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The first time I heard a mash up I thought it was awful, stupid and downright blasphemous. I think it was Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” mashed with some Christina Aguilera song. My friend played it for me when we both had had a couple of glasses of vino and I remember being slightly offended. But then about a year ago I heard a mash up of my band L7’s “Shitlist” mashed with Kelis’s “Milkshake” called “Shitshake”. It was so ridiculous and bizarre that I liked it “What inspired this?” I thought.
Although the mashing up of songs has been going on for decades in various forms the current model of a mash up is vocal of one song put to the music of another. It started out mostly with rap vocals mashed with rock instrumental tracks but my friend Jells Mayhem from the mash up duo The Illuminoids says the art form has evolved. “Mash ups are getting more artistically creative and technologically complex. They’ve come into their own as a musical genre and are getting more mainstream exposure as well “
I’ll say, there’s a whole mash up scene: dance clubs (like Bootie which started in San Francisco in 2003 and has spread to Los Angeles, New York, and Paris), radio shows, mash up stars in competition with each other, and websites dedicated to this “art form”.
What mash up do you want to hear? It can be as ridiculous as you want. Anything goes.
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Zed!!
Dos?
Tres???
Home run!!!!
Pumpkin Head is on Tucker .. sucking up to Tucker .. what an ass!! but its come to be expected these days
Ack! Punkinhaid!
Is pumpkinhead praising tucker’s tuckertastic ratings?
They’re even lower than Glenn Beck’s, right?
Hillarious Donita!
Love the “Work it out” one!
As far as mashups go, I am partial to the work of Go Home Productions, including “Rapture Riders” (a seamless Blondie/The Doors integration) and “Beatleg Bootles,” which has a Radiohead “Karma Police”/Beatles “Day in the Life” mashup. Also DJ Mei-Lwun: Louis XIV vs. Lil’ Wayne “Finding out the DJ is Blind,” and Lynyrd Skynyrd vs. Nelly “Sweet Home Country Grammar”.
Hey Donita!
The first Mashup I ever heard offended me, too. It was Frank Black’s “You Ain’t Me” mixed with a Kelly Clarkson song. Ouch, but I guess it works pretty well.
daryljfontaine @ 9
Excellent. I’ve heard of that Blondie vs. Doors one. I’ll check it out.
707 re: the toob
LS @ 8
That Jurassic 5 CD is awesome, by the way.
I want to add a credit to “Roadhouse Boom” in the playlist, That mash up was done by Aggro1.
From us to you, GOP in DC. November, 2008.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…..mp;search=
“The first time I heard a mash up I thought it was awful, stupid…”
I’m still there. AFAIC, it’s an interesting novelty at best.
I like the new player for the playlist but it won’t let me edit the artist and track info. I will be investigating how to fix that situation for next week’s playlist.
Do you all like this new player that embeds the tunes right in the browser like that?
Sorry. Wrong song @ #15.
daryljfontaine @ 9
GHP also did a smokin’ job on Work It Out With a Foxy Lady, a Beyonce/Jimi Hendrix joint.
…
The whole mashup vibe reminds me of the bad acid jazz days, looping through the storm for an art statement.
S’alright, but it ain’t the same as making music.
I can’t believe that sue teller video LOL
VictorLaszlo @ 16
Sometimes I can’t even tell if it’s mash up if I haven’t heard the songs being mashed.
i’ve heard the “go home productions” blondie/doors. it’s ok. they had one, quite some time ago, with lou reed’s “rock and roll” and some song by chrisinta aguilera (sorry–don’t know her stuff). that was my fave.
but the “pretend were alala dead” is fab!
love,
nora
Like many things that are now digital, people used to do this kind of stuff on their own. Years ago I had a friend that was in to symphonic music who liked to sing the words from “My Darling Clementine” to the melody from Beethoven’s “Ode To Joy” (Ninth Symphony, fourth movement). Try it.
darkblack @ 19
A very apt perspective, I’m kind of in that camp that thinks some of them are brilliant and some of them are just godawful manifestos of mediocrity. But you’re right, it aint writin’ tunes.
Okay, folks at the Chimpy House, kindly get your Stories Straight! Did you or did you not appoint Mr. Cardona as a USA just before you allowed the new law passed with a veto-proof margin to become law either by scrawling a grudging signature on it in the dead of night with a quill pen by a guttering candle, or by not signing it and then claiming you did, with or without a signing statement.
Just when I foolishly thought this “administration” couldn’t make me any crazier…
Cardona Says “WHAT, ME APPOINTED? LOL OMG PONIES!”
Donita,
Raiding the 20th Century, still one of my fav’s, IIRC has that Nirvana/Aguilera mash-up.
Right song at 15. For the Republicans in Nov., ‘08.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…..mp;search=
tw3k @ 26
hmm, too much goin’ on in that one for my taste. Interesting though.
FiniFiniTOOBZ! @ 24
But at least now…Unlike James Brown, Bobby Byrd, hell, even Gilbert O’Sullivan – The artist gets paid for the sample when used commercially.
One thing that keeps the nostalgia at bay for the golden age of Hip Hop with me is the level of ripoffery that was a given then…Dudes just flat out taking someone else’s star moment and pasting it into something.
Bad, bad, wicked bad.
The Sue Teller video is hilarious. :)
That’s what I thought as well – and still think.
Sorry, not a fan of it. Hope you get the due percentage the royalties to “Pretend We’re Alala Dead” – if there are any.
Sorry, none. I remember an alternative radio station that used to play a so called “bastard-pop”-song once a day. I usually didn’t listen to the titles.
The only reason for which I could see myself listening to mashups would be the (surely intentional) inherent comedy in the songs. But I had to be in the mood for that and it’s not something I would want to listen to over and over again.
Donita Sparks @ 28
yeah, the looks i get when playing that track about sums it up *g Worth a listen at least once tho.
I like the ones you’ve found.
Mash-ups of a gentler sort have been going on for centuries. For example, the tune for “Greensleves” has been used with many lyrics. Church hymnals often have a “metrical index” so that if you don’t like the melody of a certain hymn, you can substitute another tune that is more familiar, but fits the metric pattern of the lyrics.
Of course, Martin Luther used to write new lyrics for German drinking songs that pious Lutherans have sung in church for years, knowing nothing of the song’s origins. And wasn’t our Star-Spangled Banner written with the tune of an old English drinking song?
In recent times, I’ve heard kids do “Amazing Grace” to the instrumental arrangement for “House of the Rising Sun.” This is closer to the spirit of a mash-up, because of the perceived clash between the decadent rock & roll sound and bawdiness of “House of the Rising Sun” vs. the ‘penant sinner’ humility of Amazing Grace. It helps of course to play the instruments like the decadent rock & roll sound of the Animals(?) in their pop version of HotRS decades ago, while singing Amazing Grace.
I’m at work now, so it wouldn’t be a good idea to play your sample– in the two songs mashed together, how much does it matter whether the lyrics of the two songs have the same or at least a similar meter? Or is the clash of one metric against another different metric part of the “charm”(?) of a mash-up?
Bob in HI
Alfred Kelgarries @ 25
I would be most interested to peruse the ‘Signing Statement’, if Shrub did submit one to this Bill!!! If it contains even a wiff of any sort of Executive Privilege waiver, I foresee the long anticipated constitutional battle over signing statements, to finally be arbitrated within the Judiciary!!!
Yay Donita!
I like Work It Out.
And this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…..mp;search=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PB1ugh48q2M
tw3k @ 31
Thanks, Fini helped me with the playlist this week as mash ups are not really in my brain or recording collection yet. However I did colaborate with The Illuminoids on “Pretend We’re Alala”. That was really fun.
Bob Schacht @ 32
Good point Bob. And I’d say either/or depending upon your intent.
A couple recommendations, since you mentioned the rap vs rock angle, here are some good ones:
Q-Unit: 50 Cent mashed up with Queen
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q-Unit
Jay-Zeezer: Jay-Z mashed up with Weezer. Best track is the bonus track of Jay-Z’s _99 Problems_ with Nena’s _99 Luftballons_.
http://www.jay-zeezer.com/
Remember that acapella track _because i got high_ from Afroman a few years ago? It improved greatly when mashed into a kickin’ british ska song from [spunge].
http://www.whiteeyedtigers.com…..nSkank.mp3
Hi, Donita! How are you?
“Pretend We’re Alala Dead” is very funny! I really liked! =D
About the mash ups, I remember…
Three years ago DJ Dangermouse generated controversy when placing in the internet the “Grey Álbum”, a disk containing mash ups with the songs of “White Album”, of the Beatles and the “Black Album”, of Jay-Z.
Another version of Beatles that can be found in the album “Grey Album” it’s of the song “Cry Baby Cry”, that had the vocal preserved and it won new style with the instrumental of “London Calling”, of The Clash. To hear the mash up of the song “Cry Baby Cry” click here:
Beatles & The Clash – “Cry baby Cry”
Donita, I also heard the mash up of Kelis, the “Shitshake”… very crazy…
To mix a Shitlist with a milkshake, it’s really something bizarre, but it would be funny to sell this “Shitshake ” in the restaurants… hehe!!!
Oklahoma kiddo @ 35
amen kiddo
Bob Schacht @ 32
You think the Animal’s version is bawdy?
Bob Schacht @ 32
They don’t have to have the same meter, not even a simlar one. Just the lines have to be in sync.
Donita Sparks @ 36
Ah, nice, keep it up :)
CTuttle @ 33
this is from the Raw Story I don’t see a time stamp, though. my bold
Donita Sparks @ 36
I have a passing interest in these things but only as fun distractons from serious music listening. But when I DJ’d in clubs this was what we would do to amuse ourselves and our audiences, not a serious “artform” or sub genre. It’s DJ culture detritus, battle beats were the first mashups I heard, back in the 80s underground hip hop scene.
I did like these that I found and thought they were not too offensive, and a couple of them are outright stone grooves. I’m glad you guys appreciate these, thanks!
Jandira Ferreira @ 39
Hi Jandira, that “Grey Album” sounds intriguing. Clever concept anyway.
I did amateur mash-ups by starting two different YouTubes at nearly the same time in two different windows. Strictly for my own amusement. I wish I could remember some of the better ones…
One I think was (play this and this) at the same time:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRlj5vjp3Ko
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hL37oEvURcg
(just try it!)
LOL! This is just brilliant. Thank you Donita, and Sue Teller.
In the spirit of mashups, I present the
USA Gonzales-Cardona Mashup!
http://www.freewebs.com/alfred…..gagmu1.jpg
http://www.freewebs.com/alfred…..gagmu2.jpg
enjoy!
Valley Girl,
That’s amazingly good. Sad but good.
The truly technically proficient DJs — and honestly, there’s a metric ton of crap out there, just like any subgenre of entertainment — can make subtle alterations to the speed of one of the mashed tracks so the overall product flows better. GHP’s site talks about some of the minutiae of his song alterations.
Also, some mashups throw together small bits of tracks in addition to the core two, such as Paty Ben’s “Boulevard of Broken Songs”. I can’t hear the Green Day track now without hearing this version in my head.
2 many djs
Best mashup CD EVER
Donita, After the day I’ve had (my nineteen year old had four impacted wisdom teeth out and went crazy with the anesthesia for the first time – he swung at Dr. Fine – and then with the pain – another trip into town in Friday rush hour), Sue Teller, of all people, found my funny spot. Who knew?
Thanks from an exhausted parent.
Valley Girl @ 46
Oh, VG, you’ve ripped a hole in the time-space continuum now, with such an unholy blend.
What rough creatures will escape through the portal to this dimension, I wonder…
;>)
Valley Girl @ 46
Ha, ain’t it the truth.
Margot @ 49
Margot- thanks for trying it out!
I wish I could remember some of the stuff I tried out- I was really into it for a while- new toy I discovered via serendipity. Alas, I didn’t make any notes. It could be its own genre…
Valley Girl @ 46
It seems like Olbermann has some time on his hands. :)
I must always think of that story when hearing the song “Ring of Fire”.
HA! Darkblack!
Boston1775 @ 52
Maybe you need one of those Vicodins.
Donita Sparks – L7? Wow, I bought one of your CDs years ago, along with Seven Year Bitch and Veruca Salt. Loved ‘em all.
I don’t know much about mashups but I’ve been listening to Bat For Lashes and Cloud Cult lately. Ever hear of either group?
I love the new Bat For Lashes video and it’s eerie Donnie Darko feel – What’s a Girl to Do?
Channel Ocho Bumblebee Man @ 56
that’s funny- I didn’t know that story!
noen @ 59
Very clever video.
It’s been a long time since but playing Laurie Anderson’s Sharkey’s_Day and Sharkey’s Night in sync is fun.
Donita Sparks @ 58
Yah, I didn’t mention the trip to CVS as a zombie. I’m drinking a very good red and watching the Red Sox. Cheers to all of you – Bonds just hit one foul.
Donita Sparks @ 45
Oh yeah… it’s very creative, I think.
After threatening to be processed by EMI, of the rights of Beatles, DJ Dangermouse suspended the sales of the disk and the download of the music in your site, but he had the “solidarity” of more than a hundred internet servers for the world, that, in an act of disobedience civil online, placing the album in the Internet in protest against the rigidity of EMI. This protest happened on February 24, 2004, day that was known as “Grey Tuesday”, in honor to the disk.
Donita, did you already hear the mash up by DNA? The song is from Suzanne Vega, the name of the song is “Tom’s Diner”
tw3k @ 62
Beats two blotter hits and playing Grand Funk at 78 rpm by a country mile.
;>)
darkblack @ 65
Wooo! THAT’S a party!
Elliot@43, I had read that in Raw Story, also! I was surprised to see Shrub had already signed it, I was under the impression he was going to slow-walk it all the way, the clock still had time on it!!! Shrub doesn’t necessarily have to submit the signing statement at the time of his signing of the bill, so we need to be vigilant, and peruse the Doc Dumps!!! By the way, anybody heard of any today, it’s the traditional time frame!!!
another version- not matched for length-
But, I was fascinated by how the words interacted:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03oSDPuxbwA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLoqbhIweLo
If anybody wants more information on today’s mashups, I have put together a set of tagged links on TheSpinImIn del.icio.us page you can use to find the pages I found these on.
I love the “Pretend We’re Alala.” Fantastic.
I guess my other favorite mashup is 2 Many DJs mashing up the Stooges’ “No Fun” with Salt ‘n’ Pepa’s “Ooh Baby Baby.” It was stunning from the start, and it just grows on me.
Let’s not forget Negativland’s “Mashin’ of the Christ”, which mashes their old “Christianity is Stupid” (featuring the Right Reverand Ivan Stang on vocals) with clips from various Biblical epics.
Right now, I’m hearing the Ellen DeGeneres show mashed up with the ice cream truck outside playing the verse from “Pop Goes the Weasel” in and endless loop mashed up with the neighbors who are building some raised garden beds from fallen tree limbs, mashed with the sound of my typing. A rather John Cagesque mashup, I reckon.
darkblack @ 65
707
I think this thread should be named “The Ultimate Productivity Killer”. Has certainly worked for me.
FiniFiniTOOBZ! @ 66
We ‘got down’ in those days, Fini.
;>)
Truthfully, when I think penultimate mashup, I think John Oswald.
hi, everyone!
donita, you told us last week that you’ll be setting up a blog on your website to answer questions from fans. if no one asks, you might want to let people know what’s going on with L7. I am seeing the same question constantly- “when is L7 coming to(city/state/country?”
you should enlighten them so they can stop wondering.
hey, i just work here.
daryljfontaine @ 9
Yeah Mark (GHP) is one of the best. Probably one of my favorites out there actually. If you get a chance check out “Pinnochio on LSD” it’s hysterical
Channel Ocho Bumblebee Man @ 41
Well, everything is relative! (g)
When compared with “Amazing Grace” , yes.
Thanks.
What do you mean by the lines being in sync? That the lines should always start together, even if they don’t end together? And that, by implication, the number of lines must be the same?
Bob in HI
And, in the spirit of Sunday’s holiday, you have no idea how happy I was to have this nineteen year old’s father meet us at Dr Fine’s for round two.
Let’s start Fathers Day Weekend now.
Dads get increasingly important.
FYI, new thread
Lew Koch has a new thread upstairs!
Bob in HI
Eric, I’m working with Donita’s web guys to get her blog whipped into shape on her website. It’s a busy time for her team right now so we’ll have it up as soon possible, we’re excited to be bringing it online but don’t want to rush it. Give us a minute, it’s coming very soon now.
VG, it’s bad enough that I’m on dialup and have trouble getting one YouTube to run, but now you’re just showing off that high-speed, high-falutin’ toobz-bustin’ computer you’ve got there by running them in tandem.
Not that I’m jealous of anyone with high speed access or anything.
;)
Bob Schacht @ 76
Well it’s better if they end together. Obviously I misunderstood the term “meter”. I just wanted to express that it’s not necessary that the numbers of syllables, respectively pronounced syllables have to match between the songs.
The Blind Boys of Alabama recorded a great — absolutely stunning — version of Amazing Grace using House of the Rising Sun.
Donita Sparks @ 58
The funniest boot I’ve heard is Freelance Hairdresser’s ‘Marshall’s Got Snookered’ (Eminem’s ‘Without Me’ meets the theme to Pot Black) but my favourite remains the mash of ‘Cannonball’ with Skee-Lo and Fulton, Maurice & Stress from 2 Many DJs’ As Heard On Radio Soulwax.
I still think it all comes from ‘One Song to the Tune of Another’ from I’m Sorry, I Haven’t A Clue.
Donita – great post! Pardon while I wax a little philosophical…
Oddly enuf, I think of Mashups, with their hybridization of “weddable” sounds, as a meme that powerfully illustrates how niches overlap.
Mashups jolt our notions of what is weddable, provoking reconsideration of previously mutually-exclusive categories. That in itself is it’s value to the marketplace.
I view it as akin to:
* Modifying our energy portfolio (overlapping, mutually-supportive sources), creating hybrid distribution centers (pumps with E-85) and hybrid cars (engines)
* Modifying our social networks to include (and endorse through civil rights), diversified social arrangements (humans – str8, gay or otherwise, occupying overlapping, mutually- supportive niches)
and
* Modifying our conceptualization, (in direct challenge to the “either for or against” meme), of the global relationships (360-wheel like);
Much like this week’s conundrum of “an enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
and the turntables quip,
“Say it ain’t so!”
The Universe is a hoot in terms of how so many natural illustrations — especially those vital to our survival — surface simultaneously in our experience.
Like a big KNOCK KNOCK! HELLO?!?!
Don’tcha think?
This is amusing:
Tick-Toxic (Stefani&Spears)
/poetic waxing
Never you mind if I don’t brag or boast, Donita, or click my glass to make a toast…
Link didn’t work…here it is.
I give up. No linkage tonight?
Peterr-
I stalled a long time on getting DSL. But, I have to do a lot of internet research, and send out big documents- and the frustration and time wasted using dial-up finally got to me. I only have the lowest speed DSL- I am in an historic district, so no transmission stations are in the area. I cannot get higher speed DSL. But, it’s been worth every penny- I just cut back on some other spending.
i heart mashups!
i think, since music is basically mathematics that we hear, the predictable path is to put themes, bass lines, rhythms, keys, chords, choruses and verses on top of each other (bridges, not so easily inserted into this equation) to see which ones come out equalling one (successful mashups) and which ones come out with a remainder (unsuccessful mashups).
skippy hearts mashups…here’s the rapture riders blondie v. doors.
but if you like beatles mashups, and hey, who doesn’t, check out come closer together, which puts come together inside of nine inch nails closer, and it works amazingly well, because, imho, the tone and feeling of the nin piece is what the beatles were striving for, only times about 20, it being about 20 years later that one followed the other.
but for the ultimate in mashups, i heart dj earworm, whose page can be found here.
my fav mashup earworm did is nobody takes your freedom, which links scissor sisters (take your mama out tonite), beatles (for no one), aretha franklin (think), george michael (freedom) seamlessly together.
but if you want to od on mashups, try dj earworm’s stairway to bootleg heaven which puts together the dolly parton version of stairway to heaven with eurythmics (this city never sleeps), the beatles (because), pat benetar (love is a battlefield) with some beastie boys, art of noise and laurie anderson thrown in.
both available on dj earworm’s site.
and, if you’re a pdq bach fan, you’ll recognize that peter schickele’s unbegun symphony is nothing but a huge mashup of classical music themes.
My favorite mash-up comes from the mid-1970’s band “L’il Roger and the Goosebumps”…”Stairway To Gilligan’s Island”…mixing the music of “Stairway” with the lyrics of the theme to Gilligan’s Island. Apparently Roger has made a video for it too.
Led Zeppelin’s management demanded that all copies of the record be withdrawn and destroyed…instantly making it an underground hit.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=KTC…..mp;search=
Yep! It’s absurd…but it takes one overly serious absurd song and mixes it with a comedy show about a tragedy (What was it about ’60’s TV that could have shows like Hogan’s Heros?)
While I like mash-ups, I hate the hype around them.
We just called it mixing, becuase that’s what it is. My friends and I used to do sets that were essentially hour long mash ups, live on turntables (I sound like a grumpy old man, “in my day….”).
My favorite set was when my dj partner and I set up 4 turntables and never had less than 2 songs going for about 90 minutes (it was based mostly on the beat from “Looking from a Hilltop” by Section 25), took over a month to arrange, and included songs from the 60s, 70s and 80s (this was in 88 IIRC).
Sadly, with no digital recording at the time (at least nothing affordable), we could only record on cassettes, which are long gone, but I still have the 1s and 2s, I’ll have to hook up the computer, send you something.
Thanks for the namedrop Donita, we’re big L7 fans from way back. We’ll be giving the “Let’s pretend we’re alala” some spins at the clubs, probably put it on some Bootie CDs (10 track hand picked mashup CDs we give out to patrons for free at every Bootie party).
For some more good mashup tracks, and good bootleggers, check out our monthly Bootie Top 10. We select 10 of our favorite mashups from producers from around the world every month, and host them for free download on our Bootie websites – Get them here:
http://www.bootiela.com/#Top10
They get updated around the 15th, so these will be changed to the new Top 10 tomorrow, so DL these today – whoever is interested…
Also, to whore ourlselves out, we do a lot of alternative flavor mashups, get all our tracks here: http://www.aplusd.net
Our Elastica vs The Gossip is our newest “hit”.
Wow. Nearly 100 comments on a mashup thread and nobody’s mentioned The Kleptones?
A Night at the Hip-Hopera is really fun, as is From Detroit to JA.
Can we just have some plain, simple, musician played and musician/human based instrumentation and vocals and do away with the art forms of the urban and suburban decay that pose as meaninful expressions of societal issues?
Harumph.
Gimme a single mic and a 5, mando, dobro, git, rhythm git, doghouse and fidde coupled with 4 part harmonies.
The rest is . . . pop. Shit.
Real music is played by real people.
Not machines and editor’s.
Damn this crap pisses me off, too . . .
Pure crap. Not art.
Gimme art with humans.
Life is SO bad, our art has to be baseless sounds WITHOUT HUMANS making it?
Pure denial, hiding, avoidance, and fear.
And I won’t suscribe to the fear, dammit . . . we need to fight it, and be there to DUEL it.
WE need Not to hide behind mashin, fusions, and the denial of our de-huminization of our lives that ‘ART’ SELLS OUT for profit, that crap of commercial capitlaism profit that professes to be passing for art.
I call bullshit. I call avoidance.
I call, caved into the man, in the pseudo personage of all things we USED to know as ART!!!!
Harumph.
Gimme humans makin art and music and stage and theatre.
Gimme my planet back dammit.
The techno know how does NOT pure art create . . .
few of my faves:
rapture (blondie) / riders on the storm (the doors)
do it again (steely dan) / billie jean (michael jackson)
owner of a lonely heart (yes) / thriller (michael jackson)
milkshake (kelis) / voodoo ray (a guy called gerald)
finally (kings of tomorrow) / caught up (metro area) ***this one will make you absolutely swoon!!