T. Rex were never a dance band in the strictest sense, but vocalist/bandleader
Marc Bolan and drummer
Bill Legend sure had a solid sense of rhythm, and the group's gift for the boogie (filtered deep through
Bolan's hippie/glam sensibilities) made their music easy to stomp or sway to. But was anyone really waiting for a dancefloor-friendly
T. Rex remix album? For better or worse, someone figured that a good way to honor
Marc Bolan on the 40th anniversary of his 1977 death was to bring together 15 different remix artists and have them rework material from the
T. Rex catalog. The result is
Remixes, which takes the very '70s sound of
T. Rex and drags it into the 21st century. The set kicks off with a new mix of "Children of the Revolution" from Reflex; this version adds no new elements, as Reflex strips the track down to its basics and pushes the martial rhythms of the song to the forefront. The other producers featured here add and subtract various bits and pieces from the original recordings, running the gamut from
Mischa "Book" Chillak's "Metal Guru," which adds plenty of electronic stutter and pushes the drum sounds up to thunderous levels, to
Ra Ra Riot's "New York City" and
Infuze's "Calling All Destroyers," which seem to have abandoned everything save
Bolan's vocals, replacing the chunky guitars of the originals with gleaming electronic soundscapes. Melodically, many of these remixes bear only a slight resemblance to the original
T. Rex performances once you get past the vocals, and the 11 instrumental mixes on disc two don't even have that much connection to their source material.
Bolan's passionate vocal persona shines through on most of these tracks, and it suggests that he could have found an audience with club kids and electronic devotees if he'd lived into the '90s; he certainly had the charisma and daring for it. However, this ultimately makes mincemeat of
T. Rex's very distinctive sound, with
Marc Bolan's creative vision playing second fiddle to the producers and DJs behind the new mixes. And it sure seems odd that this set includes four versions of "Children of the Revolution," while none of the songs from
T. Rex's best and most successful album, 1971's
Electric Warrior, get a makeover (including the major hits "Jeepster" and "Bang a Gong [Get It On]").
Remixes is a well-meaning experiment, but it doesn't really convey what made
Marc Bolan's body of work memorable, and it's not likely to attract any new converts to the
T. Rex back catalog either.