Remixing or remastering?

How to refine your own work, plus my weekly shareables: Gas station food, crazy plumbers, and a most unlikely kids' show

If this album cover gives you a little tingle, we can probably be friends.

The Replacements’ 1985 album TIM still holds up after nearly 40 years, which is hilarious in a way, because the Replacements themselves were built to fall apart—their whole career was like a cross-country trip in the Bluesmobile. Their previous record, LET IT BE, was even better—it’s one of the few records I’ve owned on vinyl, cassette, CD and streaming. But we’re talking about TIM today because there’s a new deluxe box set that includes two new versions of the album, and the way it’s done gets at some things I’ve been thinking about for a while.

When TIM came out, Replacements fans agreed on two things: The songs were amazing but the record itself sounded terrible. The original producer was Tommy Erdelyi, better known as Tommy Ramone, the original drummer for the Ramones. Part of me wonders how good his hearing was by the time he got around to producing TIM, because the whole thing sounds like it’s being broadcast from underneath a mattress.

So the new box set includes not just a remastered version of the original album, but a separate remix by producer Ed Stasium.

I often get confused on the differences between remastering and remixing. Audiophiles, feel free to correct me on this, but here’s a quick version: Remastering means redoing the final steps in making an album—the balance in dynamics between songs, the levels of noise, the fade-ins and fade-outs, and so on. It’s like refinishing a piece of furniture. Remixing means diving back into the individual tracks of the songs, boosting some things or muting others, adding and subtracting. It’s like taking that piece of furniture and carving it into a different shape.

The remix of TIM sounds clearer and sharper (I can tell even on my earbuds through Spotify), and you can hear guitar licks and bass lines that were muffled or missing from the the original mix. Stasium even plays around with the timing—one song on the remix, “Little Mascara,” is nearly a minute longer than the original.

Most of us go through the mixing and mastering stages when we do any kind of creative work. In writing, we often call the mixing part “line editing” and the mastering part “copy editing.”

And here’s the point I am (finally) coming around to: It can be hard to tell whether your own work just needs a remaster or requires a full remix.

Sometimes I ditch thoughts and ideas too fast because they don’t land in my head just right, when one small tweak (a remaster) might have made them into something useful. And sometimes I hold onto a passage or a paragraph too long, usually because the writing sounds pretty, when an overhaul (a remix) is what it needs to serve the story better.

Just know, as you struggle with this sort of thing, that everybody else does, too. (Actually I’m sure there are people who hit the mark every time, but I don’t want to know those people.)

I’m also interested in playing with the word remastering, as in re-mastering—taking something you’re good at and learning it all over again.

Sometimes the circumstances require it. One reason albums need to be remastered is to adapt to changes in format—from vinyl to tape to CD to streaming and back to (better quality) vinyl again. Every format has its own sonic quirks and remastering can bring out the best sound for each one.

In my career I’ve had to learn to write newspaper stories, then magazine stories, then blog posts, then social media posts, then books, then newsletters like this, plus podcasts. In all those formats I’ve covered a lot of the same subjects and themes. But each format requires a little something different. And so I’ve had to re-master my skills each time. (Not that I think I’ve ever been a master to begin with. I’m aiming at the top of the mountain, but I never expect to get there.)

It’s always a challenge to learn something new. But it can be just as much of a challenge to re-master what you’ve already learned, to give it a new coat of varnish and see how it looks in a different light. Sometimes you fall in love with it all over again.

10 things I wanted to share this week:

1. My guest on SOUTHBOUND this week was photojournalist Kate Medley, who spent years sampling the gas station food of the South for her amazing photo book THANK YOU PLEASE COME AGAIN. We talk about everything from Punjabi truck stop food to chicken on a stick. I am ready to roam the countryside with this book as my food atlas.

2. My weekly for WFAE was about North Carolina slow-playing the expansion of casinos in the state.

3. I will read John Jeremiah Sullivan on anything, but especially on a mysterious odor and the wild-ass plumbers who set out to solve the case. (Harper’s)

4. My friend Lisa Rab has started a new Substack that is going to be powerful and meaningful … it’s called OVERDUE and she describes it this way: “This is an exploration of what’s missing from maternal health care, especially the part that comes after you give birth.” Lisa has her own experiences along those lines, some horrifying and some beautiful, and and she has the courage to share.

5. DOG NEWS: From now until DOGLAND comes out (April 2024!), I’m devoting this slot to dog stories. This week: I devote a chapter in DOGLAND to flat-faced dogs like French bulldogs and pugs, who are both lovable and problematic. A recent study shows one reason people might love them so much: They ask for our help more than other dogs. (Phys.org)

6. I didn’t think I needed to read any more about the Taylor Swift-Travis Kelce thing—whatever it is—but then Sally Jenkins weighed in, with the help of Melissa Etheridge, and yeah, I’m glad I read this one.

7. When I was a kid in the ‘70s, playing imaginary World Series games in the yard, I was always Henry Aaron when I came to bat. But in the field, I was always Brooks Robinson. Brooks, who died this week, was somebody else’s favorite player, too. (JoeBlogs)

8. Non-work reading of the week: Dick Francis’ 2006 novel UNDER ORDERS, one of his mysteries featuring ex-jockey Sid Halley. I got into these books because my mother-in-law devours them, and I enjoy them even though I care little about horse racing and even less about British horse racing. How could you not finish a book that starts like this: “Sadly, death at the races is not uncommon. However, three in a single afternoon was sufficiently unusual to raise more than an eyebrow. That only one of the deaths was of a horse was more than enough to bring the local constabulary hotfoot to the track.”

9. My wife loves movies with all-star casts. We will definitely be seeing ARGYLE when it comes out. And I have to admit it looks pretty damn fun.
   

10. I did not remember until somebody posted the following clip online that Richard Pryor once hosted a kids’ show called PRYOR’S PLACE, which ran for a single season in 1984. He had Willie Nelson as a guest on one of the episodes, and let that marinate in your brain for a second: a kids’ show featuring Richard Pryor and Willie Nelson. You would definitely learn some things. Anyway, Willie does a beautiful version of “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain” with a sweet sax solo by … well, I’m pretty sure Richard is not actually playing that sax, but it’s kind of nice to think so.

    
    Have a great week, everybody.