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It wasn’t so long ago that I once again pointed out my general aversion to remixes. In fact, after my most recent remix experience, I was ready to write them off entirely. But then along came Mark Ronson’s Version, and I once again changed my mind completely.
Cover artist and producer Ronson (who was responsible for all the best parts of Amy Winehouse’s phenomenal Back to Black) clearly has an ear for the extraordinary—not to mention a talent for creating some of the hippest covers and remixes around. He can take some of your favorite songs and make them new again—often to the point that they’re not just covers or remakes…they’re completely new songs. That’s definitely the case with many of the tracks on Ronson’s Version. Take the first track, for instance—a hip, jazzy, horn-infused instrumental remake of Coldplay’s “God Put a Smile Upon Your Face.” The track sounds way more like Ocean’s Thirteen retro-Vegas-hip than it sounds like Coldplay. And, instantly, it becomes something completely original—so much so, in fact, that you’ll have to go back and listen to the original Coldplay song just to hear for yourself that it really is a Coldplay cover.
But just when you think you’ve heard the coolest thing on the album, there’s more. There’s Lily Allen covering the Kaiser Chiefs’ “Oh My God.” There’s Daniel Merriweather with “Stop Me,” a hauntingly disco cover of The Smiths’ “Stop Me If You’ve Hear This One Before,” with a little bit of The Supremes’ “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” thrown in for good measure.
Throughout Version, Ronson takes mostly Brit-pop/rock singles and gives them a solid kick of hip-hop and, often, a healthy dose of horns. And while some of his productions sound so completely ridiculous that they can’t possibly work (like Tiggers and Ol’ Dirty Bastard collaborating on an eerily trippy yet brilliantly catchy hip-hop cover of “Toxic,” originally by Britney Spears), they still manage to work so very well every single time. It’s impossible for me to pick out the best and worst tracks on the album—because each one offers something new and totally hip. It’s an album that I can listen to all the way through every time—without skipping over a single track.
To borrow some of the buzzwords from my days in advertising, Version is a shock-and-awe, surprise-and-delight kind of album. There’s a little bit of the familiar mixed in with just the right amount of “I can’t believe he did that.” And after just one listen, Mark Ronson completely renewed my faith in remixes and covers.
