This month’s episode of Join The Future on Noods Radio has a distinctive theme: the birth and rise of the ‘remix album’ in the 1980s. It was inspired by my recent Reappraised article on the now 40-year-old Disco by Pet Shop Boys, a huge-seller that remains (in my opinion, at least) one of the most perfect remix albums of the 1980s.

You can read that article here. In the show, I focus more on the wider story of how remix albums became a fixture within music culture and the sets that either broke the mould or in some way contributed to the story.

As I point out in the PSB piece, that story has two distinctive strands: the impact of Jamaican dub (the forerunner of the remix) and NYC DJ culture. Disco was when the remixer first became a star and that only accelerated in the 1980s. Yet as I discuss on the show, it wasn’t always ‘named’ remixers like Francois Kevorkian, Larry Levan and Shep Pettibone who artists and labels got to do remixes – increasingly, it was the original producers who turned their hands to extended versions, dancefloor dubs and radically reworked instrumentals.

The show, then, is a kind of potted history of the early evolution of the remix album with my own analysis and commentary thrown in. It naturally boasts some familiar and well-loved favourites – Arthur Baker’s infectious rework of PSB’s ‘In The Night’, Martin Rushent’s groundbreaking work for the Human League, Soft Cell’s Ecstasy-fuelled revisions of their Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret album, and a dash of Grace Jones – but also a few foundational cuts (Upsetters), freewheeling NYC punk-funk (B-52’s dalliance with Compass Point Studios in Nassau, where dub disco was born) and even a dash of Billy Idol (it’s a banger, I promise).

You can listen to the show via the embedded player below. Scroll down the page for the full track listing. If you like what you hear, feel free to share it on social media. You can find previous Join The Future shows (plus various volumes in our mix series and recordings of talks and panel discussions) via the ‘audio’ page on this website.

JOIN THE FUTURE: S6E10 –THE EARLY EVOLUTION OF THE REMIX ALBIM

Originally broadcast on Noods Radio, Bristol, 28/10/26

Pet Shop Boys – In The Night (Arthur Baker Extended Mix)
Upsetters – Jungle Jim
Mr Partridge – New Broom
B-52s – Give Me Back My Man (Party Mix! Version)
League Unlimited Orchestra – Things That Dreams Are Made Of (Love & Dancing Version)
Soft Cell – A Man Could Get Lost (Ecstatic Version)
Imagination – So Good So Right (Night Dubbing Version)
Eurhythmics – Regrets (Francois Kevorkian Vocal Mix)
Billy Idol – Love Calling (Rub-a-Dub Mix)
Grace Jones – The Frog & The Princess
Mondo Love & Betrayal – Your Latest (Dub)