he was anything but gentle...

A few weeks back I did a primer of sorts on the art of the mash-up & now I want to share with you my first time...
It was perpetuated upon me by a master of the craft, PartyBen is the only moniker by which I ever knew him, who rocked my world with rhythm & masterful grace. He was anything but gentle.
I'm referring, of course, to the first mash-up I ever heard.
The year was 2004. I had heard mash-ups before, but none had captured my fancy like this strapping tune~ none had shown me the potential of this hybrid, half-breed form of music that would become my salvation from the morass of modern music of which I was quickly growing weary.
The song was "Callin' On Sunday", an oh-so-perfect amalgam of U2's "Sunday Bloody Sunday" & Lyrics Born's "Callin' Out". A rockin' fist-thumper that combined the best o' rock & hip-hop & became my anthem as John Kerry was set to defeat George Bush ("Don’t worry about the President~ He can’t stop us now" indeed!). Verily, it is high praise for this tune that I am able to overcome that heartbreak & still enjoy its mash-up magic to this day (although it did take a few months for it to fully recover from that ugly stigma). The beauty of this track almost ruined me for all others & isn't that always the way with your first time?
So without further semantic ado, I give you my first, & easily one of the best, mash-up~

"Callin' On Sunday" (U2 vs. Lyrics Born by way of PartyBen)

Mash-ups & gravy (vegan, natch!)

For those of you who just realized what that icon was on your desktop & found the Internet just this very moment: A mash-up (or boot or blend) is the music produced when one puts the vocal track from one song atop the instrumental from another. That's rather simplified as there are many more types of mash-ups with many more types of "mashing-up" as it were, but you just found the Internet, so let's keep it simple, shall we?

Mash-ups have been around since, well, since the recording of music itself really... Back in the day, vinyl was pressed with the vocal stripped away leaving just the instrumental track so aspiring singers could groove along on their Victrolas. The "mash-up" as an actual art-form would start to evolve with the advent of hip-hop as rappers would freestyle over various tracks & then dj's took it to a whole 'nother level.

More than a few years back, the Internet her-own-self erupted with all the media latching on to the mash-up being the "new big thang". Now, things have died down, but mash-ups are still being made by many talented (& not-so-talented) folk. Some of my favorite new tracks are indeed mash-ups. When done well, a mash-up brings a whole new context to a beloved song, or can bring a heretofore unrealized aspect to a much hated one. When done not-so-well, they really suck. Most mash-ups regrettably fall into the second category. It actually takes a very talented individual to master the science & wonder of a good mash-up.

To assess & appreciate this process, let us take a master class in the art of the mash-up as some of the best purveyors of the genre all take on the same song:

Extra credit: team 9 hits it outta' the proverbial park with a different Stripes song head-to-head with N*E*R*D~
"She Wants To Twist"

Class dismissed.