DJ Lobsterdust / Van Halen : Hot for Teacher

Okay, my final selection was chosen to reflect one other trend in mashups: the rock remix. There is a sort of subgenre of the mashup that consists of creating a dancefloor remix of a rock song. Often these are miserable, but sometimes they are awesome. I had a few to choose from, but ultimately chose Van Halen's "Hot for Teacher" for a couple of reasons.

First, the original is kinda funky and has that spoken word stuff that really fits over the dance beat. Second, we all know David Lee Roth always wanted to be a disco diva. He never said as much, but you know he did. So one of the things I like about this tune is that DJ Lobsterdust gives him that opportunity to shine.

The beat is apparently from a tune "Ghosts N Stuff" by an artist called Deadmau5 and is apparently electro house. Whatever, not my bag, but it sounds good, especially under David Lee's growling libido. I could totally see this dropping right into the mix at the local nightclub. I know I would have loved it back when I actually did that sort of thing.

There were a couple of other tunes in the running for this category, all of which are great fun:

• Boston's "More Than a Feeling" by Ministry of Mashed Sound
• Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'" by Marc Johnce
• Kings of Leon's "Sex On Fire" by Leedm101
• The Pixies' "Monkey Gone to Heaven" also by DJ Lobsterdust

If the idea of dancified versions of any of these songs appeals to you, by all means, search them out on Google.

Can't buy it, but the original Van Halen track is from their eternally classic 1984. Deadmau5's track can be found on his 2009 release, For Lack of a Better Name.

* My favorite line from David's Wiki page: "Roth has an uncle Dave who is a brain surgeon, an uncle Marty who is an orthopedic surgeon, and a grandfather who was a surgeon".  Uncle Marty would be a great band name.

[You can listen to DJ Lobsterdust's remix of Van Halen's "Hot for Teacher" by navigating to the post "Song089" and clicking or right-clicking on the title or the link.]

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Team9 / The Beatles : Eleanor Rigby

Here's another rock on rock mash.  Once again someone has taken a Beatles original and mashed it against another tune with an edge, showing how hard the Beatles could have rocked had they really, really wanted to ("Helter Skelter" not withstanding).

Team9 careens Paul's dour classic "Eleanor Rigby" off Queens of the Stone Age's hard rocker "In My Head", almost totally stripping out the dainty double string quartet that anchored the song before, keeping only a touch, and replacing it with rock riffs and a little keyboard that somehow match the song perfectly.  The vocals are even processed in a way that sounds a lot like Josh's trademark stoner rock murmur.  Unfortunately, I have more pictures than words for this one, as there isn't much more to say about it than I've already said for previous mashes.  But it's nice to hear the Beatles really rock out.

You can't buy the mash anywhere, but you can pick up the original "Eleanor Rigby" on the Beatles' 1966 Revolver and the original "In My Head" on Queens of the Stone Age's 2005 release, Lullabies to Paralyze.

[You can listen to Team9's mash of the Beatles' "Eleanor Rigby" by navigating to the post "Song088" and clicking or right-clicking on the title or the link.]

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Party Ben / Radiohead : Reckoner

I'm not a big Radiohead fan, so I'm not real familiar with this tune.  I am a big Timbaland fan, although he's kind of played out lately, but I'm not familiar with the instrumental (Justin Timberlake's "My Love") used here either.  In any case, like many good mashups, I think this is a fortuitous juxtaposition by someone with a good ear.

The Radiohead tune is typical long-winded keening from Thom Yorke.  The original has him moaning over a pretty standard rock four-by-four beat.  Party Ben has taken the ultra-funky backing track from Justin's song and layered Thom's vocals over it and the result is, in my opinion, a drastic improvement.  The song moves from pedestrian to symphonic, with the lyrics soaring over the syrupy-thick electronic backdrop.  And the catcalls and beatboxing sprinkled liberally throughout, serve to destroy the cloying pretentiousness that normally permeates a Radiohead track.  Plus, they're just awesome.

You can't purchase the mash, but Radiohead's original is available on their 2008 release, In Rainbows, and Justin Timberlake's "My Love" is available on his 2006 release, FutureSex/LoveSounds, which also houses his smash hit "SexyBack".

[You can listen to Party Ben's mash of Radiohead's "Reckoner" by navigating to the post "Song087" and clicking or right-clicking on the title or the link.]

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Martinn Bootleg / Madonna : Beautiful Stranger

So, I thought I would ride out a week's worth of mashes then bring the standard stuff back. The thing is, I'm still on vacation and there are a couple of mashes I still want to let you know about. So you'll have to stick with it for a little while longer.

Here's another example of taking a different route than the "drop a rap over a track" type mash. Martinn Bootleg takes Madonna's retro-pop hit "Beautiful Stranger" from the Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me soundtrack, and fits it quite beautifully over the backdrop of Smokey Robinson's classic, "Tears of a Clown". Here's how perfect it fits. I had it on my little Shuffle and as I was listening to it while working in the yard, I thought to myself, "Jeez, I never realized how much this song sounds like 'Tears of a Clown'." Yes, it's so perfect I forgot it was a mashup. That, my friends, is a testimony.

To be fair, I think he uses some of the music of the original to help out. I have yet to listen to the three songs back-to-back, so I can't be sure what exactly he did, but it's amazing.  In any case, I don't think he had an a cappella vocal or instrumental backing track to work with, so on top of getting it all to fit together so perfectly, he did it by sonically pulling apart the originals.  An amazing piece of work.

You can't buy the mash, but the original Madonna song is from the Austin Powers soundtrack I mentioned earlier, and of course you can get "Tears of a Clown" on any number of compilations.

[You can listen to Martinn Bootleg's mash of Madonna's "Beautiful Stranger" by navigating to the post "Song086" and clicking or right-clicking on the title or the link.]

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Mad Mix Mustang / Jay-Z : 99 Problems

Let's close the week with what seems like a totally obvious mash: take Jay-Z's classic "99 Problems" and mix it with Nena's classic "99 Red Balloons". Har-de-har, we all get the joke. Except, man, I don't know how he did it, but the tune totally works.

Listen to the musical progression underneath the rap. As Shawn spits the verses, the samples underneath build tension, adding a little bit of organ every few bars, until right before the chorus where in comes the drum roll and the song speeds up double-time. This continues well into the next verse until, at exactly the right moment, it drops back into the slower funky riff. I think this is the key to a successful mash and really underscores the craft that goes into it. Rather than just looping a single sample, as so many rap songs have done previously, they really dig into the instrumental bits and build an actual song underneath. You could totally play this live and it would be awesome.

As with the others, I don't think you can buy the mash anywhere, but you can pick up "99 Problems" on Jay-Z's The Black Album and "99 Luftballons" on Nena's original album which has both the English and German versions.

[You can listen to Mad Mix Mustang's mash of Jay-Z's "99 Problems" by navigating to the post "Song085" and clicking or right-clicking on the title or the link.]

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Phil Retrospector / Marvin Gaye : Sexual Healing

As I mentioned yesterday, a really good mashup goes farther than slapping the vocals over the top of an instrumental track. And like most art, or any idea for that matter, for every thousand or so half-assed attempts to slap something together, there arises one piece of brilliance that makes the rest of the crap worthwhile. Phil Retrospector's brutal distortion of Marvin Gaye's classic is one of those shards of brilliance.

Phil takes Marvin's sexually charged funk staple and forces it deep into the dark bosom of Wendy Carlos' electronic soundtrack to A Clockwork Orange. Not only does this pervert the entire meaning of the song (have you seen the movie?), it creates a damn spooky tune. Somehow, probably through pitchshifting or AutoTune, he manages to cast Marvin's vocals into a decidedly minor key such that they perfectly fit the eerie, almost frightening, soundscape Wendy created. In addition, Phil has Marvin cooing to himself in the background like some ghostly, whispering backup singer. The result is clearly something new, freaky, yet engrossing, and a strong argument for the legitimized existence of mashup culture.

Naturally, you can't purchase this mash anywhere, but you can purchase the original "Sexual Healing" on Marvin's 1982 release, Midnight Love. Wendy Carlos' soundtrack for A Clockwork Orange is available on CD as well.

[You can listen to Phil Retrospector's mash of Marvin Gaye's "Sexual Healing" by navigating to the post "Song084" and clicking or right-clicking on the title or the link.]

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Wax Audio / The Beatles : Come Together

At its most basic, the mashup is slapping one song's lyrics on another song's music.  But at its most creative, the mashup is a full-on remix, taking elements of both songs and creating something truly new, unique and interesting.

The Beatles have been done to death, by radio, by covers and certainly by mashups.  The most famous is probably Danger Mouse's mash of Jay-Z's The Black Album with The Beatles' self-titled 'white album' and there are a couple other entries worth checking into, another one of which will likely make its way to these pages in the next week or so.  But this one is by far the best.

Wax Audio has taken a great piece of rocking electronica, Justice's "Waters of Nazareth" and laid it underneath one of the best rock songs of all time, "Come Together" by the Beatles.  But, in doing so, he's altered the pacing and flow of Lennon's masterpiece, cutting it apart and repiecing it together, reinventing both songs.  At first, the interplay is pretty straightforward, but towards the end, Wax Audio plays with the dynamics, adding some echo and a nifty breakdown.  Notice also how he introduces the organ from "Nazareth" into the second part of the song.  And I especially love at the end when he gets John to throw down the shout-outs, a sort of digest version of the whole song.  This thing is composed, folks.

Unfortunately the only version he's got up on his site is the cheesy one where he added samples from Barack Obama and Martin Luther King Jr. speeches.  Fortunately, I'm here for you kiddies, bringing you the unadulterated version.  You can't buy this mash anywhere, but you can get the original "Come Together" on the Beatles' classic Abbey Road and the backing track was generated from Justice's excellent LP, Cross.

[You can listen to Wax Audio's mash of The Beatles' "Come Together" by navigating to the post "Song083" and clicking or right-clicking on the title or the link.]

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Go Home Productions / X-Press 2 : Lazy (ft. David Byrne)

Here's another of my early favorite mashes.  This one is similar to Skee-Lo's "I Wish" in that I had never heard the original before hearing the mash, so to me, the mash is 'the original'.  And frankly, it's much better than the original.

Popular-culture-wise, there's all sorts of things going on.  First, there's David Byrne singing vocals on a track by some band called X-Press 2. Then, Go Home Productions takes as their base for the song, Kelly Osbourne's version of Madonna's "Papa Don't Preach".  That's like six different collaborators thrown into a giant vat and out pours this amalgam of rock that might be the best thing David Byrne has done since Talking Heads broke up.

I'm not quite sure how he did it, but the rock of the original fits perfectly under David's vocals.  Every little bit matches so perfectly, it's hard to believe they were two completely different songs.

You can't buy "Lazy" anywhere, but X-Press 2's original can be found on their 2002 release Muzikizum, and Kelly Osbourne's cover is on the 2002 single release, Papa Don't Preach.

[You can listen to Go Home Productions' mash of X-Press 2's "Lazy (ft. David Byrne)" by navigating to the post "Song082" and clicking or right-clicking on the title or the link.]

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Soulwax / Skee-Lo : I Wish

This first mashup is the one that started it all out for me.  It's a version of a rap song by Skee-Lo, which itself is pretty funny in that it's self-deprecating, the complete opposite of every other rap song out there.  This is placed over the top of some creative resampling of Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger" and "Cannonball" by The Breeders.  Both songs fit the original rap pretty well, which I think is one of the keys to a good mash.  You can't just throw an a cappella rap over any old tune.  You need to find pieces that sort of match in feel.

Although, I was thinking, there isn't much different between this mash (especially the beginning) and any song by, say, Will Smith or even off Paul's Boutique from the Beasties.  I'm not sure for a rap song when it moves from plain old sampling to a full-on mashup.

Anyway, the song rocks, mainly because Survivor rocks, and Soulwax, one of the progenitors of popularizing the mashup, does a great job of taking the propulsion of their instrumental parts and creates a super bed for Antoine's rap. It's especially cool if you've ever heard the original, which is slower and laid over a sample from a 1981 R&B jazz-fusion LP. Yeah, the mash is better than the original.

You can't buy the mash anywhere. But Skee-Lo's original is off his 1995 album, I Wish. You can find Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger" on their Greatest Hits and The Breeders' "Cannonball" is from their album, Last Splash.

[You can listen to Soulwax's mash of Skee-Lo's "I Wish" by navigating to the post "Song081" and clicking or right-clicking on the title or the link.]

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