38 Beth Orton “Central Reservation The Then Again Version”

What do you mean Beth Orton isn’t a electronic dance artist?

The first song I heard of Beth Orton was The Chemical Brothers remix of her “Central Reservation” which is the chosen track for this list. Most of the time, when you have a remix of a song it is, at best, just a longer extension of the original. Most of the time it is a DJ or other artist taking the song, removing a bunch of the vocals, moving parts around, and adding some electronic beat that fundamentally doesn’t fit the song. This is fine for dance clubs, but rarely-rarely-is the remix better than the original.

When I teach my Philosophy and Music course and we cover songwriting, I liken the process to sculpting.* There is this block of material and all you’re doing is removing the parts of the block that are not a part of the sculpture. The piece is there, you just need to bring it out.

You might think that music writing would be different, more like painting – adding different sounds until you have the complete picture. But I find that once you have the block of noise, the other parts are there behind the sound. This may be the fundamental problem with remixes, they’re painting, not sculpting.

This remix is too good to be a remix. In many ways, this is the way the song should be. So much that I had this in my brain as the general sound of Beth Orton. Later, when I heard her albums, I was disappointed. But, that’s not fair. Disappointment should not be attached to Beth Orton. Her albums are very, very good. They’re just more folk and jazz-esque.

*Of course I’m not speaking for every songwriter, nor every sculptor for that matter.