Dracliminal – “Summertime Sadness” (Drill Remix)

Dracliminal – “Summertime Sadness” (Drill Remix) – Single Review

Call me crazy, but it just seemed like the most appropriate time to release this review was to wait until we were all officially in the summer season…because who doesn’t want a little sadness to go with the heat, am I right?  Producer Dracliminal has been makin’ big moves over the past year or so with a whole bunch of official releases & remixes online…and he’s recently dropped his own spin on the mega-hit “Summertime Sadness,” originally by Lana Del Rey.

There are a ton of questions that naturally come along with doing a remix in any form.  I’m always curious about intentions personally…there are billions of songs out there…so what made Dracliminal choose to go with “Summertime Sadness?”  That’d be what I’d ask.  I’m not saying it’s not a great choice – it is!  It’s a stellar song by every definition and measurement…no issues there…I’m simply saying there are so many tracks to choose from, I’m always interested in what makes someone choose the one that they did, you follow me?  Then there are the more obvious questions like, ‘did the song change a lot in its new form?’ or ‘did the song itself actually improve?’ – ‘are there substantial qualities on display that made this remix feel necessary?’   These questions might be more standard, but they’re usually a whole lot harder to answer and can actually be vitally important in determining some of the true value in the work that’s been put into it all…from both sides, from the original material that Lana Del Rey created, to the new spin that Dracliminal has put into the song now in this Drill Remix.  So let’s check this out…

At the heart of it all, “Summertime Sadness” is a great song…that was true when Lana Del Rey originally released it, and that remains to be true now through this latest version put out by Dracliminal.  When that’s the case, and you can confirm that the original and its subsequent variations all continue to retain its quality, you know that’s a major reflection on the source material.  As in, we’re really talking about great songwriting here…and when you have a great song, it’s so much more universal than we realize – you can take a Heavy Metal song in an instance like that and even effectively turn it into a Country tune when you’re dealing with a really well written single.  So was I surprised that I liked Dracliminal’s version of “Summertime Sadness?”  Did you just read everything I wrote in this paragraph?  No – of course I wasn’t.  Like I said, that’s the effect of songwriting that connects…it can morph, transform, and live several different lives successfully – which is really what you’re hearing in this Drill Remix adaptation.

That’s not to say Dracliminal didn’t do anything with this song, of course he did, and there’s no way that you could miss it after playing “Summertime Sadness” for a mere ten seconds.  From the beat to the atmosphere, to the vocals and the vibe, you can hear that Dracliminal has put the work in.  So in answer to the question of ‘did the song change’ – clearly, it did.  Again, that seems like a somewhat obvious question, but you’d be highly surprised to learn how many people will add a slight beat to something or simply pair a song up with another track that’s got a similar BPM, put their feet up, and call it a day.  I prefer tracks where you can hear major adjustments have taken place with the core ingredients, like you can hear Dracliminal has done on this variation of “Summertime Sadness,” but still retained the essence of what made things excellent to begin with.  Which really boils down to the hook and the melody for those of you out there wondering what leads to successful remixes and covers and such…once you mess with those two core ingredients, you open yourself right up to the debate about whether or not what you did was an improvement on the original.  I’m not one of those purests that’ll simply tell you that NO MATTER WHAT THE ORIGINAL IS ALWAYS BETTER – because that’s not what I believe.  I’ve met millions of people that DO think that’s the case, but that’s not what I personally think.  More often than not, I look at remixes and covers just like I do with this one here – they’re complementary pieces of art, and they can coexist without really having to compete.  This Drill Remix of “Summertime Sadness” is solid to listen to, and no details have been overlooked…as far as I’m concerned, selecting this song out of the billions of others in this world reveals a tributary aspect in it above all other things…and you can tell that’s pretty much the case considering that Dracliminal honored this cut by not changing it too much.  Enough so that we can tell the dude was clearly interested and engaged, but in a respectful way that tells you Dracliminal genuinely enjoys Lana Del Rey’s original too – make sense?  It’s the right way to go about it all if you ask me, and it’s what will always lead artists/producers to the best tracks to choose from; it ain’t enough to simply go after the big hits…you gotta work with material you authentically dig.

Determining what is or isn’t necessary in music is the toughest part of it all, and largely individual anyway.  Do I think “Summertime Sadness” needed additional variations beyond all the additional variations that are already out there?  Not really if I’m being honest with you – but that doesn’t make what Dracliminal has achieved here any less valid.  I am one of the folks that’ll tell you Del Rey’s original was an incredible single-worthy song…so I’ll fully admit, it’s tough to improve on that, or make some kind of twist on it that would have it standing out any more than it did originally, you following me?  What I like most is the fact that we get a refresher with this version…Dracliminal is bringing back a song that we likely all loved, which is actually more than a decade old at this point – can you believe it?  His production is on-point…no damage has been done to the melody or the hooks…he’s left his own stamp on the song as well through the changes he’s made in this Drill adaptation…and that’s really all you can ask for, as a fan of the original.  So while that makes a release like this more of a lateral move in many ways, at the same time, it still makes you smile and turn it up, because something you’ll always want to hear in any form has been brought back to the surface.  You get that instant nostalgic hit, and you get a great new spin on something you already loved…really, that’s all we can ever hope for.  Dracliminal delivered…he made something old new again, and relevant for what’s happening in music right now.

Follow along with Dracliminal at TikTok:  https://www.tiktok.com/@dracliminal

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