I haven’t talked yet about mashups, aka bastard pop, mostly because I haven’t really had the time. It’s been a kind of casual interest for me, but TJ’s really interested.
Mashups, like all really cool emergent art are an underground thing that will probably never be commercially viable. A DJ takes loops and samples from one or more artists and mixes them together into a new song. Mashups got a huge amount of mainstream media attention when DJ Dangermouse remixed Jay-Z’s Black Album and The Beatles White Album together to make The Grey Album. The media frenzy, so far as I can tell, has subsided but happily mashups are still going strong. My current favorite mashup is Sweet Home Country Grammar, a mashup of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Sweet Home Alabama and Nelly’s Country Grammar by DJ Mei-Lwun (you can find a copy there along with other examples of his art or just fire up your favorite P2P client).
I think that people who enjoy mashups are probably the same people who enjoy cover songs. Personally I like cover songs. Dr. Death hates them, but he hates everything that isn’t “exteme” rock, the more screaming and overblown monotonous guitar the better (hey man, you’re a good friend, doesn’t mean I like your music), but I digress. For me, a good mashup is one that takes two very different genres, like hip hop and southern rock and makes something new and cool out of the two. One of TJ’s favorites is called Sharp Dressed Party, a mix of Pink’s Get The Party Started and ZZ Top’s Sharp Dressed Man.
Anyway, like I was saying, TJ wants to make a mashup. Her current obsession is with Eva Cassidy’s version of Ain’t No Sunshine and BB King’s The Thrill is Gone, which I think might be pretty cool. For her, here are some resources:
The American Baby Mashup Kit
Boot Camp – Mashing for Beginners
Get Your Bootleg On (a web forum)
GYBO Lite (seems related to the above)
Beatmixed (duh, can’t believe I forgot that! Thanks, Anonymous!)
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Tags: 4 Comments
DJ Shadow, Preemptive Strike. I like the tracks Funky Breakbeats and Organ Donor.
Pooh
I’ll take a look, thanks Pooh.
Don’t forget beatmixed.com — probably the best source for mash-up related information and news. Good stuff.
Oh, duh! And I spent half an hour looking at that when I researched for the post. Thanks for the reminder, I’ve added it.