Further to my post on Friday about the extra enormous remix package and the revelation that Scott Diaz didn’t actually do a remix of this, I thought I should provide some insight into a certain question. Namely, when is a remix not an official remix?

First thing’s first. If a record label has given a proper release to a remix, it’s official at that point. It might not have started life that way – both of my remixes for Bassline Records started out life as bootlegs, for example – but the very act of a record label releasing it makes if official.

This is when things start to get a little murky. A lot of artists don’t actually have any say in when their records get remixed. It’s often in their contracts that the label owns the master – and ownership of the master means the right to commission remixes. Unless there’s a specific clause in a contract that says the artist must be consulted first, they don’t have to be. It’s as simple as that.

This means that the artist doesn’t always approve of remixes that appear. This is a hypothetical for me, as discussions have always taken place before anything has been commissioned. Maybe that’s just because I’m lucky to have good relationships with the labels I work with – or maybe because they know I’m a pain in the arse when I don’t like something. Who knows?

A sure-fire way to know an artist hasn’t approved a remix is to look at their social media. They won’t be talking about it. They’ll make no reference to it at all. It will be as if it doesn’t exist. This means one of three things;

1. The artist was not involved in commissioning and therefore feels no need to say anything. It’s not unknown for producers to only find out about remixes when they appear on preorder.
2. The artists does not actually like the remix commissioned.
3. Both of the above.

I hope this guide has been helpful.