The practice plays into a larger trend by international artists hoping to stay on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for as long as possible.
BTS in a teaser photo for 'Butter'
Even as their latest single 'Butter' completes three weeks at the number 1 position on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, music group BTS has already released three remixes of the song over the past few days. The 'Hotter', 'Cooler' and 'Sweeter' iterations of 'Butter' embody different vibes, with the first two even having their own music videos.
The remixes have no doubt helped the record-setting run of 'Butter', a strategy BTS used effectively with their previous Billboard Hot 100 #1, 'Dynamite' (2020) as well. 'Dynamite' had no fewer than nine versions, including the 'Slow Jam', 'Midnight', 'Retro', 'Bedroom', 'Acoustic', 'EDM', 'Tropical' and 'Poolside' remixes.
The sheer number of 'Dynamite' remixes made some fans feel like Big Hit (now known as HYBE), the recording label behind BTS, was milking the group's music for all it was worth. While that sentiment is not unfounded, the practice plays into a larger trend by international artists hoping to stay on the Billboard Hot 100 chart — the prime index for how popular their music is across the North American market — for as long as possible.
Legacy of 'Old Town Road'
To understand how BTS is using remixes to keep 'Butter' trending for longer, we need look no further than Lil Nas X's viral hit 'Old Town Road' (2019). The song debuted on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts before being contentiously dropped for "not being country enough" as per the contemporary understanding of the genre.
Amid the furore, Lil Nas X teamed up with country star Billy Ray Cyrus to come up with a remixed version that shot up to the top of the Billboard Hot 100. With an (as yet) unbeaten streak of 19 weeks at #1, 'Old Town Road' is the song that has spent the longest duration atop the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
But Lil Nas X wanted to expand the footprint of the song even further. He did this by collaborating with a number of artists, including BTS ('Seoul Town Road'), Diplo, Young Thug and Mason Ramsey. Each of these remixes went on to become hits themselves.
Reaching a wider fanbase with remixes
In some cases, remixes help artists reach a larger audience than they would have with their original song — either by collaborating with other musicians/artists (and therefore gaining access to their fan followings) or by switching the genre of the song (for instance, reaching an EDM fan who might not have listened to a pure hip-hop track).
When Los del Rio teamed up with Bayside Boys for a remix of their original Spanish song 'Macarena' (the remix added some English lyrics), it became a chart staple in 1996. It spent 14 weeks at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. Closer in time, while Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee's 'Depacito' had a spectacular run on the Billboard Hot Latin Songs chart upon its release in January 2017, it peaked at number 44 on the Hot 100 — that is, until the release of a remix featuring Justin Bieber that April, which propelled it to the #1 spot, where it stayed for a total of 16 weeks.
BTS too have collaborated successfully with major stars on remixed versions of their songs in the past — on 'Mic Drop' with Steve Aoki and on 'Idol' with Niki Minaj, to name a few.
In terms of genre, Mariah Carey's 'Fantasy' remix featuring Old Dirty Bastard is considered trend-setting for its melding of R&B with hip-hop. Artists often release a radio/club edit of their tracks, something that would work well on the dance floor or ensure greater plays across radio stations in the US. For instance, the Daft Punk-Pharell Williams-Nile Rodgers hit 'Get Lucky' had a couple of official remixes, including a four-minute radio edit. These remixes not only keep the conversation around a song going for longer, but ensure it transcends the genre of the original.
How the Billboard Hot 100 works
The remixes mentioned here rely on one key feature of the Hot 100 — all official versions of a song count as a single entry on the chart. The reach of all the 'Old Town Road' versions and the original — or of 'Butter' in the present case — would be combined to determine the chart ranking. This means that releasing multiple versions of a song makes sense for an artist or record label with an eye on the charts.
Of course, not all remixes are about charts: Remixing itself has been around since the Jamaican music scene of the '60s and '70s, and also reflects in early hip-hop. Pop standards have been remixed with longer arrangements or added instrumentation to make them even more club-friendly. Artists may remix or re-edit their own tracks as a way of improving on work they grew to feel dissatisfied with. For artistic or commercial reasons, remixes are here to stay.
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