Whether you feel it's deserved or dubious, Diplo's high profile meant a collection of his remix and production work was probably inevitable. Fans have no doubt snapped these tracks up via promo MP3s, mixtapes, or their parent albums. But one day even non-fans may pull out Decent Work for Decent Pay with bemused historical interest; it's generic enough make a handy snapshot of the ongoing, internet-fueled glut of quickie rock/rave/rap remixes.
Take Diplo's remix of Daft Punk's "Harder Better Faster Stronger". He loops and stutters a snatch of the original's robot rock, adding an off-the-rack Baltimore club beat. That's it. It's as simple, and as uninspired, as it sounds. There's no spark that suggests why it needed to be enshrined on CD rather than forgotten with last week's MP3 mixtape. Bloc Party's "Where Is Home?" gets fitted with the same clattering snares and acidic Ed Banger keyboards heard on dozens of similar dance rock do-overs during the past five years. If you're looking for any glimmer of surprise left in rock sonics rubbing against electronic textures at club tempos, well...sorry.
Now those remixes "work." They're well-produced, sonically. They're generic, but not awkward. But some of the other tracks on Decent Work are evidence of a more serious handicap. Namely that, for a guy who works with so many rappers, Diplo's got an occasionally wonky handle on how to frame the human voice. On Kano's "Reload It", neither Kano's sluggish flow nor D Double E's double-time rhymes ever harmonize with Diplo's house-tempo breakbeat. The friction is irritating, rather than engaging, and similar mismatches pepper the disc. For instance Lovefoxxx likewise sounds either draggy (the chorus) or rushed (the verses) to fit the moody new electro beat Diplo gives CSS' "Let's Make Love and Listen to Death from Above".
So along with a handful of cuts like (duh) M.I.A.'s "Paper Planes" and the bubbleheaded Brazilian bounce of Bonde Do Role's "Solta O Frango", the instrumentals work best. Samim's "Heater" and Claude VonStroke's "The Whistlerz" were already blessed with hooks that verged on the annoying, but at least they're not competing with out-of-place vocals. And surprisingly, at least since I haven't listened to his 2004 debut album Florida since its year of release, it was the instrumentals bearing only Diplo's name that I actually replayed for pleasure rather than duty.
"200", a grime-esque vignette of clonking drums and sour synth flutters, is as beguiling as Gang Gang Dance's similar London-to-America experiments. And "Way More Brazil" weaves together multiple layers of percussion as deftly as the most ornate classic UK garage cut or turn-of-the-millennium dancehall track. (And far nimbler than any actual Baile funk I've heard.) Like most remix comps, Decent Work is ultimately a grab-bag. But these solo tracks suggest a return to Diplo's Ninja Tune roots might not be such a bad move between the globetrotting.
