in mundanity, the simple sights and sounds of a suburban British neighborhood; it's also one of the most stunningly gorgeous songs in the world. The descriptions of completely generalized, almost homogenous people and practices off set with small details and punctuated by a central contradiction (example: "And the banker never wears a Mac in the pouring rain; very strange"), the revolving chorus ("And mean while back in Penny Lane is in my ears..."), all set to that rich melody, with the horns, the flute, augh! Splendid! Additionally, it contains the lines that probably most influenced my own artistic point of view: "Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes/There beneath the blue suburban skies..." The persistence of memory, the importance of experience, the way the smallest visual and aural details build up to form and inform this amazing thing we call A Life, all summed up in these simplest of lines. Or perhaps I'm imagining things. It's been known to happen.

Trivia

- The original release of Penny Lane had a trumpet finale. In a later recording, however, there was unplanned microphone feedback whose timing and pitch were so harmonious and memorable that the "feedback version" became the standard.
- The mysterious lyrics "A four of fish and finger pies" are British slang. "Fish" refers to fish and chips, while "finger pie" is a gratuitous sexual reference.
- In Austin, Texas, Penny Lane runs into Burnet Road, a major avenue. An apartment complex on this street is named "Abbey Road Apartments".

External links

- [http://frogcircus.org/beatles/magical_mystery_tour/penny_lane Song lyrics]
- [http://www.moma.org/exhibitions/film_media/2003/oldies.html Golden Oldies of Music Video] a presentation from New York's MoMA originally screened on April 17, 2003
- [http://www.nevilleyoung.co.uk/pennylane Trumpet fan site about the Penny Lane piccolo trumpet solo]

Penny Lane (The Song) Lyrics

In Penny Lane there is a barber showing photographs
Of every head he's had the pleasure to know.
And all the people that come and go
Stop and say hello. On the corner is a banker with a motorcar,
The little children laugh at him behind his back.
And the banker never wears a mack
In the pouring rain, very strange. Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes.
There beneath the blue suburban skies
I sit, and meanwhile back
In Penny Lane there is a fireman with an hourglass
And in his pocket is a portrait of the Queen.
He likes to keep his fire engine clean,
It's a clean machine. Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes.
A four of fish and finger pies
In summer, meanwhile back
Behind the shelter in the middle of a roundabout
The pretty nurse is selling poppies from a tray
And tho' she feels as if she's in a play
She is anyway. In Penny Lane the barber shaves another customer,
We see the banker sitting waiting for a trim.
And then the fireman rushes in
From the pouring rain, very strange. Penny lane is in my ears and in my eyes.
There beneath the blue suburban skies
I sit, and meanwhile back. Penny lane is in my ears and in my eyes.
There beneath the blue suburban skies,
Penny Lane. Category:The Beatles singles Category:1967 singles Category:Number one singles Category:The Beatles songs

Nine Inch Nails

Nine Inch Nails (abbreviated as NIN and typeset as NIИ) is a critically and commercially successful American band formed in Cleveland, Ohio in 1988 by Trent Reznor.

Etymology

Reznor describes the meaning behind the name Nine Inch Nails: :I don't know if you've ever tried to think of band names, but usually you think you have a great one and you look at it the next day and it's stupid. I had about 200 of those. Nine Inch Nails lasted the two week test, looked great in print, and could be abbreviated easily. It really doesn't have any literal meaning. It seemed kind of frightening. [In his best he-man voice] Tough and manly! It's a curse trying to come up with band names."[http://www.theninhotline.net/archives/articles/axc94a.shtml] The Nine Inch Nails logo (the letters "NiN" with the second "N" reversed, looking similar to "NIИ") was inspired by the typography of the album cover for Talking Heads' album Remain in Light. [http://www.nin.com/access/7_21_04/questions5.gif].

Genre

NIN's sound has variously been described as alternative, electronica, heavy metal, rock, synth pop, or, most commonly, industrial or industrial rock. Regarding his music being categorized as industrial, Reznor said in a 1994 Axcess magazine interview:

What was originally called industrial music was about 20 years ago Throbbing Gristle and Test Dept. We have very little to do with it other than there is noise in my music and there is noise in theirs. I'm working in the context of a pop song structure whereas those bands didn't. And because someone didn't come up with a new name that separates those two somewhat unrelated genres, it tends to irritate all the old school fans waving their flags of alternativeness and obscurity. So, I'd say I've borrowed from certain styles and bands like that." [http://www.theninhotline.net/archives/articles/axc94a.shtml]

NIN's songs cover a range of genres: "The Perfect Drug" has the flavor of drum and bass, "Down in It" influenced by early Skinny Puppy, "Happiness in Slavery" is tinged with industrial metal in the vein of Ministry, "The Frail" is a melancholy minimalist piano piece, and most of Pretty Hate Machine could be considered dark synth pop in the style of Depeche Mode.

Albums

Pretty Hate Machine (Halo 2)

NIN's debut album, Pretty Hate Machine (1989), largely consists of studio versions of demo recordings (released later unofficially as Purest Feeling.) This was also NIN's first collaboration with producer Mark 'Flood' Ellis. It went triple platinum in the U.S. and produced the singles "Head Like a Hole," "Down in It" and "Sin". Music videos were made for all three tracks, but the one for "Sin" was not released to the public until 1997, with the release of Closure. "Something I Can Never Have" also appeared in an edited form on the Natural Born Killers soundtrack. In the credits of Pretty Hate Machine, Trent Reznor thanks British Horror/Fantasy writer Clive Barker for inspiration towards the stirring sound the album portrays. As of August 19, 2005, the ownership rights to Pretty Hate Machine were put up for auction by TVT Records, compliments of Prudential Securities Financial Services. Pretty Hate Machine is part of an overall biddable package that also includes the rights to the Television's Greatest Hits compilations and the Mortal Kombat movie soundtracks. In addition, the highest bidder will be able to collect a percentage on future sales of Nine Inch Nails' other TVT-related releases, including Broken, Fixed, The Downward Spiral and Further Down the Spiral. Rykodisc re-issued Pretty Hate Machine on November 22, 2005. Rykodisc wanted to release a Deluxe Edition of the album, similar in concept to the Deluxe Edition of The Downward Spiral, however Reznor was not willing to produce it without payment.

Broken (Halo 5)

NIN's second major release was Broken (1992), an EP of six tracks plus two bonus tracks. It was originally released in a fold-out format, containing the first six tracks on a regular CD and an additional three-inch minidisc with the remaining bonus tracks. It was later released as one CD, with the bonus songs as "hidden" tracks 98 and 99. The song "Wish", aided by the video directed by Peter 'Sleazy' Christopherson of Coil, won a Grammy in the "metal" category. Jon Reiss directed a music video for "Happiness in Slavery," which was almost universally banned due to its graphic content. The video depicts performance artist Bob Flanagan strapping himself to a machine that subsequently pleasures, tortures and kills him. A video for "Pinion" aired twice on MTV before being banned for its objectionable content, although images from it did become a fixture in the opening title sequence of the MTV show Alternative Nation. A full length video informally called The Broken Movie was also made by Sleazy, but has not seen an official release. The Broken Movie, as of 2005, can only be found on bootleg. Broken was followed by the remix EP Fixed.

The Downward Spiral (Halo 8)

NIN's second full album and third major release was The Downward Spiral (1994). This was NIN's second collaboration with Mark 'Flood' Ellis. It went quadruple platinum and is often considered by critics to be NIN's best work. Two singles, "March of the Pigs" and "Closer", were released, and two additional tracks, "Hurt" and "Piggy", were sent to radio without a single release. Music videos were made for "March of the Pigs", "Closer", live footage of "Eraser" (which would never receive airtime) , and "Hurt". The edited MTV version of "Closer" became very successful. The video for "Closer" (directed by Mark Romanek) , in many ways, set a standard for Nine Inch Nails videos with its eerie images of pigs' heads and S&M paraphernalia. The album's final track, "Hurt", would enjoy success once again when it was covered, with slight alterations to the lyrics, by Johnny Cash in 2003. The Downward Spiral was followed by the remix EP Further Down the Spiral, which featured a collaboration with electronic music pioneer Aphex Twin and new guitar parts being lent by Jane's Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro. A remastered version of The Downward Spiral was released on November 23, 2004, with an accompanying CD of B-sides and rarities. The remastered recording was also released as a two-sided DualDisc. The Deluxe Edition of the remaster features multichannel and stereo SACD versions of the album as well as a remastered standard CD layer on the first disc, and stereo SACD and standard CD layers on the second. The DualDisc contains a remastered CD-Audio on one side and features a DVD-Audio format side containing High Resolution Stereo and 5.1 Surround mixes of the entire album with expanded album art, a discography, and Music Videos "Closer" (stereo and surround) , "March of the Pigs", and "Hurt (Live)".

The Fragile (Halo 14)

NIN's fourth major release was the two-disc album The Fragile (1999). It produced three singles, one released in the US ("The Day the World Went Away") , one in the UK ("We're In This Together") released as a 3 part single, and one in Japan and Australia ("Into The Void") . Music videos for "We're In This Together", "Into The Void" and "Starfuckers, Inc." (retitled as "Starsuckers, Inc.") were aired in the US. "Starfuckers, Inc." was a vicious mockery of Reznor's former friend and protégé , Marilyn Manson. Several vocal takes were chopped up and spliced together as a not-so-subtle jab at Manson's usual inability to sing well enough to capture his vocals in a single take. The lyrics satirized Manson as being vain and insincere. The recording ended with a clip from a KISS concert—Manson repeatedly professed to be "the KISS of the Nineties." Some of the lyrics in the song (You're so vain/I'll bet you think this song is about you/Don't you? don't you?) come from the Carly Simon song "You're So Vain." While NIN was on tour, Reznor would snidely introduce the song as being "about a friend of mine." During one such performance in New York, Reznor subtly changed the lyrics of one part of the song ("How did you think we'd get by without you?" became "How did we ever get by without you?") , then put the song on hold halfway through as he was joined on stage by a surprise guest — Manson himself. The two duetted the rest of the song, with Manson putting his arm around Reznor at one point, then they finished the show with Manson's hit "The Beautiful People." This event — featured as an easter egg on the And All That Could Have Been DVD — seemed to mark an end to their feud as Manson went on to appear in the "Starsuckers, Inc." video, but, for reasons unclear, the feud was resumed and Manson and Reznor are no longer on speaking terms. However, in the "Starsuckers Inc." video, there is a clear stab at Courtney Love, widow of Kurt Cobain. In 1994 shortly after Cobain's death, the two had become romantically involved with each other for a period of about 6 months. After their relationship ended, Trent claimed that she was shallow, vain, and too into her image. By paying close attention to "Starsuckers Inc.," one will notice that the woman Trent dunks in the carnival, bears a striking resemblance to Courtney Love off of the album Live Through This, complete with dress, tiara, and lipstick. In interviews prior to the album's completion, Reznor said he was considering organizing the tracks such that one disc would contain all instrumentals and the other the songs with lyrics. These plans changed when Bob Ezrin (producer of Pink Floyd's The Wall, a two-disc album often seen as a predecessor of The Fragile) suggested an arrangement of tracks that would strengthen the "four corners of the album"—namely the beginnings and ends of each of the two discs. Ezrin is credited in the liner notes as having "provided final continuity and flow." 'Into The Void' was used in the soundtrack for the film 'Final Destination'. 'The Mark Has Been Made' was used as the recurring theme music for the film 'Man on Fire'. The Fragile was followed by the remix album Things Falling Apart. The Fragility Tour was recorded and released on CD and DVD as And All That Could Have Been. A special edition came with a companion disc called Still, featuring acoustic re-recordings of songs from across NIN's career, along with several new songs. Still is regarded as a classic among fans, and there was much speculation prior to the release of With Teeth in 2005 that the album would take a form similar to Still. Three videos for Still were released on NIN's official website.

With Teeth (Halo 19)

With Teeth NIN's fifth major release, With Teeth (tentatively titled Bleedthrough), was written and recorded following Reznor's painful battle with alcoholism and substance abuse. The album involved the collaboration of the Foo Fighter's Dave Grohl (ex-Nirvana) playing live drums, replacing the drum machines used on most Nine Inch Nails releases. The music video for the first single, "The Hand that Feeds" premiered on the [http://www.nin.com official NIN website] rather than on the traditional music video channel. The album was leaked prior to its official release on May 3, 2005 on both CD and DualDisc formats. Though the package for the album lacks the typical liner notes, [http://www.nin.com/with_teeth nin.com/with_teeth] features access to download a digital PDF poster full of stylized artwork and lyrics. "The Hand that Feeds" was also released as a Garageband multitrack file so that it could be remixed by anyone with access to the program. The band also allowed the entire album to be listened to in streaming audio at MySpace beginning April 27, 2005. [http://www.myspace.com/ninofficial MySpace NIN album streaming audio] The vinyl, Japanese, Australian & UK release of With Teeth all featured an extra track, "Home", a leftover cut from the With Teeth recording sessions. Along with the standard edition and "Limited Tour Edition", a DualDisc version is available, which features With Teeth in stereo and 5.1 surround sound, DVDA stereo and surround playback, a Dolby Digital stereo and surround mix, the music video for "The Hand That Feeds", an interactive discography, and a slideshow of NIN-related images. Nine Inch Nails dropped out of the 2005 MTV Movie Awards show because of a disagreement with MTV over the use of an unaltered image of George W. Bush as a backdrop to the band's performance of "The Hand that Feeds," which includes such lyrics as: :What if this whole crusade's a charade :And behind it all there's a price to be paid :For the blood on which we dine :Justified in the name of the holy and the divine "Apparently, the image of our president is as offensive to MTV as it is to me," Trent Reznor said. They were replaced on the show by the Foo Fighters. In fall 2005, Nine Inch Nails launched a North American tour supported by Queens of the Stone Age, as well as Autolux for the first half of the tour followed by Death from Above 1979 during the second half. Clint Mansell remixed "You Know What You Are?" for the soundtrack of the feature motion picture DOOM, based on the popular video game. The second single for this album, released in mid-July, was "Only." A video for "Only" was completed around May. It was created using primarily computer-generated imagery, and directed by David Fincher. It debuted on July 11th on Fuse and can been seen on the band's official website. The third single, "Every Day Is Exactly the Same" has not yet had a release date slated. Trent Reznor released the source files for "The Hand That Feeds" and "Only" to allow his fans to remix his songs in something of a contest. They are in various file formats, including Garageband and ACID formats. The files can be found on [http://www.nin.com/downloads/index.html nin.com]. In the months following the release of With Teeth, two new Nine Inch Nails songs surfaced: "Non-Entity" recorded live at the ReactNow! Hurricane Katrina benefit concert. "Not So Pretty Now" has appeared on the setlist of a few recent Nine Inch Nails live shows, but has not yet seen a studio recording release. On November 10, 2005, the Los Angeles, California radio station KROQ announced that the group will perform at the sixteenth annual of the Acoustic Christmas on December 10th of the same year. It will be the first time the band would ever peform at KROQ concerts. Nine Inch Nails was nominated for Best Modern Rock Artist and Best Modern Rock Song ("The Hand that Feeds") at the 2005 Billboard Music Awards, but lost out to popular Pop-Punk group Green Day in both categories. The band, although, is nominated for a 2005 Grammy Award.

Discography

Though Nine Inch Nails has been in existence for over 16 years, it has only produced four proper full-length albums: Pretty Hate Machine</