Pop remix albums have shifted from a bonus-pack afterthought to a full creative undertaking. Porter Robinson’s Smile! : D Plus+, a 16-artist reworking of his 2024 album, arrives alongside similar projects from PinkPantheress, Zara Larsson and Charli XCX, each treating the remix format as a way to extend an album’s cultural life and deepen creative relationships rather than simply stack streaming numbers.
A different kind of collaboration
Robinson gave his guests free rein over the original track list. He did not want to assign songs, and he did not want anyone working on material they did not connect with. That openness produced multiple versions of the same track: four takes on “Cheerleader” and three on “Is There Really No Happiness?”, including one from the electronic duo Frost Children.
Frost Children, made up of Angel and Lulu Prost, were the only guests who also appeared on the original record. Their version of the melancholic “Is There Really No Happiness?” stretches to seven minutes, nearly double the original, and leans into progressive trance elements Robinson had only hinted at. Lulu said the goal was to take a song that was not already high-energy and push it somewhere wilder.
That instinct carried over from a shared history. Lulu got a tattoo referencing Robinson’s album Worlds at 17 and tried to hide it while they worked together. Robinson admitted he had known all along.
Details as the point
Robinson looked for collaborators who treat small choices as meaningful. Underscores, who appears with Ninajirachi on a reworked “Perfect Pinterest Garden,” had noticed during a 2025 tour stop that Robinson was playing the song a semitone down from its original key. She mentioned it, he adjusted at the next soundcheck, and the moment became a sign of the specificity he wanted on the project.
“They just care, and they’re actually deeply passionate, and the details matter,” Robinson said of the people he recruited.
The results range widely. EJEAN covered “Year of the Cup” as a stripped-back acoustic track rather than attempting a dance flip, a choice Robinson described as the standout of the collection. Vertile brought “Easier to Love You” back toward the Eurodance sound that inspired it before it became a guitar ballad.
Why the format is spreading
Producer Margo XS, who worked on Larsson’s Midnight Sun: Girl’s Trip, describes the remix album as community building. She sees it as a corrective to years of pop features that changed little about a song’s production and seemed designed mainly to merge audiences.
“It feels phoned in,” she said of that approach, adding that listeners grew tired of it. A remix album, by contrast, can make each collaboration feel deliberate and let the identities of everyone involved come through.
Larsson’s project began as a conventional deluxe edition before expanding into a 13-artist reimagining that includes Kehlani, Tyla, Robyn and JT. PinkPantheress’s Fancy Some More? similarly reworked her mixtape Fancy That? with contributions from JADE, Anitta, Basement Jaxx and Kaytranada, among others.
Charli XCX made the case plainly when she released Brat and It’s Completely Different but Also Still Brat in 2024: a song can be taken apart and rebuilt from a tiny production element or a single lyrical reference. Her question was why an album should be considered finished at all.
The cost of getting it right
The format demands compromise. Margo XS had to trim some of the ambient material French musician Malibu created for “Saturn’s Return,” which she felt was too sleepy for a mainstream pop remix album. She restructured the track with songwriter Helena Gao but kept Malibu’s atmosphere for the ending.
Robinson experienced the reverse: hearing someone else sing words drawn from his own specific memories. EJEAN’s version of “Year of the Cup” left him wondering what those lines meant to the person performing them.
Not every idea made it. Robinson considered inviting Jane Remover through the producer’s Leroy project but was too shy to ask. He also imagined a K-pop interpretation of Smile! : D from a group like KiiiKiii or Aespa. For now, the album stands as a document of what happens when an artist hands over the keys and trusts the people who grew up listening.
