MUSIC WORTH BUYING + MUSIC WORTH A FREE DOWNLOAD Vol IX

Sometimes it is a struggle to find good music to write about.  The holidays are here which means a bunch of sentimental crap is being added to the already crap-saturated music market.  It isn’t quite late enough in the year to do the year-end wrap-up.  And so I am left at a crossroads…dig deep to find some really good music for my loyal readers…OR…half-ass this column and never look back.  I will let you guess which one I chose.

 MASHUPS

I was perusing my favorite Mashup evangelists, AplusD, on their www.bootiemashup.com website and took a listen to their November Top 15.  They travel all over the world, spreading their gospel of mashup, so they get a chance to hear a crapload of mashups and each month they pick some of the best and share with fans of their website.

BootieMashup.com November Top 15
Divide & Kreate – Save the Streets (U2 vs Swedish House Mafia) **
DJ not-I – Keep On Rockn (My Rebellion) (Steve Miller vs. Arcade Fire)
DJ Schmolli – Cruelly Good Summer Feeling
DJ ShyBoy – Bette Davis Eyes In The Dark (Graph Gonzales vs Kim Carnes vs Corey Hart) **
DJs From Mars – Where Dem Levels At (Avicii vs. David Guetta)
ElectroSound – Crazy Little Feel Called Love (James Brown vs Queen vs Fatboy Slim vs Beck) ****
The Evolution Control Committee – Stairway To Britney (Britney Spears vs. Led Zeppelin) ****
Lobsterdust – Sunglasses x3 (Chris Brown vs. Corey Hart) ***
Markito – Hello Without You (Martin Solveig feat. Dragonette vs. U2)
Mashup-Germany – Who Knew Someone Like You… (Adele vs. Pink vs. 4 Non Blondes vs. Ben E. King vs. Snow Patrol vs. Lady Gaga vs. Whitney Houston) **
MixmstrStel – Now That We Found Mr. Saxobeat (Heavy D and The Boyz vs. Alexandra Stan)
RLP feat. Aretha Franklin & Lil’ Jon – Respect 2010
Salvador G (Automatic Reaction) – Ignition – The Blue Remix (R. Kelly vs. New Order)
Titus Jones – Bad Things Will Roll With The Devil
Voicedude – Moves Like A Deadmau5 (Maroon 5 vs. Deadmau5 vs. Rolling Stones)

**** = GO DOWNLOAD THIS!
*** = worth a listen
** neat idea, but be prepared for some SUCK

As with every genre, there are hits and misses, mostly misses in this case.  As the genre becomes more sophisticated, many of the mashups just seem simplistic.  These days it is not enough to take vocals from one song and paste them onto the music from another song, even if it requires some crazy time and pitch adjustment.  Another common technique is to use 1 song’s instrumental track as a musical bed and grab a handful of other songs to weave in and out on top of it. That style doesn’t cut it for me anymore, to be honest.

The best mashups combine preferably more than 2 songs, and alter the structure of the original songs, so they keep you guessing until the very end.  In addition, the best mashup artists also come up with clever and creative titles for their mashups and cool artwork to go along with them.

This beauty is from one of my favorite mashup artists, a frenchman named ElectroSound.  I like his stuff because, while it is often dance-able, it is not akin to a crappy house remix.  It seems to me, this guy is all about the artistry of taking very different songs and meshing them together very skillfully. This one is definitely worth downloading.

The only other standout track, the mashup of Stairway to Heaven with Hit Me Baby One More Time, is really pure genius.  While there are some sections that that are kinda rough, the payoff is spectacular when the vocal trails off right into the solo.  Really excellent work by The Evolution Control Committee, who has apparently been jamming copywritten material together to make music since 1986.  Keep up the good work!

Here’s a video by The ECC

 So the beauty of all of this mashup world is that the artists who do the mashups can’t make money off of copywritten material so they pretty much have to GIVE away their songs.  This sucks for them ,because they are unlikely to make a living doing this really cool thing, but it is a boon for us because we can get these tracks for free whenever we want. Happy Holidays to us…that is one less thing we gotta pay for.  That being said, throw the music industry some love this holiday season and give the gift of music.