A remix album is an album consisting of remixes or rerecorded versions of an artist's earlier released material. The first act who employed the format was American singer-songwriter Harry Nilsson (Aerial Pandemonium Ballet, 1971). As of 2007, the best-selling remix album of all time is Michael Jackson's (1997).
Aerial Pandemonium Ballet (1971) by Harry Nilsson is credited as the first remix album.[1] It was released after the successes of "Everybody's Talkin'" and The Point!, when he decided that his older material had started to sound dated. Neu!'s Neu! 2 (1973) has also been described as "in effect the first remix album", as many tracks see the duo "speed up, slow down, cut, doctor, and mutilate the material, sometimes beyond recognition".[2]
In the 1980s, record companies would combine several kinds of electronic dance music, such as dance-pop, house, techno, trance, drum and bass, dubstep, hardstyle, and trap into full-length albums, creating a relatively low-overhead addition to the catalogs and balance sheets.[3] Soft Cell's Non Stop Ecstatic Dancing (1982) and The Human League's Love and Dancing (1982) are credited for inventing the modern remix album.[4] Since this time, this kind of release is not only seen as an easy cash-in for an artist and their label, but also as an opportunity to provide a second lease of life for a record.[5] In reggae music, it is not uncommon for a whole album to be remixed in a dub style.[6] [7]
Jennifer Lopez's album J to tha L–O! The Remixes is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the first remix album to debut at No.1 on the Billboard 200 chart.[8]
| Album | Artist | Record label | Released | Total certified units (from available markets) | Claimed sales (At least 500,000 sold) | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| scope=row style="text-align:center;" | 1 | Michael Jackson | Epic Records | 1997 | align=right | [9] | ||
| scope=row style="text-align:center;" | 2 | You Can Dance | Madonna | Sire Records | 1987 | align=right | [10] | |
| scope=row style="text-align:center;" | 3 | Love | The Beatles | Apple Records | 2006 | align=right | [11] | |
| 4 | Reanimation | Linkin Park | Warner Bros. Records | 2002 | ||||
| 5 | J to tha L–O! The Remixes | Jennifer Lopez | Epic Records | 2002 | [12] | |||
| scope=row style="text-align:center;" | 6 | Paula Abdul | Virgin Records | 1990 | align=right | [13] | ||
| scope=row style="text-align:center;" | 7 | Super Eurobeat Presents Ayu-ro Mix | Ayumi Hamasaki | Avex Trax | 2000 | |||
| scope=row style="text-align:center;" | 8 | We Invented the Remix | P. Diddy | Bad Boy Records | 2002 | |||
| scope=row style="text-align:center;" | 9 | Justin Bieber | Island Records | 2011 | ||||
| scope=row style="text-align:center;" | 10 | Dance!...Ya Know It! | Bobby Brown | MCA Records | 1989 | |||
| scope=row style="text-align:center;" | 11 | No More Games/The Remix Album | New Kids on the Block | Columbia Records | 1990 | |||
| scope=row style="text-align:center;" | 12 | Misia Remix 2000 Little Tokyo | Misia | Arista Records | 2000 | align=right | [14] | |
| scope=row style="text-align:center;" | 13 | Further Down the Spiral | Nine Inch Nails | Nothing Records | 1995 | |||
| scope=row style="text-align:center;" | 14 | Ayu-mi-x II Version Non-Stop Mega Mix | Ayumi Hamasaki | Avex Trax | 2000 | align=right | [15] | |
| scope=row style="text-align:center;" | 15 | Disco | Pet Shop Boys | Parlophone | 1986 | |||
| scope=row style="text-align:center;" | 16 | New Old Songs | Limp Bizkit | Interscope Records | 2001 | |||
| scope=row style="text-align:center;" | 17 | Eu e Memê, Memê e Eu | Lulu Santos | BMG Brasil | 2000 | |||
| scope=row style="text-align:center;" | 18 | The Remix | Lady Gaga | Interscope Records | 2010 | align=right | [16] | |
| scope=row style="text-align:center;" | 19 | The Remixes | Shakira | Sony Music | 1997 | align=right | [17] | |
| scope=row style="text-align:center;" | 20 | Todas as Estações - Remixes | Sandy & Junior | Universal Music Group | 2000 | align=right | [18] | |