Remixed up

I don't get remix albums.

Call me a purist, but I'm usually not cool with an artist giving a finished product over to some dude with a Casio organ and a heavy drug problem.

My first run-in with a remix disc came in 1993 at the Polo Park Record Baron, when I bought an album featuring several knob-twiddlers having a run at The Cult's "She Sells Sanctuary." I'll defend my inexplicable love of The Cult even in the face of scathing criticism from cooler-than-me industry types, but that album was a piece of shit.

I don't know what I was expecting to hear when I hit play, but I was certainly not prepared for the kind of music you might expect to find in a robot porno co-directed by Isaac Asimov and The Chemical Brothers.

Where were the big fat guitars? Where was the melody? Where was the talent? Well, some might argue that the talent was never really there with The Cult, but I maintain that Billy Duffy could crank out a ripped-off riff like nobody's business, and I think it was pretty rockin' at times.

And then Butch Vig and Youth decided it was time to go Blade Runner on the thing...

I bring this up because right now I'm listening to Year Zero Remixed by Nine Inch Nails, and I feel like I'm having some sort of seizure. Seriously. This thing is like a 45-minute drum solo by one of those Sentinel mofos from The Matrix, except the Sentinel has quite obviously done cocaine -- a lot of cocaine.

But who am I to complain? My credibility was shot when I admitted to liking The Cult, so I'm just going to turn this disc off and go remix myself a stiff drink.