Light It Up And Take A Puff...

It's not often that I hear mashups out in the public, but when I do it's a pleasant surprise. For example, what happened to me in May of 2005 when I was in another state, at a family member's graduation. The night before the graduation, I was at the apartment of that family member's friend (someone who I'd known for a long while myself) and there was alcohol consumed and music listened to. Most of the songs were hip-hop in nature (although there was also the song Banana Phone by Raffi; don't ask!) but there was one mashup, one which I'd heard months before. If they had it on their Winamp player in MP3 form, then it must have been a cult hit and got some mainstream attention; that always makes me happy.

It was a song from DJ Mei-Lwun, an Asian spinner from California who really only had one famous mashup, but what a tune it was. It's Sweet Home Country Grammar, where Nelly's Country Grammar was combined with Lynyrd Skynyrd's Sweet Home Alabama! Simple yet very effective. Unfortunately, Mei-Lwun's page doesn't have any working downloads of the song. But, I did find a working link at a random site, so I'll post it.

DJ Mei-Lwun-Sweet Home Country Grammar (6.01 MB, 192Kbits/second)

http://crftp.com/MP3/Sweet%20Home%20Counrty%20Grammar.mp3

I'll be back Monday night with a new mashup.

You Can Check Out But Never Leave

Today I will profile one of the most unique sounding (yet great) mashups I've ever heard, and I'll upload the song myself due to the downloads at that guy's website not working at the moment.

The song is from Aggro1, a guy who I believe is from California. What makes him stand out is that he enjoys using hard rock/classic rock songs in his mashups, something that isn't done as often as you'd think. The tune I'm talking about today doesn't have an official name but I can tell you what two ditties were put together to create it.

The music is from a drum & bass group called Hustle Athletics. I really have no info on them except that the particular song used was called San Francisco, and yes it has a cowbell, which is why the obvious video was fanmade by someone and posted on the streaming video sites. The other song I'm sure all of you know. The vocals are from Hotel California by the Eagles! Personally, while I've never detested the song, I think it's overrated and there are several songs from them I prefer a lot more. Then again, I also think the same of Stairway to Heaven. But, with this mashup, it makes that overfamiliar yet still highly regarded classic rock staple sound fresh and badass.

Aggro1-Eagles vs. Hustle Athletics (8.61 MB, 192Kbits/second)

http://www.fileden.com/files/2007/12/28/1667157/Eagles%20vs%20Hustle%20Athletics.MP3

I'll be back Wednesday night with a new mashup to spotlight.

I Like The Way She Moves

Here is a mashup artist who recently has gotten some mainstream attention. DJ Earworm, from San Francisco, recently got a song that he mashed onto the Top 100 of the Top 40 format chart. That song was The United States of Pop, where he combined the top TWENTY-FIVE songs on the Billboard Charts from 2007 into one whole. There's even a video for it. It was very well done, but not the song I'll be spotlighting here.

Earworm almost always combines together several different songs into one, usually involving alternative artists; so, sometimes I like the songs and others I don't, but that's only due to my distaste of much alternative music rather than the skill Earworm used in combining the tunes. Here, though, in the song I Like The Way Jenny Scrubs (which can be downloaded here), we hear several ladies rap over a great music track, which is a remix of the BodyRockers song I Like The Way (You Move), not to be confused with the Outkast ditty.

The ladies you hear rapping (and again, it was put together well) are J-Lo, Missy Elliott, and TLC. If you like dance-y songs, then give this a try.

I'll be back Saturday night, a day after my 27th birthday, to post a new song, which may or may not deal with the birthday.

Not Really A Valentine's Day Love Song, But...

Sometimes, even regular DJ's who randomly do a mashup on their own produce a tune that is worth hearing. For example, one that I found online from some random site (which I can't locate now, so I'll have to upload it myself onto my Fileden account).

DJ Ayres is a guy who apparently lives in or near New York City... and that's all that I really know about him. A few months back I found a remix he did of the Ying Yang Twins/Pitbull song Shake. It happens to be mashed up with a song from the 80's that is very popular in some circles. It is sampled often. In fact, even Heidi Montag used it in a song (no, not the God-awful song that went along with that God-awful video that was just released)

I am talking about Yazoo (or Yaz, and I'm not talking about the prescription drug) and their hit Situation. It was well-done by Ayres. I mean, both tunes are used often by mashup artists, but this combo happened to be a nice match.

DJ Ayres-Shake (remix) (6.35 MB, 192Kbits/second)

http://www.fileden.com/files/2007/12/28/1667157/Shake%20%28Ayres%20Remix%29.MP3

I'll be back Monday night.

Final Countdown, Hell Yeah!

For those of you who read my post which discussed the song The Girls, here is a mashup where that tune is involved.

It was part of an album that team9 did for the Stereogum website (which is where you go to download it), which while not my cup of tea at all, is still a major music site and thus a great "mainstream" way for a mashup artist to get much exposure.

This tune is Countdown To Girls, which actually is mainly Europe's Final Countdown mixed with Sean Kingston's Beautiful Girls, along with some random electro effects that I believe team9 created themselves. But, it's still something I wanted to spotlight, as it did what I thought would be impossible and that would be making Sean Kingston tolerable!

Actually, I shouldn't really say that as I thought the other singles I heard from his album were better (yes, I even enjoyed the song that was really a remake of Led Zeppelin's D'yer Maker!), such as Take You There. I just thought that Beautiful Girls was bad, and yet that was the song that you know he'll forever be remembered for.

Anyhow, team9 does a great job of combining the music from the all-time classic Europe song with Sean's vocals, and you also have the brief cameos from Harris. It's worth hearing no matter what you think of the artists involved.

Also, another good mashup involving Final Countdown is Divide & Kreate's Counting Rockets, which combines it with Elton John's Rocket Man, believe it or not. It works really well, too. In the future I know I'll post a song or two from D&K officially.

Anyhow, I'll be back a week from tonight where I will spotlight another mashup.

The Art of Mashup Albums

I haven't really mentioned on here before how it's a popular trend for either one DJ or a slew of them collaborating together in order to create an album that is of one artist or one style.

For example, a recent album that DJ Schmolli did. He is from Austria so that is why he paid tribute to someone who-for better or for worse-is the most famous singer from the country. The guy I'm talking about... Falco! I can't say that I've heard more than his 2 most famous songs but those songs are 80's classics in many circles.

The song I'll point out from the tribute album (Falco Re:Loaded) is the tune he'll forever be connected to, Rock Me Amadeus. This version is rather simple and the song isn't revolutionary or mindblowing. But, it's a lot of fun. The music is from Amadeus and the singing is from various rappers, such as Rakim and J-Kwon, but mainly the rapping is from Nelly and Luniz. It sounds like an odd combo but it works. Like I said, it's fun.

You can find info on the album here and you can download the tracks individually here. DJ Schmolli is a pretty good mashup artist and if nothing else you should enjoy Mash Me Amadeus and Funky Kommissar.

I'll be back Thursday night with a spotlight on another mashup artist and one of his (or her!) songs.

Breakin' On Through

In the past in other places I've mentioned The Kleptones, a popular mashup act. Mainly, though, is that I thought they were a little on the overrated side. However, my mind was swayed just by listening to a recent album they released. It's known as Live'r Than You'll Ever Be.

It is an hour long mix, and while they never tell you which songs they combine, you'll be able to recognize many of them. You have Motown songs combined with newer tunes (such as George Michael vs. Martha Reeves & The Vandellas, and Jet vs. Stevie Wonder); most of the tracks are golden, but the final one, which combines The Doors, Dick Dale, and a happy hardcore song, is tremendous.

The album can be downloaded here. You can either download it in one file or get all the tracks separately and combine them together with the service you use to burn CD's.

I'll be back Monday night with a new song.