Mashups
American Song
Tom Petty vs. Taylor Swift
You’ll never believe this, kids, but there was a time when it wasn’t cool to like Taylor Swift! At least, not if you were a Serious Male Music Fan. Funny to think about. Although I gotta say, and I realize is this isn’t very progressive or open-minded of me: still a bit perplexed by the continued embracing of Taylor Swift and other mainstream pop artists in ostensibly alternative publications and spaces, and I think it may be Bad Actually to cede territory that was occupied by independent artists and give it to products of the labels that already dominate popular culture. I could go on about this at length. Not the venue!
Rude Room
Fugazi vs. Rihanna
I made this right after Girl Talk’s All Day album came out – I was bummed that his version of this combination was off key, so I made my own. I remember someone on one of the mashup boards told me they still prefered the Girl Talk version :-/
xXx
X vs. the xx
A lot of mashups are borne not out of musical similarities, but base wordplay. I got the acapella for X’s “Los Angeles”, wondered if it would fit The xx’s “Intro”, and it did (sort of), so I made it happen! This was in the Bootie Top 10 and a bonus track on the Best of Bootie 2010 – making the Bootie lists always made my day the handful of times that it happened.
Born to Crystal Cat
Dan Deacon vs. Bruce Springsteen
To me both these songs embody a spirit of unbridled joy doing everything it can to outrun the shadow of heartache, arriving at the same destination via completely different methods. So this seemed like an obvious pairing. The pitch-shifted Bruce vocals still make me laugh.
Optimist (Yeah)
P.O.S vs. Brand New
Another Brand New one – these are two songs that have meant a lot to me, by artists who turned out to be enormous personal disappointments for not-altogether dissimilar reasons. I think I pulled off the pairing of the 6/8 Brand New vocal with the 4/4 P.O.S beat pretty well.
Juicy Roads
Ukuleles of Halifax v. Notorious B.I.G
The requisite “Biggie + something, anything” track. The source material for the beat is a recording of John Denver’s “Country Roads, Take Me Home” as performed by Canadian schoolchildren that was big on MP3 blogs around this time. I’m very proud of this production, and I’ve tried over the years to rework it into an actual song with little success.
Leavin' Buddy Holly
Jesse McCartney vs. Weezer
I do not like this one. I do not think it’s very good, and no one knows who Jesse McCartney is in 2022. But all my sisters like it. So here you go, sisters!
Mr. Office Man
The Office Theme v. Bob Dylan v. other drum samples
Not sure about this one. I must have been in the process of discovering what you could do with Ableton, to mixed effect. Kinda repetitive.
Safe for the Moment (Sally Take My Hand)
LCD Soundsystem vs. The Who
I think this was the first thing I made after successfully pirating Ableton Live. My wife likes this one.
All My Zombies
Led Zeppelin vs. Sufjan Stevens
You can really see the seams on this one, but I think the song pairing works well and highlights a lot of similarities between the two songs. I’m so perceptive!