Dave Kerzner's Squids Remix of Steven Wilson Personal Shopper Which Can't Be Shared!

[Squids]

Yes, it is I, El Squidsarino here. Been awhile! Hope you're all doing well in this weird time. Anyway... I wanted to share this here. For reasons unknown, my remix of Steven Wilson's Personal Shopper which was successfully uploaded to my Sonic Elements Soundcloud (some people reported they had trouble even doing that) but when I've tried to share it on Facebook or Instagram it gets completely blocked. Even if YOU try to share the link to the remix or even my whole Soundcloud it gets blocked. They don't say why either except that it is "against community standards". There's no explicit lyrics. There's no nudity (apart from refusing to wear pants in a pandemic but how do they know???) and the only controversy there could be is maybe Facebook just doesn't approve of SW's move into POP! Haha. But, it seems to be just me with this particular problem. So, it has me wondering even more. It's all a bit weird to be honest and even suspicious. Kind of regret spending a few days on this "for fun" (which it was I have to admit). I even sang co-lead with him on it and gave nods to Pink Floyd, The Police and Radiohead. I turned Elton's voice into Darth Vader... maybe it was that?

Anyway, if I can share it here at least you can listen for yourself. But, imagine, you can't even share this link on Facebook. Try! You'll be amazed. And this didn't happen from sharing the link a bunch of times. Sometimes Facebook puts a temporary ban on you if you spam all the groups at once. I only shared it in a few places so it wasn't that. They just have an issue with my Soundcloud for some reason. I do have a lot of covers there so it's quite possibly some kind of DRM issue. But, I have only posted my own mixes there. Kind of heavy handed censorship if you ask me... or someone doesn't want you to hear it and reported it? Even if that was the case I'm amazed they don't let you refute it. They do let you just say "yes or no" that it was "a mistake" and then they do nothing. No response. The problem persists. Really strange but I think people should know and when I find out what has happened I'll share for those who are interested.

Here's my remix. I'd love to know what you think! Keep in mind we mostly just played around with IK Multimedia plug-ins and had fun with it. Fernando Perdomo (who played guitar on it) and I called this the "Shop From Hell Mix" because it's almost like a mashup with Run Like Hell intentionally.

https://soundcloud.com/sonicelements...n-squids-remix

Personal Shopper Remix Squids 3sml.jpg

[Top Cat]

Hi Dave, as I wrote on FB when you posted the news, I really like this version, although I've never heard Steve's.
I reported the problem to FB as well and gave them the link but haven't gotten a reply but asked them why it was considered "not to community standards". Must be something about naked dancing goats neither one of us can explain.

Just for future information, Duncan has graciously provided a SoundCloud link to imbed directly into your post if you so desire.
Just go to Go Advanced next to Post Reply and you will see the SC icon.
well you know what to do next. lol

[Squids]

Hi Dave, as I wrote on FB when you posted the news, I really like this version, although I've never heard Steve's.
I reported the problem to FB as well and gave them the link but haven't gotten a reply but asked them why it was considered "not to community standards". Must be something about naked dancing goats neither one of us can explain.

Just for future information, Duncan has graciously provided a SoundCloud link to imbed directly into your post if you so desire.
Just go to Go Advanced next to Post Reply and you will see the SC icon.
well you know what to do next. lol

That's cool thank you Top Cat! One good thing to remember about these independent forums is they are free from the greater BS that can happen on big platforms such as Facebook. They try to deter people from posting outside links and now it seems they've gotten very heavy-handed with their censorship. I mean, it's really extreme when we're just talking about sharing music. There's no hate speech in it or politics or violence or anything that could possibly be considered a concern. It's simply one of MANY remixes of a pop song that was offered by the artist officially to all who wanted to join in. It was supposed to be something fun and cool of him offer for people to do while he postponed his album. I wasn't going to do it because I have too much of my own music to do but I saw friends of mine doing it and I thought "oh well alright I'll do one too" and then I really got into it (more than I was going to allow myself to) only to find that I can't even share it on social media! Huh? That's the only thing there is to do with a remix because you can't sell it! Haha. What a waste of time. But, if at least some people get to hear it I guess that's better than nothing.

I'm tempted to just play the rest of the instruments and replace all his stems and release it as a cover version that I CAN sell. The only things stopping me from doing that are the fact that if I was gonna cover an SW song (which isn't on the top of my list of tribute tbh) I would pick a great PT song or something, not this. Just the idea of spending more time on it also makes me feel foolish and, anyway, I have a mountain of my own mixing tasks to do so in all reality I'll probably just go back to that. But, it feels good that this can be shared at least SOMEwhere. I've never felt so held back from doing something as natural as sharing your soundcloud link. There's definitely something strange going on there and it's worth knowing and letting others know I think. Just to be aware of it. Ironically I even got a warning from Robin Armstrong of Cosmograf who had issues just uploading his remix to Soundcloud. But, mine was a different issue and even more strange.

[JKL2000]

I wouldn't try to figure it out. There's probably some algorithm that got triggered - maybe after they give it a human review it will be changed. Sounds frustrating though! TBH, even though I pre-ordered the SW album, Im not even paying that much attention to the single now let alone remixes. There's too much new stuff that's already released to explore! Like your last one, Dave!!

[fiberman]

Hi Dave I don't know the Steven Wilson version of this song, but I think your version is excellent.

[Squids]

Hi Dave I don't know the Steven Wilson version of this song, but I think your version is excellent.

Thanks! Here's the original version Steven Wilson released for reference. I'd post a link to the remix contest and suggest any musicians or engineers here join in the fun BUT... the potential difficulty in being able to share it after part does make it decidedly NOT that much fun I gotta say. I'm grateful to be able to at least post it here. Thanks for listening. This is the original version:

[Squids]

By the way, has anyone else here done a remix in this contest? Were you able to post your soundcloud link? Curious. Also let's hear it!

[gearHed289]

Hey Dave, I do know the rules state that you can't upload to other music platforms, but I don't really see the powers at Facebook being hip to this fact, and I don't think Facebook would be considered a "music platform".

"Entrants/Remixers and/or 3rd parties are not permitted to upload remixes to any other (music) platform/service other than SoundCloud and WeTransfer. Free downloads on SoundCloud are permitted."

[Squids]

Hey Dave, I do know the rules state that you can't upload to other music platforms, but I don't really see the powers at Facebook being hip to this fact, and I don't think Facebook would be considered a "music platform".

"Entrants/Remixers and/or 3rd parties are not permitted to upload remixes to any other (music) platform/service other than SoundCloud and WeTransfer. Free downloads on SoundCloud are permitted."

Yes and also the important thing to note is that sharing the Soundcloud link on Facebook is different than uploading the content itself to be hosted on Facebook (such as via a video because I don't think you actually can upload just audio to Facebook). Plus it's doubtful they would be hip to it in general. It is possible someone, for whatever reason, sabotaged my remix and/or Sonic Elements soundcloud page on Facebook by reporting it as spam or something. But, here's the thing. It'd be scary if they blocked someone because just ANYONE reported it. That means anyone can report anything anyone posts as "spam" and then they get blocked. With all the people arguing as they do on Facebook that would be out of control if it worked like that. So, it'd probably have to be just the copyright holder who could report it as a violation of copyright and then it would get blocked. But, in this case, how or why would Steven Wilson or his publisher who have the copyright report someone's remix as spam? Doesn't make sense. I would certainly hope that didn't happen because that'd be messed up! Then, maybe it has nothing to do with anyone reporting as spam and it's just Facebook "assuming" that it's against community standards or they have an issue with SoundCloud or... I don't know. It's a mystery but either way there's something not right about it. Facebook should at least explain what it is that's actually "against community standards". Otherwise it's just arbitrary censorship because they just feel like taking it down. If they can't even tell you the reason? Damn. Big brother testing control of the masses.

[gearHed289]

I lean toward what JKL200 said - It was probably some overzealous algorithm.

BTW, nice work on the remix! You really went to town. Mine was more about a new intro and cutting down the length, with some minor textural changes to the mix.

[Squids]

I lean toward what JKL200 said - It was probably some overzealous algorithm.

BTW, nice work on the remix! You really went to town. Mine was more about a new intro and cutting down the length, with some minor textural changes to the mix.

Thanks. Yeah it's probably Facebook's algorithm going haywire but what's worse is that they haven't yet fixed it. For a multi-billion dollar company they're pretty inept sometimes.

Nice job on your remix! I think "cutting down the size" from the original is an improvement. The irony is that his song is not that "Proggy" and yet even Prog fans think it's too long! haha. I guess that was the plan. A pop song the radio would never play. Not at that length anyway.

[Squids]

By the way, I just sent my remix to Tom and Chris Lord-Alge who are big SW fans. Curious what they'll think of it. I have to email the Soundcloud link to people because I can't just share it on social media! So ridiculous.

[Squids]

Fernando had the brilliant idea (can't believe I didn't think of it) to just create a new Soundcloud account which I did for our project "Squids Out To Sea" (not a bad idea anyway). So, I posted the "Squids Remix" of Personal Shopper there and it does some shareable. I still have no idea why my Sonic Elements Soundcloud isn't shareable. I hope I get to find out why. I'll let you know. In the meantime here's the new link if you want to check it out or share it:

https://soundcloud.com/squidsouttose...r-squids-remix



Also, in case anyone wants to download a free CD quality uncompressed wave version of it I've now set the new link here in this comment to download-capable.

[gearHed289]

I think "cutting down the size" from the original is an improvement. The irony is that his song is not that "Proggy" and yet even Prog fans think it's too long! haha. I guess that was the plan. A pop song the radio would never play. Not at that length anyway.

My very first impression of the song was "Why is this almost 10 minutes long?".

BTW - I shared my Soundcloud link on Facebook this morning, and so far, no issues.

[Squids]

My very first impression of the song was "Why is this almost 10 minutes long?".

BTW - I shared my Soundcloud link on Facebook this morning, and so far, no issues.

Yeah I think most people were wondering why it was 10 minutes. I guess that was the controversial aspect of it. It's Pop at Progrock song length. I do a lot of crossover Prog myself but I can't imagine doing such a long pop track as this. I had to cut my remix down by around 3 minutes or so. I wonder if most people did. I've only checked out a handful of remixes after I did mine.

Btw I guess my issues not being able to share on Facebook with was isolated to my previous SoundCloud. My new SoundCloud does share just fine. Although I've still not got any answer from Facebook as to why my other SoundCloud is blocked. Must be because of the covers on there but... they are all at least my covers not anyone else's recordings. Weird. Anyway... whatever. Haha. Good luck with your remix. I hope you win!

[Dana5140]

There is an article in the WaPo or NYT yesterday about bots v. musicians re: copyright- and it sounds like this fell prey to the same problem, overzealous bots patrolling various sites on behalf of site owners.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/enter...886_story.html

[Squids]

There is an article in the WaPo or NYT yesterday about bots v. musicians re: copyright- and it sounds like this fell prey to the same problem, overzealous bots patrolling various sites on behalf of site owners.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/enter...886_story.html

Thanks. Yeah it's such a tricky thing. On the one hand it's fair and right to protect artists, songwriters, publishers etc. from piracy which is a huge problem that may be bigger than the amount of humans that can be assigned to monitor it per company (I suppose... although when your social media company is worth billions I would think you'd have the funds). But, on the other hand, people have a lot of fun doing authorized remixes or doing covers, music lessons, mixing tutorials and all sorts of things with songs. Ideally it all should be done intelligently to preserve all the legitimate things people would want to do with their music. Or at least to monetize it for the rights holders like YouTube has done (not that you get a lot of money from their ads but it's something). I'm not sure where Soundcloud fits into that. Maybe they've changed their policies regarding uploading songs you didn't write or something. But, if that's the case then their days are probably numbered.

[gearHed289]

Good luck with your remix. I hope you win!

I think he's picking three, so let's both win!

[Squids]

I think he's picking three, so let's both win!

I would be very surprised if he picked me for a variety of reasons. But, pleasantly surprised. That would be great. I'm curious to see what happens either way and look forward to checking more remixes out. Shame that there were these hiccups with Soundcloud and social media sharing because it's fun thing to do especially right now.

[Squids]

Have you guys listened to all the various remixes of this? I suppose the song itself and even the idea of remixes isn't something typically of interested to Prog fans. I wasn't even going to do it myself but I kind of got into it and "went Proggier" with it. Fernando, the guitarist in my solo band, went even more "Prawg Crimson" with it. Check it out! It even has some pre-historic vintage dinosaur sounds in it. Haha.

https://soundcloud.com/fernandoperdo...-perdomo-remix

[jarmsuh]

Have you guys listened to all the various remixes of this? I suppose the song itself and even the idea of remixes isn't something typically of interested to Prog fans. I wasn't even going to do it myself but I kind of got into it and "went Proggier" with it. Fernando, the guitarist in my solo band, went even more "Prawg Crimson" with it. Check it out! It even has some pre-historic vintage dinosaur sounds in it. Haha.

https://soundcloud.com/fernandoperdo...-perdomo-remix

I love that darker version of the song!

[Squids]

The plot thickens! Somehow I convinced legendary mix engineer Tom Lord-Alge to do a remix as well. He used some of the elements of my remix and Fernando's but went more with a "if Steve had hired me this is what I'd do" approach! But, pretty funny how the Mellotron that Fern did made its way into all three remixes. Goes to show you that you it's always good to put a little Mellotron in a song. haha.

Here's Tom's Remix if you're curious. It's more Pop (despite it being the full 10 minutes):



That SC link might be temporary because I uploaded it to my SoundCloud. Tom doesn't have one and he's not on social media and he doesn't normally join remix contests. However, this is what I find particularly funny about it! He almost did it on a dare. I can't believe he took the time to do it.

[jamesmanzi]

I only found out about the remix contest when I saw this thread a few days ago. Figured I wouldn't have time for a grand re-imagining, so I went the other way.

Here's my Radio Edit edit.

[profusion]

I did my remix a few weeks ago. I turned it into a doom metal song. No prog here!

[Squids]

That's cool to hear your remixes! Although I must say I think I've heard this song and that falsetto voice WAYYYY more than I ever would have normally! haha. But, seriously, it's fun to see how people can get creative with a track.

Check this out. Fernando Perdomo did this for a Todd Rundgren remix contest (and won!). I like this remix better than the original Todd version of the song.