Salutations, traveler of The Internets! Welcome to William's Bloody Hell, so named after our founder, Sir Bloody William.
He is seen in the likeness above in a rare, 19th century woodcut. This
image was rumoured to have been
commissioned after a bout of unpleasantness
in the White Chapel district of London. Do enjoy your stay and peruse our many, varied offerings, much of which cannot be found elsewhere!
::Today's soundtrack: The Birthday Massacre vs. Vanity Beach "The Knight Murders" ::
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Some thing that I've been getting into quite a lot lately are music mash-ups. What IS a music mash-up, I hear some of you ask your monitors? Well, that's when talented music-types take two totally unrelated songs and, well, mash them up in a way that increases the awesomeness of each by 100%. The sum of the parts and all that. Mash-ups, like some cover versions, can take a song that you previously found totally repulsive and make it brilliant. Sort of a case in point, my very first audio mash-up experience was a live recording someone had forwarded to me of Kylie Minogue singing "I Can't Get You Out of My Head" lyrics with the music from New Order's "Blue Monday." Now I only have a passing knowledge of Kylie at best (she sang "The Locomotion" once upon a time, right?), but a deep seated adoration for New Order. Check it out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haoCgGzS0wY
Naturally, I heard this and was impressed. I was LESS impressed when this mash-up made me look up the original version of "I Can't Get You Out of My Head" and found it to be merely okay.
Of course, mashing up songs is something that has been going on in clubs for decades by talented DJs. I say "talented" because many of the DJs I have experienced are very bland who only play songs back to back (sometimes including fade outs!!) and do nothing to liven the experience, yes, not even beat matching or cross fading. A talented DJ will meld the two songs together as they change from one to the other in a near seamless blend, so that at the end of the night it felt as though you heard one long song and the music never stopped. This is how a proper club DJ should operate, at least in my humble opinion. Of course, the more talented the DJ, the harder they worked on blending songs, inserted samples, or whatnot. It got to the point where the most talented ones would use songs with other songs to create something entirely other: the mash-up. Here is a one of the most famous mash-ups, DJ Dangermouse's "Grey Album," wherein he took The Beatles White Album and mashed it with Jay-Z's Black Album:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zJqihkLcGc
This was never released commercially. It was an experiment by Dangermouse, which he created and distributed amongst a small circle of friends and other professionals. Of course, it leaked and the respective record companies that represent The Beatles' back catalogue and Jay-Z were none too pleased.
Of course, not all mash-ups are good. You not only have to know about beat matching to pull it off, but make sure the two songs are in the right keys and so on. If you're good at what you do and have the proper equipment, you can modify one song a little to make it fit the other, as heard here, in a mash-up pitting the Beastie Boys against Rammstein:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qB_VcIu7zdA
I love that mash-up. If I ever listen to the original version of "Body Movin'" immediately afterwards, I find it way too slow, due to the DJ speeding up the singing a little bit to match the Rammstein music. It takes on a more dark and groovy air in this mash-up, don't you think?
Now, I think that extra bonus points go to the DJ or mixer if they manage to get two totally random artists' work and mesh them successfully. I mean, think of some artists on the opposite end of the music spectrum and what songs of their could possibly be melded into something new and pleasing. How about this Beatles and Nine Inch Nails mash-up "Come Closer Together"?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bM7tdWRkBp0&feature=related
It's really amazing how well that works. True talent there. Using this "opposites attract" concept to mashing can yield some really spectacular results. You can take the one of the corniest and camp songs ever recorded and mix it with one of the coolest and get something made of pure awesomesauce. Such as, I don't know, the music from Nine Inch Nails' "The Hand that Feeds" and the words from Rick Astley's infamous "Never Gonna Give You Up" to make this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pLj9BoNb1U
It's like I went into Bizarro World!! It's both hilarious AND wicked!
Now, what if one were to take two totally great songs and put them together?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NV3CVuhJmOY&feature=related
The Gorillaz AND The Cure?? My brain nearly exploded from greatness! Wow!
I would of course be remiss if I didn't mention another famous mash-up project, Dean Gray's "American Edit" which mashed-up songs from Green Day's album "American Idiot." It was a free, online only project, but of course Green Day's label didn't much care for this idea and ordered them to shut down. However, fans all over had already acquired the tunes and set them free once more in magical file sharing worlds. I discovered this because of the mash-up "Dr. Who on Holiday" with its basis being the Green Day song "Holiday", but includes mashing the song "Doctorin' the TARDIS" by The Timelords, which I knew from my youth. It also has various other samples that make this a fantastic mash-up orgy of superb sound.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-hccbTCq0g
I just love music, and I am in support to anything that can bring forth anything new and fun. Of course I also support creativity, so mash-ups are something that's right up my alley. If someone can take two songs that completely suck ass but put them together in a way that now kicks ass, well, hell yeah!
William the Bloody (mixed mashed)
