Track Breakdown: Phoenix Gets Their ‘Wolfgang’ Rearranged

Phoenix has finally -- finally -- released a remix album for their career-changing and year-end-list-destined Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix. After the disappointing Wolfgang Diaries which, once procured by hardcore fans, were found to have nothing more than 40-someodd insubstantial demos of boring studio tweaks, it was time they gave us something more to go with what still is many people's favorite album of the year. Better demos! An albums of entirely acoustic tracks! Anything. And we got remixes, some of which are meh, some of which are decent, and some of which are great. There's even a special appearance by none other than 2009's Indie Rock A-List: Animal Collective and Passion Pit, with special appearances by Chairlift, Friendly Fires, and Devendra Banhart, and others. After the jump, the breakdown, and where to find them.

“Listzomania” gets less impressive takes than some of the other tracks. The Alex Metric remix is elevator-in-a-dance-club predictable. Made for the less edgy parts of South Beach.

“Fences” gets remixed by Boombass, Friendly Fires, Chairlift, and The Soft Pack and 25 Hrs. The Boombass remix gets studded with house-happy blip-lines, which does nothing for listeners and doesn’t change the original much past what it is. Friendly Fires take an early 90s route into the song: cowbells, sharp piano keying, a backing female vocal shout, and a hollowed-out synth line, and it works to awesome effect, stripping most of the original away to its bare bones and giving it a retro, shoulder-padded skin. Decent. Chairlift’s take on “Fences” actually acts more like a cover than it does a remix. Vocalist Caroline Polachek’s light chanteuse touch floats over it with soft French New Wave tints, but there’s enough three-string sexiness there to make Chris Isaak proud. Pretty great. The Soft Pack does an out-and-out rockabilly cover to strange, fun effect. It’s mostly useless as a repeat track, but an interesting listen. The 25 Hrs remix feels like someone kicked the song in the disco balls really, really hard; it’s otherwise relatively pedestrian.

“1901” gets Passion Pit and L’Aiglon’s takes; I’d at least expect the kids chorus from the best tracks on Passion Pit’s Manners to make an appearance, but the pure MDMA essence of the band makes a noble attempt at drugging the most triumphant parts of the original. It mostly fails, which is sad. It shouldn’t. L’Aiglon turns the song into a scattershot shoegaze-on-speed affair, and it’s mostly enjoyable. Not memorable by any means, but definitely great as an experiment.

“Lasso” gets some fun breakbeat action courtesy of 2 Door Cinema Club, with harder guitar and 3-4 blip kicks that turn it from an indiepop classic into a dancerock banger. Approved.

The Young Fathers “Girlfriend” remix starts out with a promising, scruffy washout of the opening bars, and then gives way to a spasm-inducing beat-chopping that gets so, so much wrong. It resembles something closer to a ”Brown Note” more than anything else.

The “Rome” remix by Neighbors featuring the stylings of freak folkster Devendra Banhart highlight the song’s lonelier, introspective wanderlust impulses, and beautifully at that. Not to be missed.

Animal Collective’s take on two-parter “Love Like A Sunset” dresses the minimalist track with layer after layer, going so far as to add their own vocal tracks onto it. If you’re an Animal Collective fanatic, you’ll probably enjoy it. For those didn’t drink the Kool-Aid of Merriweather Post Pavilion, it might be less impressive. The song also gets rearranged by Turzi, who properly “meh” it up with failed trance ambitions.

There’re others, but you get the idea. If it sounds like I’m being hard on these songs, I’m not. This is what every remix album should be: a series of strange experiments approved by the band for you to realize how much better their original songs were than the attempts at improving or reinterpreting them. They’re often lazy (does “Fences” require five remixes?) and completely unmemorable except for a few standouts. But still, goddamnit, Phoenix, you have yet to put out the accompanying album we all want for this thing. Give us real demos. Do what Okkervil River did for The Stand-Ins and put out an entirely acoustic version of it. Remix it yourself! But stop torturing us. We know it’s one of the best releases of the year; we don’t need any more shit output on your behalf to benefit comparisons. You can stream most of the album here, and it’s available for purchase online in the iTunes Store as of Tuesday.