- Remix Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues” Online Using the Original 4-Track Vocal, Guitar, Bass and Drum Recordings
- Dec 21, 2010
“The Remix Project,” From Sony make.believe, Allows Fans to Re-imagine Dylan Classic
Fan Contest, Also Featuring Collaborations from The Ting Tings, 2AM Club and Others, Will Award a Grand Prize Trip to South by Southwest Music Festival
New York, NY – December 21, 2010 – For music fans who have imagined what it would be like to record with the legendary Bob Dylan or produce one of his iconic songs, reality is here.
Beginning today with the launch of “The Remix Project,” music fans can create their own personalized online remix of Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues” using the song’s original 4-track “stems”—the individual vocal, guitar, bass and drum recordings— for the first time ever. Fans can mix and match the components of the original, with new versions of the classic that have been recorded for the project by popular Sony Music artists, including The Ting Tings, 2AM Club, and more. Fans can record and upload their own covers of “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” and add those to the mix as well.
“The Remix Project,” accessible now at www.facebook.com/sony, is part of Sony’s ongoing make.believe (pronounced “make dot believe”) brand initiative — the philosophy of which is, “Believe that anything you can imagine, you can make real.”
Fans creating remixes will be able to submit their work to “The Remix Project” for others to listen to and vote on. All participants who submit a remix over the next four weeks are automatically entered into a contest to win a Grand Prize, all-expenses-paid trip to the South by Southwest music festival in Austin, TX, in March, along with other prizes including Dylan’s “The Original Mono Recordings” box set and “The Bootleg Series Volume 9 – The Witmark Demos.” Just for voting, all participants qualify for a sweepstakes to win one of 10 Sony Style gift cards. The Grand Prize winner will be selected by a panel of Sony judges from a group of three semifinalists chosen by the fan community.
The Ting Tings were handpicked to be involved in “The Remix Project.” To kick off the program, they have created their own version of “Subterranean Homesick Blues.” The band explained that “having the opportunity to jam with Dylan and his band in a virtual live session in our studio was mind-explosive.”
The first Top 40 hit of Dylan’s career, 1965’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues”—crackled across America’s airwaves with startling immediacy and continues to resonate. A bona fide bulletin from the underground, “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” with its propulsive rhythmic syncopation and coded lyrics, connects traditional “talking” blues with street culture, while the song’s promotional film has become one of the most iconic memes in rock video language.
Bob Dylan is one of the world’s most popular and acclaimed songwriters, musicians and performers, having sold more than 110 million albums and performed literally thousands of shows around the world in a career spanning five decades. His most recent succession of new studio albums — Time Out Of Mind, “Love And Theft”, Modern Times and Together Through Life — have been universally hailed as among the best of his storied career, achieving new levels of commercial success. The Platinum-selling Time Out Of Mind from 1997 earned multiple Grammy Awards, including Album Of The Year, while 2001’s “Love And Theft” continued Dylan’s Platinum streak, earning several Grammy nominations and a statue for Best Contemporary Folk album. Modern Times, released in 2006, became one of the artist’s biggest albums worldwide, selling more than 2.5 million copies and earning Dylan two more Grammys while 2009’s Together Through LIfe debuted at #1 in the US and the UK (where it became Dylan’s first #1 album since 1970). Those four releases fell within a 12-year creative span that also included an Oscar- and Golden Globe-winning tune, “Things Have Changed,” from the film Wonder Boys, in 2001; a worldwide best selling memoir, Chronicles Vol. 1, which spent 19 weeks on the New York Times Best Seller List, in 2004; a Martin Scorsese-directed documentary, No Direction Home, in 2005; and several volumes of the best-selling Bootleg Series, which culminated in the highly-acclaimed Tell Tale Signs: Rare and Unreleased 1989-2006.
Dylan was awarded a special Pulitzer Prize in 2008 for “his profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power.” He remains one of the world’s top touring artists, performing more than 100 concerts yearly around the globe.
The Ting Tings, a DIY pop band from Manchester, England, have garnered massive acclaim and success with their hit singles “That’s Not My Name,” “Shut Up And Let Me Go” and “Great DJ” that have sold over 4 million copies worldwide and their critically acclaimed debut album, “We Started Nothing,” which has sold over two million copies to date.
After a whirlwind of touring live in the U.S., Europe and almost everywhere else non-stop for the last two years, The Ting Tings moved to East Berlin’s Freidrichshain District to record their highly anticipated sophomore effort that is due out Spring 2011.
“The Remix Project” was developed in collaboration with ClubCreate.
Sony’s global brand message, make.believe, is a platform for engaging consumers with the world of Sony in entirely new ways and across all of Sony’s businesses, from electronics to entertainment to network services. The make.believe philosophy is simple: Believe that anything you can imagine, you can make real.
For additional details on the Remix Project and the contest rules visit www.facebook.com/sony.