Song of the Day #114 - R Kelly - Ignition (Remix)

Now, usually I don't do this, but uhh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6y_4_b6RS8

Here's a great little treasure from the annuls of internet history: a few months after this song comes out, John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats gets into an argument about the quality of the song, and, to prove his pro-Ignition point, he tries to list 100 Reasons Why "Ignition - Remix" Is So Damned Great. It's a great thread of old internet culture... there's some classic moments where people discuss how they haven't been able to listen to the song, and it's shocking to remember the pre-Youtube/iTunes/etc era. It's also just filled with tons of great reasons that illuminate how great this song actually. My favorite is reasons 14-17, where he talks about the bizarre circuit of self-reference that drives the song. And then at 31, he points out how bizarre the beginning of the song is...

Well, I feel like I can maybe illuminate this a bit, but really I'm just gonna make this more complicated. There actually is a song called Ignition. So many people don't know this! I wasn't even sure until I looked it up. Basically, he made the original back in 2002, for an album called "Loveland", but that incomplete album leaked so he scrapped it. He reused a bunch of the songs on The Chocolate Factory, and remixed others, i.e. "Ignition", which was playing on the radio although not an official single. Okay. But what's CRAZY is that the original Ignition still ended with him "previewing" the remix, which then became the start of the remix, so like...

It isn't really worth thinking about. What is worth knowing, though, is that the original and the remix are back to back on The Chocolate Factory, and some radio DJs, picking up on the intent, would actually play both back-to-back in a 6-minute Ignition Explosion, and these people had the right idea. The original "Ignition" has nothing on the remix, but is still a fine song on it's own, and the feeling when it transitions from one to the other, though, sheeeesh. It excites me in the same way that stupid Sound Voltex remixes do. Just that feeling of it "picking up" into the remix, sheesh, definitely worth experiencing. Really drives home how kinetic and smooth it is.