Song Mashups

About

In the music Industry, it is commonplace for hip-hop artists and rappers to take existing music and incorporate the effects into their own work, such as MC Hammer's use of Rick James' "Super Freak" in his own hit, "U Can't Touch This" (See "Hammer Time" for more details,) and Kanye West's use of Daft Punk's "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" in his song "Stronger."

In 1994, a group called The Evolution Control Committee took this to the next level by taking lyrics by The rap Group Public Enemy, and mixing them with instrumental pieces by a group called Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. Example here:

This idea was used for several other musical mash-up projects, such as Freelance Hellraiser's "A Stroke of Genius," a mashup of The Strokes "Hard to Explain" and Christina Aguilera's "Genie in a Bottle," and Danger Mouse's Major Mash-Up Project, The Grey Album, which put together Jay-Z's The Black Album, with The Beatles' Self Titled Album (Unofficially called The White Album.)This practice also came to the attention and almost immediate use of Gregg M. Gillis, better known as Girl Talk, who has made four albums of mash-up songs and is planning a fifth.

It was inevitable that the internet industry would use this idea as its own and make new songs completely out of existing music. This led to the dawn of the "mash-up," an audio music file which contains audio clips from popular music and puts them together to create a new song. On Youtube, it's also common for the mixer to combine clips from the song's music video, if possible.

Popular Youtube examples Include:

The Eurythmics- Sweet Dreams vs. The White Stripes- Seven Nation Army

Michael Jackson- Beat It vs. Lady Gaga- Just Dance

Nirvana- Smells Like Teen Spirit vs. Blur- Song 2

Weezer- Beverly Hills vs. Queen- We Will Rock You (ft. Joan Jett- I Love Rock n' Roll)

Marvin Gaye- Heard It Through the Grapevine vs. Gorillaz- Feel Good Inc.

And There are several other examples of this. Several examples are included in the game DJ Hero.