Dance Music 101: The Difference Between A Mashup, Bootleg, Remix, & More

There seems to be a plethora of confusion regarding the correct terminology used in music; especially dance music. If you’ve ever faced the conundrum of finding yourself in a deep thought about what these terms actually mean, put your mind at ease; we got you.

Remix

A remix is ideally another artist trying his hand on the original track and this process is approved by the original artist. The remix would still consist of the stems from the original version.

Bootleg

Remember all those remixes you heard by artists you’ve never heard of? Well chances are that most of those are actually bootlegs. Bootlegs are essentially remixes without the approval of the original artist.

VIP/Rework

It actually doesn’t stand for ‘very important person’ but instead it means ‘variation in production’. It usually means that the original artist decided to revive the track and take it in a different direction.

Edit

An edit changes a certain part of the track. For instance, with radio edits the intro and outro are cut out along with all the provocative parts of the track. Basically as soon as there is a minor change in the track, it can be referred to as an edit.

A-capella

A track with only vocals and no instruments whatsoever.

Mashup

Conventionally, a mashup is combining two separate tracks into one. In most scenarios it refers to vocals of one track (a-capella) mixed together with a different track. More than two tracks could be used too.