Anyone else like mashups?

Vonhelmet

Vonhelmet

Vonhelmet

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I've been getting into mashups lately, and was wondering if anyone else here was into them.

There's some amazing stuff out there. American Edit by Dean Gray is brilliant, and the Beastles stuff is very good too. The Grey Album - Jay Z's black album and the Beatles White album - is pretty well known and very good. Someone's recently released some Jay Z and radiohead stuff which I've not listened to properly yet. I'd also recommend the stuff by Girl Talk.

Some of the stuff is absolutely brilliant - I love the variety of samples that people use and the weird combinations you can come up with.

Oh yeah, The Kleptones Night at the hip-hopera is good too.

Any other fans here?
 
Ta for the heads-up on the Jay-Z/Radiohead stuff - listening to some of it now :)

The Grey Album is easily the best I've heard.

Aside from the brilliantly clever/obvious concept, it just works as a complete entity, for me. I don't like The Beatles' music; I don't like Jay-Z's. But put them together with skill like DJ Danger Mouse did, and magic happens :)

Of course, it's made easier when one part of the equation is a rap artist - no pesky dissonance from conflicting key signatures that you'd get with more musically complex songs.

And it's even easier when the rap artist in question releases a capella versions into the wild ;)

Most other mashups just irritate me, however much I may like the concept.

Nearly all mashup artists find two tracks that sound really good together for a chorus - which is great - and then either bludgeon you to death with it, or worse, try to wedge the two tracks together for the entire length of the song. Verse vs. Verse, Bridge vs. Bridge... one thing's for sure: it just sounds like two songs wedged together, rather than a great new whole.

But enough of my mithering :D

I take it you've grabbed some Best Of Bootie mashup compilations? Arty Fufkin's "Crazy Logic" [Gnarls Barkley / Supertramp / Rockwell] is a standout [BoB 2006].

And I suspect you've probably already heard The Kleptones' "Careless Or Dead" [George Michael / Bon Jovi :D] - also BoB 2006.

EDIT: Oh, and I nearly forgot my cheeky favourite: Girls Aloud v Duran Duran's "Girls On Film", which puts the Duran original on the left channel and the Girls Aloud cover on the right, with amusingly similar results!
 
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simisker said:
Of course, it's made easier when one part of the equation is a rap artist - no pesky dissonance from conflicting key signatures that you'd get with more musically complex songs.

And it's even easier when the rap artist in question releases a capella versions into the wild ;)
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I agree that rap appears easier to work with. You don't have a tune to fret about. Just get the rhythm down and you're sorted. It still must be hard as nails though, and some of the rhythm work is very impressive nonetheless. Belly Movin' off the second Beastles album is amazing in terms of matching the rhythm of the two songs.

simisker said:
Most other mashups just irritate me, however much I may like the concept.

Nearly all mashup artists find two tracks that sound really good together for a chorus - which is great - and then either bludgeon you to death with it, or worse, try to wedge the two tracks together for the entire length of the song. Verse vs. Verse, Bridge vs. Bridge... one thing's for sure: it just sounds like two songs wedged together, rather than a great new whole.
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I agree that some of the A vs B stuff is absolutely dire. I've got heaps of stuff that is awful. It is hard to find the decent stuff in amidst the garbage. I must have so many tunes that are just Smells Like Teen Spirit vs any track that's also in 4/4. You can't just play one track over another!

Still, there are some A vs B's that I love... Let's just have a look through Itunes...

Galvanise The Empire (Chemical Brothers - Galvanise vs John Williams - the Star Wars Empire theme)
Rock In Black (Queen - We Will Rock You vs AC/DC - Back In Black)
Every Car You Chase (Snow Patrol - Chasing Cars vs The Police - Every Breath You Take)
I'm Still Fresh (Elton John - I'm Still Standing vs Will Smith - The Fresh Prince of Bel Air) - This one is so wrong but so right!
Rehab (Can't Help Myself) (Amy Winehouse - Rehab vs The Four Tops - I Just Can't Help Myself) - More for the comedy value of the content really
More Than On Point (Boston - More Than A Feeling vs House Of Pain - On Point)

As I mentioned earlier, the American Edit album is brilliant too. I love Dr Who On Holiday. That's a great track that really shouldn't work but does.

Also, as mentioned earlier, the Girl Talk stuff is incredible if you get beyond the more straightforward A vs B stuff into really heavy sampling. It's hundreds of samples all blended together for an hour or so and it's absolutely stunning.

EDIT - Track 14, Plan, on Night At The Hip Hopera is absolutely stunning. It's 8 Point Agenda by Herbaliser (who I'd not heard of till hearing this) over I'm Going Slightly Mad by Queen and it's brilliant.
 
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i love listening to mash ups, more of a dancy nature though, i like pretty much all of the cut up brothers MOS mash up mix albums - yes, it may be sad but so what, the best one i've heard is mash up euphoria, which takes on more of a trancy turn.
 
MikeHunt79 said:
[...] Mashups that are apparently original yet still somehow invoke the twitching corpse of teen spirit :p [...]
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Yeah, typical mashup fail: concept mildly amusing; execution tonally combative.

Also: "Song + Amen manglings != mashup", as I know you know :p :)
 
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