The first playlists on Silence for the first few years were all best of year. In 2014, it turned into focusing on best of genres. Over the past year, I’ve tried to be more creative about it.
This list is really just remixes of famous songs in a groovy house kind of way. But not titling it so specifically allowed me to broaden the song selection, which made room for more fun things to dance to.
We stopped featuring & playlisting remixes for the most part, bigger plans in the works, and cover songs have been even more scarce. Over the last few years we’ve collected a few dozen and finally we get to share our favorites with you! (it’s been a long time coming)
There were quite a few acoustic covers initially, but we wittled ’em down. Like remixes and dubstep, the world of acoustic covers is super saturated and with that comes us & our super powers to filter the shit out of ’em.
This is the first playlist I’ve collaborated on. I gave up about half the songs for her, but she helped give this playlist more direction and make more sense. When I usually create playlists I tend to miss out on the obvious, and get called out for it later, but she kept me in check for this one. Plus she had a few good songs (more than me).
Here’s Lauren’s intro to our Valentine’s Day playlist, or anti-Valentine’s Day, “Hip Hop & Heartbreak.”
I taught a friend a new word this week. I thought it summed up Outside Lands pretty well and most festivals in general. It’s got a negative connotation to it, but a TA at my University once defined himself as a hedonist and at the time it sounded like the most honest look at one’s life I had ever heard. I don’t mean it in its extreme, as it’s often taken, but to some extent it’s what most festivals are in the business for, the senses.
Each year we put together a playlist of our favorites that are performing at Outside Lands, but we got bored of that this year. So we decided on putting together a bunch of Kanye mashups & remixes instead, ’cause Kanye would want it that way. Except them being remixes maybe.
A little disclaimer. For the most part, don’t take these too seriously, especially the first one. Some of the tracks even fall outta sync at times, but each has their moment.
Just prepare yourself with these “unofficial Kanye collaborations” and hope he debuts his official one with Disclosure this Friday at OSL. It could happen. It should happen.
#3 is the best, by the way.
Highlighting singles have long dominated on here. We’re coming up on our thousandth post, this will make 999, and we’re slightly shifting from singles towards playlists. We really just no longer have time or the writing prowess to cover every single track we love.
Pop remixes especially have fallen back from the spotlight, but we’ve collected quite a few over the past few months and a playlist of the best seemed like the perfect way to share. We may not have much to say about every single track, but they all have taken their original and slapped a new style (usually better than the original).
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Gotta give it up to Big Z for taking this Kanye classic and chilling it out- although, I’m guessing the video had something to do with that. Watch out for this one coming on Big Z’s next mixtape, it’s gotta good start so far…
[audio:Diamonds-Remix.mp3|titles=Diamonds (Big Z Remix)]
GRiZ gets groovy bass in this Kanye “Can’t Tell Me Nothing” remix. Even better, we get more of a taste from his superb sax playin. I think I’ve overstated how much I love a little brass in my electronic. Only real issue I have with this some of the high squealin dubstep, though I don’t know how I’d make it much better.
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In this rapper filled mashup, DeeJay BeeKay takes on some of the top MC’s of today and battles ’em against Gramatik’s reinterpretation of “Stairway to Heaven.” The MC’s flow in and out with well layered transitions, though some of the vocal cuts need work. Still, a surprisingly well flowing mashup considering such high expectations with anything Zeppelin.
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Just put up Xaphoon’s remix of “Marvin & Chardonnay” and now we get a mashup from The Hood Internet with instrumentals borrowed from Wolfgang Gartner’s “The Way It Was.” I can’t quite say which I like better yet, but damn does each have a sick beat to back up Sean & Kanye. Which one do you like better
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