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Byline: The Remix Editors, Robert Hanson Erin Hutton Kylee Swenson

People love to hide behind comfortable little slogans. They're often a great feel-good shortcut to actually getting off your ass and doing something. As musicians, one of our favorite defensive mantras goes something like, "It should only be about the music." And if your only aspirations are to plunk away on your [insert instrument here] alone in your bedroom, then that slogan works fine. However, if your desires point toward some actual notoriety and success, then you need something else. You need substance. You need teeth. You need an image.

In the beginning, underground electronic music rallied around its anti-rock-star image: It was the perfect reaction to the status quo. Picking up where punk left off, electronic artists could sidestep the oligarchic machinery of the record industry and get their music heard. The entire scene was free to join, free to participate in and free to contribute to. It was a party, and pretty soon, the rest of world was bum-rushing the door.

Is it any wonder, then, that electronic music was so quickly co-opted by the mainstream? With so many faceless acts turning out so much music that essentially sounds the same to the untrained ear, Madison Avenue had little trouble turning it around to sell everything from sports cars to perfume. It takes decades to license a Beatles track for a sneaker ad but only a couple of hours to paste together some beats - do the math.

Sure, every formerly underground sound has eventually made its way into a soda commercial. But without enough artists willing to stand up and own their sound, electronic music is being repackaged as a soundtrack for trendy consumerism and faux-chic hipsters. Would you like a latte with your drum 'n' bass? Something needs to happen.

With this idea in mind, we're very proud of this issue of Remix. Our featured artists this month - Outkast, Lamb and BT - have built their careers by challenging tired conventions and standing behind their sound. For the members of Outkast, each of their albums has marked a complete evolution in sound and image. Their art is the entire package - the music, the concept and the attitude - it's all unquestionably Outkast.

With Lamb, Andrew Barlow and Louise Rhodes infused the cold austerity of drum 'n' bass with some human emotion, and with a new album touching down in the States and another in the works, their longevity seems all but certain. Finally, few artists have been able to bring such a level of professionalism and talent to electronic music as BT. Say what you will about his collaborators or even his choices in fashion eyewear, but his contributions as a producer, an engineer and an artist cannot be denied.

It's time to take our sound back. And if that means playing the image game, so be it. It's easy to steal from a faceless nobody. But if electronic music can evolve past its ongoing image crisis, people might start to think twice about using it to hock their wares. Gone are the days when spinning some tracks or turning out a few white labels was as far as you needed to go. This scene needs its Bowies and its Zappas - artists who can deliver it all.

COPYRIGHT 2003 PRIMEDIA Business Magazines & Media Inc. All rights reserved.
COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group

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