The mash up ‘genre’ is a strange beast. Equal parts cringeworthy and joyfully innovative. Here below is an example of the cringeworthy end of the spectrum, as some doofus has gone and mashed up Kanye West’s monster track Black Skinhead with Tame Impala’s equally monstrous Elephant. The result is a grating, mis-matched heap of sonic shit.
“Ooh,” you’re thinking, “it’s available to download for free!” Come now Raccoonites, you’re better than that, we know you are. It’s a pretty annoying track isn’t it? Perhaps with some tidying up and a smarter ear for the production of such music, the outcome of the mashing would have been different. Maybe you’re thinking Kanye’s song just isn’t mash up-able (patent pending, probably not a legitimate phrase). Thankfully though, you’re wrong. Long standing king of mashing things up with no lumpy bits, Girl Talk, has mashed up Black Skinhead with a Marilyn Manson track, The Beautiful People. Watch this:
It’s better isn’t it? Actually, scrap the rhetoric. It’s fucking great. Here’s Get Lucky making out with Michael Jackson’s Remember The Time, yep:
So it’s not all bad. In fact, you could even stretch to say that there are some pretty damn fine examples of mashing up all over the place. Here are a few that, if you’re stuck for something to listen to before hitting the town or you just fancy flailing your limbs around for a bit, are well worth checking out.
Blimey, my favorite Radiohead song and my favorite Jay-Z song. It works surprisingly well, and so does everything else on the two mixtapes under the Jaydiohead moniker. Max Tannone is the man behind the music and if you head here you can download it all for free, s’not bad is it?
Clicking the image above will take you to Girl Talk’s ‘shop’. The funny thing about this shop is that, in one capacity or another, you can get all of Girl Talk’s albums for free. The CD and seamless editions cost a bit of dollar (not much mind) but the digital editions with MP3 files as individual tracks are all free. Oh, there’s FLAC versions too, for all you sound quality boffins.
Now for the downright ludicrous. Super Mash Bros are like the LMFAO of the mash-up world. Their name is daft, it’s a bit annoying in fact. Anyone caught listening to them will leave the room with a red face and a need to evaluate what goes on their iPod. However, Super Mash Bros epitomise the very essence of the mash up genre in that it’s supposed to be a bit of harmless fun. Head here to download their back catalog. Ignore the shame you feel when you put it on and enjoy it all, it’s a right hoot.
What I hope to have established here is the idea that mash up isn’t actually that bad and, to some extent, serves a purpose. Undoubtedly, if this kind of shit went down at my local nightclub it would be an improvement. It’s party music at its very purest; loud, obnoxious, utterly stupid and usually a defacement of original artists work. The again, if One Direction get away with most of the aforementioned, why can’t Super Mash Bros? Oh wait, it’s because they’re actually called Super Mash Bros.
