The bootlegging culture of “bastard pop” is burrowing its way up from the underground as mash-ups move to the mainstream.
Digital Journal — I’m sick of The Beatles. No one gets more airtime than John, Paul, George and Ringo, and after years of playing “Hey Jude” the band got boring. So how can the most prolific act reinvent itself? By releasing a hip-hop album, of course.
Okay, maybe the Fab Four didn’t lay down their own beats, but in 2004 New York DJ Danger Mouse took the vocals from Jay-Z’s The Black Album and combined it with music from The Beatles’ White Album to create The Grey Album. This “new” record breathed life into an aging LP and helped bring the bootlegging — or mash-up — genre to the mainstream.
“The first track on The Grey Album is fantastic,” says Jeff Locke, a Toronto DJ who goes by the name Lockdown. “[Danger Mouse] is taking sounds and manipulating them to actually become hip-hop beats.”
Locke, sitting in his den, eyes glued to his computer screen, quickly skips from one mash-up to another, excitedly sharing the technical details of each track. He’s only been creating original mixes for 10 months, and it’s clear the novelty of hearing the vocals of one band over the instrumentals of another hasn’t yet worn off.
“This one’s amazing,” says Locke as he clicks on a track called “No One Takes Your Freedom” by DJ Earworm. “Listen to that Beatles a cappella, it’s so smooth.”
The object of Locke’s affection is a perfect example of “bastard pop,” another name for mash-ups. It combines the Scissor Sisters’ “Take Your Mama,” The Beatles’ “For No One,” George Michael’s “Freedom ’90” and Aretha Franklin’s “Think” to form a sonic orgy that not only bends the rules of pop music, but is so outlandish you laugh at the creativity behind the artistry.
“Part of the appeal of a mash-up is humour. A lot of them are funny,” says Locke.
Don’t get the wrong idea — this isn’t Weird Al territory. Take “Boulevard Of Broken Songs,” an especially humorous yet classy mash-up blended by San Francisco DJ Ben Gill. Party Ben, as he’s known in the bootlegging world, combined Green Day’s “Boulevard of Broken Dreams,” Oasis’ “Wonderwall,” Aerosmith’s “Dream On” (Eminem’s remix) and a bit of Travis to create “Boulevard of Broken Songs.” As the opening chords to Oasis’ overblown mid-90’s classic plays over Green Day’s aggressive, political anthem, you can’t help but laugh — it’s such an unexpected pairing.
“I actually think there’s humour in the juxtaposition of Green Day and Aerosmith,” says Gill on his cellphone from L.A. “Green Day have an image as such credible, sincere performers…baring their souls, with real, punk DIY roots. In contrast, Aerosmith has an image as a bloated stadium-rock band. The fact that something so sincere melds so seamlessly into something so bloated and cheesy — it’s kind of amusing.”
Gill is being modest, because scenesters find his work more than just kind of amusing. He was recently featured as Spin.com‘s Band of the Day and his weekly mash-up radio show reaches thousands of listeners in San Francisco. Because of him and several other San Francisco DJs (including Earworm), the Golden Gate City is North America’s mash-up headquarters.
“We’re definitely leading the way,” says Gill. “San Fran is a place where people are interested in breaking boundaries and trying something different.”
Even as San Francisco, Boston, L.A., Seattle and New York start their own mash-up club nights, it’s in London, England, where bootlegging rules.
Richard Cosgrove has been an active member of England’s mash-up market for three years, remixing everyone from Kylie Minogue, Gary Numan, Blur, Tone-Loc and even the radio play The War of the Worlds.
“Mash-ups have gained quite a lot of ground [in London] recently,” says Cosgrove, a.k.a. Fettdog. “There’s a ‘bastard night’ every month, and with so many new talents coming through the scene we will definitely continue to flourish.”
Although some purists say the 1979 Sugarhill Gang song “Rapper’s Delight” started the mash-up craze, Cosgrove says it was five years ago — at the height of Backstreet Boys and Britney mania — when Frankenpop really took off.
“Music had become boring and stale,” says Cosgrove. “In terms of innovation nobody seemed to be doing anything interesting, so taking one track and mashing it with another got people’s imaginations.”
But the trend also attracted attention from media lawyers, since there’s no getting around the fact that releasing other people’s intellectual property as your own is illegal.
“It bridges copyright issues,” says Cosgrove, who was asked by AC/DC’s publishing company to remove a “Back in Black” mash-up. “But truth be known, provided people aren’t making money out of it, it’s essentially free publicity. And most artists like that.”
Despite the legal issues, bootlegging is here to stay. Artists like making mash-ups because it allows them to feel like rock stars from their PC, while listeners get a chance to rediscover their favourite tracks, shaken and stirred. Nothing will replace the originals — after all, they’re a mash-up’s main ingredients — but the more record execs churn out manufactured pop, the more people will want to mess with the recipe.
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
To find out more about mash-ups, check out Get Your Bootleg On (gybo.org), where there are hundreds of songs to download and hundreds of DJs willing to share their bootlegging secrets. If you want to boogie down right now, lend your ears to these two mash-up trailblazers:
Probably one of the most name-dropped bootleggers is England’s Mark Vidler, better known as Go Home Productions. He’s worked with David Bowie and most recently with Gang of Four. Check out his remix of the Gang’s “To Hell With Poverty” on their upcoming Return the Gift album (gohomeproductions.co.uk).
San Francisco’s DJ Earworm is one of the genre’s most innovative artists. His appetite for booty can’t be satisfied with just two artists; he uses upwards of six or seven tracks in each of his bastard creations. He’s even mashed up the videos to Beyonce’s “Naughty Girl” and Maroon 5’s “This Love” (djearworm.com).
