so what’s a mashup? well the music version of a mashup can run the range from something that sounds right when mixed together with another song, right through to its more thoughtful iteration as a means of culture jamming - turning culture’s face back on itself. in-between those two forms lies the (for me) most fruitful territory in which music is connected both in terms of its form but also its content. the beat and the message flow side-by-side.
in that way, a really good mashup is like an aural collage in which the seams of the tunes and samples are invisible or inaudible. the piece has a natural feel that doesn’t suggest the vast amount of assemblage that went on before it was released.
fans of mashups must definitely pay a visit to the site of dj earworm - a fun moniker that accurately describes the effect some of his music has on the listener as it gets into your head and stays there demanding repeated listenings. dj earworm is a generous soul posting his work online for free and also making available a how-to book on mashups. you can also get the same book at dj earworm’s site.
a super blog resource for a very very wide array of mashup talent and releases can be found over at uganda’s finest mashed potatoes (honest, i don’t make these things up!)
luke enlow produces worthy tunes including my two all-time favourite mashups:
mercedes beck featuring janis joplin and beck sharing a catchy foot-tapper of a chug-along groove.
imagine wild music featuring a really clever mashup of lou reed's walk on the wild side and john lennon’s imagine with a little tickle of g. love and special sauce’s blue’s music added just to bring it closer to the here-and-now.
fellow mashup artist alex h has a heap of great mashups as well as one really nice remix of coldcut’s tru-skool tune that you can listen to right here.
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