Mash-Up Mixes in Salon

By Cory Doctorow at 12:28 am Monday, Aug 11

Salon's run a really good long feature abotu Mash-Up Mixes, the remixed music that combines contrasting vocal and instrumental tracks from different songs -- like the brilliant "Come On Eileen"/"Bring the Noise" combo, which remains one of my favorite MP3s to this day.

The wacky juxtaposition spawned its own kind of revolution, inspiring legions of the club remixes now called "mash-ups" -- with one classic example being "Smells Like Booty," in which Destiny's Child wails over Nirvana's classic dirge and drone. Also referred to as "bastard pop," mash-ups involves blending samples from two songs -- generally, one song's vocals atop another's instrumental or rhythm track. The sum of the parts often surpasses the originals. The more disparate the genre-blending is, the better; the best mash-ups blend punk with funk or Top 40 with heavy metal, boosting the tension between slick and raw. Part of the fun is identifying the source of two familiar sounds now made strange -- and then giggling over how perfect Whitney sounds singing with Kraftwerk.

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