Why Megamixing Is the Future of Music

Anthony Paul
Aug 25, 2017 · 4 min read

In 2016 Waka Flocka Flame released his mixtape “Flockavelli 1.5” in a 53 minute straight “Megamix”. Such composition made the single piece extraordinarily long for what the average listener. Waka Flocka fans were exposed to a single piece decomposed into a 13 track mix encompassing some of Flocka’s best hits from “Birthday” to “Blue or Red”. Such mixing represents a new growing trend among popular and underground artists and their pursuit to make whole albums sound as one complete piece.

To those who still have not caught along, the concept behind mega-mixing work is where an artist combines a series of tracks into a rapid succession of pieces that usually extends past the typical length of a song. Megamixing is not as uncommon as one would think as its presence has been apparent since early rave with Ben Liebrand to work with Michael Jackson and Madonna.

Megamixing can be seen as a simple production task just by simply placing every track next to one another and ripping the whole thing as a single song. In truth megamixing deals with transitional feats that artists must utilize both in the process of audio engineering and also combing all pieces together or mixing. It requires mastery of production to be able to have transitions that happen rapidly between tracks with large varied BPM. An important megamix that highlights how difficult it is to do such a thing is the Death Grips track “Steroids (Crouching Tiger Hidden Gabber)” which lasts 22:30 in total. The sections between 4:33 to 5:00 transition between a 180 BPM track to a 130 BPM track purely by jumping between MC Rides Vocals, Zach Hill on the drums, and Andy “Flatlander” Morin’s mixing. Megamixing, pointed out by artists like Death Grips, Shakira, Katy Perry, Spice Girls, Daft Punk, and more point out how the task to build such a mix can be quite difficult and requires fine detail in the production side of music. On the opposite end, the actual compositional aspects of the tracks also need to flow into one another which often deal with vocals, lyrics, and theme.

Steroids (Crouching Tiger Hidden Gabber) (2016), Death Grips

The Avalanches “Wildflower” (2016) and “Since I Left You” (2000) are both examples of single cut megamixed albums whose flow essentially meets that of a megamixed album. Each track flows into one another but each posses their own theme. A strong example of how difficult such feat is are the stages between “Zap!” and “The Noisy Eater”. Using radio dialogue and monologues to introduce different BPM helps organize the track in both the production/flow aspect but more importantly the thematic sense. Listening to the two tracks flow into one another will blatantly make it apparent how the soft feeling of sitting on a park bench listening to a child talk can transition to the fast flow of “The Noisy Eater” rapping about eating cereal. The fine details of making the mix is representative of one concept in general: making the piece whole.

Wildflower (2016), The Avalanches

Megamixing pieces guarantees that work will be once complete project instead of a series of misplaces tracks that don’t give an album an overall feeling. Thematic presence is built upon the production aspect but also upon the artists own dedication to the piece. Lorde’s “Melodrama” and Beach Houses “Bloom” may not be megamixes but they both approach the completely thematic continuity in a similar scope.

There are some problems that do arise for some artists like the fact that several produces are featured on a single album per track. That can overall make the piece seem like a mixtape even if it claim it isn’t. The mismatched nature isn’t what an artist should seek and it makes the album less “sound”. This problem is common within the HipHop, Trap, Cloud Rap scenes in albums like “Aint no Mixtape Bih” by Plies and “Trap House 3” by Gucci Mane. However artists combat these problems by addressing production issues as one whole album instead of a per-track aspect. Gucci Mane addressed this and released “Everybody Looking” (2016) as one whole complete album symbolic of his exit from jail. Lil Uzi Vert does the same thing in “Luv is Rage” (2015) and “Luv is Rage 2” (2017) with various production artists. There are many other problems that arise but usually a progression from an “unsound album” to a megamix usually follows this order:

1. Un-sound
2. Series of Tracks with production flow or thematic flow
3. Track that have BOTH production flow and thematic flow
4. Megamix

Currently in Pop Music megamixing isn't too apparent but many artists have begun shifting towards that in their work starting at step 2 with production flow or thematic flow. The age of megamixing is steadily coming and many artists see that. Megamixing reaffirms the value of the “album” within engineering and what music is all about: being thematically sound.

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Anthony Paul
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