A mashup (also mesh, mash up, mash-up, blend, bootleg^[1][2]) is a creative work, usually in a form of a song, created by blending two or more pre-recorded songs, usually by overlaying the vocal track of one song seamlessly over the instrumental track of another.^[3] To the extent that such works are 'transformative' of original content, in the United States they may find protection from copyright claims under the 'fair use' doctrine of copyright law.^[4]

History[edit]

The 1990 John Zorn album Naked City features a version of Ornette Coleman's 'Lonely Woman' set over the bassline of Roy Orbison's 'Pretty Woman'.^{[5][example's importance?]}

In 1994, the experimental band Evolution Control Committee released the first modern mashup tracks on their hand-made cassette album, Gunderphonic. These 'Whipped Cream Mixes' combined a pair of Public Enemy a cappellas with instrumentals by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. First released on home-made cassettes in early 1992, it was later pressed on 7' vinyl, and distributed by Eerie Materials in the mid-1990s. The tracks gained some degree of notoriety on college radio stations in the United States.^{[6][third-party source needed]}

The name Pop Will Eat Itself was taken from an NME feature on the band Jamie Wednesday, written by David Quantick, which proposed the theory that because popular music simply recycles good ideas continuously, the perfect pop song could be written by combining the best of those ideas into one track. Hence, Pop Will Eat Itself.^{[7][example's importance?]}

The mashup movement gained momentum again in 2001 with the release of the 2 Many DJs album As Heard on Radio Soulwax Pt. 2 by Soulwax's Dewaele brothers, which combined 45 different tracks; the same year a remix of Christina Aguilera's 'Genie in a Bottle' was also released by Freelance Hellraiser, which coupled the pop star with the raucous guitars of 'Hard To Explain' by New York's The Strokes in an infectious concoction entitled 'A Stroke of Genie-us'.^[8]

Launched in San Francisco in 2003, Bootie was the first club night in the United States dedicated solely to the burgeoning art form of the bootleg mashup, and now^[when?] hosts monthly parties in several cities around the globe, including Los Angeles, Paris, Boston, Munich, and New York City. The party's slogan, 'Music for the A.D.D. Generation' also inspired the creation of 'A.D.D', Israel's first mash-up dedicated party.^[9] The Best of Bootie mashup compilation series is compiled and produced each year by A Plus D, creators of the international mashup club Bootie. The compilations have been released in December every year since 2005, and are annual Internet sensations, with each album garnering over 5000GB+ of downloads.^[10]

Notable mash-up albums[edit]

Albums by A-Trak

• 2007: Dirty South Dance

Albums by Girl Talk

• 2003: Unstoppable
• 2006: Night Ripper
• 2008: Feed the Animals
• 2010: All Day

Albums by The Kleptones

• 2003: Yoshimi Battles the Hip-Hop Robots(rappers over The Flaming Lips' Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots)
• 2004: A Night at the Hip Hopera(rappers over Queen)
• 2010: Uptime / Downtime

Albums by Max Tannone

• 2009: Jaydiohead
• 2009: Doublecheck Your Head
• 2010: Mos Dub
• 2010: Dub Kweli

Albums by wait what

• 2010: the notorious xx

Albums by TenDJiz

• 2011: De La Soulviet – De La Soul with Soviet soul and jazz^[11]
• 2012: Commonasm – Common and Nas with Soviet soul and jazz^[12]

Albums by Neil Cicierega

• 2014: Mouth Sounds
• 2014: Mouth Silence
• 2017: Mouth Moods

Other notable albums and individual tracks

• The 1997 version of 'People Hold On' is a blend of the vocals from the original 1989 hit by Lisa Stansfield and the backing track from the 1997 UK Number One hit 'Professional Widow' by Tori Amos.
• In 2003 Dannii Minogue was subject to two mashups, the first being 'Begin to Spin Around' by using the vocals from her hit single 'I Begin to Wonder' and the backing from 'You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)' by Dead or Alive, and the second being 'Don't Wanna Lose This Groove', using vocals from her song 'Don't Wanna Lose This Feeling' and the back from 'Into the Groove' by Madonna.
• At the 2002 Brit Awards ceremony, Kylie Minogue performed 'Can't Get Blue Monday Out of My Head' a mashup of 'Can't Get You Out Of My Head' and 'Blue Monday'.
• The American Edit album by Dean Gray (a collaboration between Party Ben and Team9) was based on the album American Idiot by Green Day and carried the original version of one of the most well-known mashups, 'Boulevard of Broken Songs'.
• 'Toca's Miracle' by Fragma – mashup of Coco Star's 'I Need a Miracle' and Fragma's 'Toca Me'.
• The Grey Album by Danger Mouse (2004) – mashup of Jay Z's The Black Album with The Beatles' The White Album
• 'Doctor Pressure' originally created by Phil 'n' Dog in 2004, eventually released by Mylo in 2005.
• 'Numb/Encore' by Linkin Park & Jay Z, the most popular of the six mash-ups on their album Collision Course. The song was a hit amongst radio stations and eventually went on to win a Grammy.^[13]
• 'Love' by the Beatles (for the Cirque du Soleil show Love) in 2006.
• 'Everyday Chemistry', a mashup album consisting of several separate Beatles songs to make one album credited to The Beatles.
• 'My California Gurl'^[14]The X Factor group Emblem3 performed a three-way mashup of 'My Girl' by The Temptations, 'California Gurls' by Katy Perry and Snoop Dogg, and 'What Makes You Beautiful' by One Direction. The song consists of two verses and the refrain from 'My Girl' and the main chorus from 'California Gurls', plus an original rap verse set to the backing track of 'What Makes You Beautiful'.

See also[edit]

• 'One Song to the Tune of Another'

References[edit]

1. ^[1]Archived 17 June 2006 at the Wayback Machine
2. ^'Bootiemashup.com - About'. Retrieved 13 November 2017.
3. ^Geoghegan, Michael and Klass, Dan (2005). Podcast Solutions: The Complete Guide to Podcasting, p.45. ISBN1-59059-554-8.
4. ^Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Online VideoArchived 2 June 2010 at the Wayback Machine, American University, Center for Social Media
5. ^Dancing in Your Head. Books.google.co.uk. Retrieved 18 December 2014.
6. ^[2]^{[dead link]}
7. ^'Who the hell is Clint Mansell?'. Sickamongthepure.com. Archived from the original on 10 October 2004. Retrieved 18 December 2014.
8. ^Wolk, Douglas (21 January 2008). 'Barely Legal'. Villagevoice.com. Retrieved 18 December 2014.
9. ^Jam, Billy (23 May 2007). 'Music For Generation ADD: Mashups quietly mature into a thriving subculture'. New York Press. Archived from the original on 25 July 2008.
10. ^'Mashup best-of 2006 album'. Boing Boing. Retrieved 18 December 2014.
11. ^'De La Soul + Soviet soul and jazz = De La Soulviet' – Los Angeles Times, 28 October 2011
12. ^'TenDJiz Talks Soviet Jazz and Hip-Hop Mashup Album CommoNasm' – Miami New Times, Jule 9, 2012
13. ^'Numb/Encore' wins a Grammy', 'Jay-Z And Linkin Park Win Best Rap/Sung Collaboration Grammy'. Rockdirt.com 9 February 2006
14. ^musiklatina10 (7 November 2012), Emblem 3 - My Girl and California Gurls Mashup - The X Factor USA 2012 (Live Show 2), retrieved 17 July 2018

Further reading[edit]

• Paul Morley (2003). Words and Music: A History of Pop in the Shape of a City. Bloomsbury. ISBN0-7475-5778-0.
• Jeremy J. Beadle (1993). Will Pop Eat Itself? Faber & Faber. ISBN0-571-16241-X.
• Roseman, Jordan (2006). Audio Mashup Construction Kit. ISBN0-471-77195-3.
• Hughes, J. & Lang, K. (2006). Transmutability: Digital Decontextualization, Manipulation, and Recontextualization as a New Source of Value in the Production and Consumption of Culture Products. In Proceedings of the 39th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences – Volume 08.
• Sinnreich, Aram (2010). Mashed Up: Music, Technology & the Rise of Configurable Culture[3]. ISBN1-55849-829-X.