No, I don’t mean albums full of remixes. Those can be pretty fun, and it’s nice to hear songs re-interpreted or re-imagined in some way, like Cynic’s Re-Traced. I’m talking about entire albums being re-released with a brand new mix, but containing the exact same material and performances. What do you think of those?

Personally, I think it cheapens the original album—especially if it’s an album you really enjoy despite an imperfection or two.  Exhibit A—a few weeks ago, Tre Watson released a remixed version of his album Death of A Monarch, which he originally put out in January.  And no, this isn’t the version containing vocals on all the tracks that Tre is hoping to have out by the end of the year. It’s the instrumental version again, just remixed, and with interlude track “No Longer A Planet” omitted from the tracklist.

I find this to be a puzzling move.  Mostly because the album sounds more or less exactly the same to me, and “No Longer A Planet” was a track I enjoyed quite a bit.  But it’s as if Tre himself thought it was such a bad tune that he just had to take it off the album, like it never happened. Stricken from the record.  And he must have been quite dissatisfied with his original mix to go back and take a mulligan on the entire album.  As a big fan of the original version, I’m not sure what to make of it…

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