Mashups and a surpise guest...

Good morning, music lovers. Originally, this post was going to only feature two artists and explore the pros and cons of each. Turns out there is a third entry to this particular interest of mine that needs exploring. The interest in question is the lovely and complicated art of the mash-up. For those not in the know, doing a mash-up involves taking two or more songs and editting them together to form something new and different. Some of them are good; others, not so much. I myself have even attempted a mash-up or two (don't ask; they were awful...). But the following breakdowns will explore three such artists who (in my most humblest of opinions...) are truly great at the mash-up style...

First up is the guy that caused me to realize just how much power and versility mash-ups could have (TJ introduced me to this artist first, so mad props to him too...). This guy goes by the moniker Girl Talk. His style of mash-ups is definitely more chaotic and frenetic, but he manages to find pieces of music that fit together in ways you would never have imagined. His albums are designed to be listened to as a whole (as he is more of a DJ and thus give the full club experience...), which is interesting because I find him to be a master of epic moments. His type of mash-ups contain a heavy use of rap and r&b (not for everybody...), but add a nice dose of classic rock, metal, and alternative for the rock kids to enjoy. I find his songs to be very freeformed and flowing, with each piece of a recognizable song either meshing with or crashing into the next. This method of creating a mash-up also tends to lead to less cohesion between tracks, which presents less of a full story per album, but just a hodgepodge of interesting blends of styles and songs. Click here and here to see just some of GT at work. Keep your eye out for the Kanye West/Blackstreet moment and Busta Ryhmes/The Police moment(NSFW...)...

We move from the chaotic to the coherent and take a look at a gentleman who goes by the name DJ Earworm. A California-based DJ, he has come into a certain amount of fame by taking the 25 top pop songs of the year and creating a new song with bits and pieces of them. Not just a song, mind you, but a piece of music where the lyrics and music line up to tell a different story than any of the artists may have originally intended. He brands the project 'The United States of Pop' and it is an appropriate title. Each USofP is a slice of our year long interest into pop music. If Girl Talk is the indy, ecclectic friend that spends most of the time living in the basement, then DJ Earworm is his more social acceptable brother that his parents are more visably proud of. Not that it makes him better or worse than GT; it is, however, different. DJ Earworm's focus on songwriting within a mash-up allows him to create music that actually shows an interesting psychological insight to our musical taste from one year to the next. Recurring themes (such as putting your hands up, dancing, etc...) show what we wanted to hear for that particular year in pop music. Beyond the enjoyment of the mash-up, this insight to the American music consumer was fascinating to me. Click here and here for the 2010 and 2008 for the better (to me...) mixes that DJ Earworm has given unto us...


And finally, a recent (and awesome...)find for me: Rock Sugar. I cannot stop listening to what these four guys are creating. These dudes take 80's pop music and 80's rock/metal and fuse them into glorious, powerful songs that would never had occurred to the normal among us. Largely parodic (seeing as the lead singer is the voice of Wakko from the Animaniacs...), I am affectionately going to refer to them as a spiritual successor to Spinal Tap in what they do and how they are doing it. Even though the band has a false background (they were stranded on a desert island with nothing but a 13 year old's cd collection from the 80's and tons of batteries [true story...]...), the musicians involved with this little crazy project have some serious chops. What I like about these guys, almost more so than Earworm or GT, is that they do this stuff live rather than take samples and make something new of them. They needed to actually sit down, figure out chord progressions, assemble the lyrics to match parts of the songs, and probably tons of other details that I don't understand (being that I am relatively less than a musician...). I am absolutely purchasing the cd from Amazon the moment it goes down from 100.00. Click here and here for a little taste of Rock Sugar...