Deskhop - Quite possibly the next master of the mashup

A junior at Cornell, Ian Wells, aka Deskhop, may very well be the next mashup master. Deskhop is from a different school of mashups that most of the artists I've listened too and posted about. Rather than weaving together two songs, or simply taking vocals from one and instrumentals from another, he takes samples from many different songs and crafts them into an opus of his own. He has a full length album and an EP (both availible for download on his website). I've only listened to the EP so far so I can't speak to the full length, but from what I've heard about all I can say is that this man is a genius. The music is almost hypnotic, a tremendously rewarding listen.
Easternization - Deskhop

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(yet another) Sweet Mash-up from the Hood Internet

From the mash-up geniuses that brought us "Two Weeks of Hip Hop" and "Good Old Fashion Rump Shaker", comes "Juke This City", a mash-up of BBU, Body Language, and Shuttle. I've never heard of any of those bands, but the mash-up has a great beat, some real cool crowd-shouted vocals, and some great rap verses. Basically it's damn catchy and it puts on a great dance atmosphere.
Juke This City (BBU vs. Body Language vs. Shuttle) - The Hood Internet

Check The Hood Internet website for great new mash-ups every couple of days.

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In Defense of the Mash-up

Last night I discovered this article regarding genre hype in the past decade. It's a hilarious look back, I'd highly suggest giving it a read. Anyway, one of the genres it lambasted was mash-ups, which I have long been a fan of, so I decided to write a post in their defense. To be clear, there's a lot of really bad mash-ups out there, it takes true talent to make a good mash-up, but it's really cool when done right. Unfortunately, this isn't terribly common. I've sorted through literally thousands of mash-ups in search of good ones, and ended up with a playlist of 28 songs. But those 28 are awesome.

Some ingeniously thread two songs together, like "I Got More Than a Feeling", a mash-up of the Black Eyed Peas' "I Gotta Feeling" and Boston's "More Than a Feeling". It is truly the best last dance of the night song out there. It's got all the nostalgia and emotion of the original Boston song, but with the beat and catchieness of the Black Eyed Peas. Another fantastic one in this category is "Somebody Told Me To Feel Good" (The Killers vs. Gorillaz). The two songs trade verses over a background formed by a melding of the two. I love it far more than either of the original songs, which to me is the sign of a truly great mash-up.

Some just lay the vocals from one song over the instrumentals of another, and sometimes thats all it takes. "Papa Was a Clock" lays the vocals of "Papa Was a Rolling Stone" (The Temptations) over the piano riff and ambiance of "Clocks" (Coldplay). Again, better than either of the originals.

They're a bit hard to find, but good mash-ups exist out there, and man are they worth the look.

I Got More Than a Feeling - Boston vs. Black Eyed Peas
Somebody Told Me To Feel Good - Gorillaz vs. The Killers
Papa Was a Clock - Temptations vs. Coldplay

A post I made back before the blog was really a blog, has links to some more great mash-ups.

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