War Pigs Country Roads

 I obviously can't claim to know what John Denver would or would not have liked...and yet I'm positive he would have been delighted by this. 

Blurry in the USA

DJ Cummerbund is something of a mashup genius. But this may be my favorite yet, and considering how much I love much of his work, that's saying something.

I will say I'm not entirely sold on his editorial POV here, visually—it's all very powerful, but as a friend said, it's a bit, well, blurry. He seems to be maybe conflating a few things in a way I'm not sure are beneficial or accurate. But at the end of the day, the audio is stellar, and the visuals powerful. And, of course, it's got a good beat and you can headbang to it.

Nirvana + Vanessa Carlton = unbelievable

This really is, to quote one of the songs, unbelievable.

Ray of Gob

One of the first and still the single greatest mashup I've ever heard. What we have here is no less than one of the truly great supergroups ever, in itself an extreme rarity: two disparate yet tremendously important artists, Madonna (perennially underrated by rock and roll fans due to her choices of genres and her gender) and the Sex Pistols (perhaps the most underrated famous band ever), coming together to create something unique and brilliant. In other words, it's two great tastes that taste great together. It's a shame that they never actually existed in reality.

It's worth remembering that Madonna came out of the underground, and something of a street urchin, the kind of poor, struggling artist which many of the early middle-class punks could only wish they were. Stripping away the original's dance beat and replacing it with the incisive, searing guitar of Steve Jones and the feral, punishing drums of Paul Cook works so much better than it should. And yet if you didn't know any of the original tracks, you'd have no idea this was a mashup. It takes two (or, really, three) brilliant recordings and manages to create an entire new and equally brilliant piece of art by mashing them together. This isn't why the internet was created, but it should have been.

Madge should really do a short run of club dates backed by only a small punk combo.

And I feel like I just got home

Learn to Fly In Bloom

Well, this is...awesome, if a little excessively mind-bendy.

Come Closer Together

I love this so damn much. And while it's the absolute height of hubris to presume to know what John Lennon would have thought about anything, I'm nevertheless going to say I suspect John Lennon would have loved this. But not as much as Chuck Berry, and not just because he'd be thinking about how much money it might bring. (Although that too.)

Once you get past the amusement factor at these two oh so disparate sources being mashed together, what strikes you is how well the textures actually combine: Ringo's drums and Trent Reznor's drum machines, George's lead lines and NIN's keyboards, and the interlocking vocals. And if the lyrics seem perhaps a bit crude for the lads, well, they may be less creepy than hearing Lennon whisper "shoot me."

Metal Machine Music for Airports

This—a mashup of Brian Eno's transcendentally serene Ambient 1: Music for Airports with Lou Reed's famously abrasive Metal Machine Music—is absolutely brilliant...in theory.

It's actually not too far from what Eno has done in other contexts and it's not hard to imagine Reed would have at least been amused by it.

The problem is actually one of execution: the mashup has the industrial noise classic as loud or louder than the ambient track; if the mixer had just pulled the fader down a bit, it would have actually gelled quite nicely, giving the Eno some extra texture and creating something new and fascinating. Instead, it's nearly as unlistenable as the original Reed. Which may, of course, have been the creator's point. Rendering this entire post moot.

Hotel California

Don Henley wept. (That's a good thing.)

That is exactly how I wanted it to be.

It's the End of the World as We Know It/We Didn't Start the Fire

I will move heaven and earth if I have to, but I will see this played at DT's funeral.

Thank God someone finally found a way to bring that awful R.E.M. up to the late Sir William Joel of Long Islandington's level. 

A Hard Girls' Night

Nope.

Nope nope nope nope nope.

Look. My love of mashups is pure and true and well-documented. (Well...documented.) And, sure, John Lennon's and Paul McCartney's vocals sound great in just about any context, even laid atop an utterly witless piece of half-dimensional macho assdroolery. And yet...just...no. Dammit, no.

It's not like the Beatles are some untouchable artifact. Mash 'em with metal, with bubblegum, with funk, whatever. Just make it worthy and not a mash for mash's sake.

Mash 'em with something old:

(How the hell did they think to put those two songs together?)

Or something new:

(Most bizarrely underrated bassline ever.)

No, if you want to see what happens when this same creator takes a pair of great and almost totally unrelated songs (yeah, I know: Australia), witness the glory that is this:

Now that's how it's done.

When I Saw Sandman Standing There

As everyone knows, it was 50 years ago that the Beatles first appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show. And even today, watching it, it's no wonder they hit an unsuspecting America like they did.

South of the Grapevine

Outstanding...almost. The parts that work are pretty great but the riff really needs to move to another chord when Marvin does for it to have really taken off. Then again, that's just life in the mashup world, and it does add a certain tension. (Since both these songs are oh so lacking in tension.)

Actually, I think the section with the backing vocals is the most effective. Still, if nothing else, it highlights that a voice like Marvin's seemingly works irrespective of genre or context, and illustrates the obvious yet (these days) easily overlooked blues roots of metal.

(H/T: the killer Dangerous Minds) 

Imagine the Band

I did not think this was going to work.

Whole Lotta Helter Skelter

When DT and I did our Top 50 Beatles Songs, our most concise write-up was for "Helter Skelter." We wrote, in its entirety: "In which the Beatles invent grunge." It's a funny line, and a catchy one. And the fact that it's true doesn't hurt.

One of the interesting things about getting old is being able to actually witness trends. And one of the things I've noticed is fewer and fewer music fans seem to realize just what a rock and roller Paul McCartney is. He's well past the Wings period—and that, too, seems almost forgotten by rock fans these days, actually—and beloved, not just for his work with the Beatles, but as an elder statesman still bringing the goods live.

But—pace John Fogerty—Paul was the world's greatest Little Richard student and, with "Long Tally Sally," perhaps the only artist ever to cover one of Little Richard's greatest hits and actually top it. And when Paul decided he wasn't going to let any Who song claim the mantle of "heaviest rock song ever," he was a man on a mission. And damn if he and the lads didn't succeed.

But, as I say, even as music fans know the song "Helter Skelter" inside and out, it feels like the importance of it, and the sheer audacity, sometimes gets missed. Which is why pairing McCartney the vocalist (as well as, in places, Lennon the bassist and Harrison the guitarist) with the unquestioned all-time hard rock kings is a welcome corrective. Any vocalist replacing the ingrained-in-the-DNA vocals of Robert Plant has to be able to bring the goods.

He does.



Yes, she is. 

Sweet Dreams/Blue Monday/I Feel Love

Good Lord. Would that this had actually happened: Donna Summer fronting New Order would have been maybe the greatest supergroup of all time.

Get Up, Stand Up / Hitchin' a Ride

Now this is what I'm talkin' 'bout.

As I've mentioned before, I'm a big fan of mashups. Sure, some are lazy, some don't work at all, and some are simply amusing. But at their best, an unexpected juxtaposition can successfully limn the originals such as to create something that's actually a new and valid work of art—not to mention fun and interesting and cool.

For instance. At first you'd think there's was nothing Bob Marley and Green Day have in common, and musically, you'd probably be right. But both use(d) pop music as a way to express discontent, resentment and disillusionment with the status quo of contemporary politics and socio-economic conditions. (And, of course, to make some money and meet lots of girls.) In some ways, they're actually remarkably similar, even if the end result was completely different.

Or was, until the magic of the mashup.



You can fool some people sometimes but you can't fool all the people all the time.
Now everybody do the propaganda and sing along to the age of paranoia.

I Really Want You to Call Me (Maybe)

Maybe—maybe—not the best thing ever. But I would never swear to it.

(It's the bit from "Valerie" that really pushes it from Wonderful into Greatness territory.) 

Master of Doin' It

See, this is what I was talkin' 'bout, when I said that the very best mashups "can lead you to view the original source material in a new way, combine to create a discrete and valid artistic entity." Stripped of its original context and set in a new one allows you to hear just how surprisingly melodic early Metallica could be, something which easily gets overlooked in the melee of the crunching guitars and exploding drums. It's surprising, really, just how organic this odd combination is. Plus, you know: Herbie.

Back in Black/Superstition

I love mashups. At their best, they can lead you to view the original source material in a new way, combine to create a discrete and valid artistic entity.

This is not that. This simply smooshes together the vocal line of one brilliant song with the powerhouse instrumental track of another recording. It doesn't really illuminate much, except, perhaps, to demonstrate yet again that there is no musical milieu in which you cannot place Stevie Wonder and have him utterly excel—and while that's not exactly news to anyone who's alert enough to tie his or her own shoes, well, some truths bear repeating.

On the other hand, the plethora of mashups featuring this backing track does emphasize just how powerful a piece of music it is. Furthermore, in this context, the final verse actually resembles some sort of proto-rap, with Brian Johnson spitting out words like a precursor to DMX.

 The horns are a nice touch, too.