MASHUP DERBY: Adele/Daft Punk, Lana Del Rey/The Smiths, Nicki Minaj/Coldplay, and more
by Aaron Zorgel
March 6, 2012
Got a favourite song? Got another favourite song? MAN, wouldn’t it sound great if you could just listen to ‘em at the SAME TIME? Well, it’s 2012, dummy,and Girl Talk has been doing his thing for over ten years now. Get with the program! MASHUP DERBY looks at 5 mashups from different producers and artists, and assigns them a mostly arbitrary score out of 5. Let’s get MASH’D!
Got a favourite song? Got another favourite song? MAN, wouldn’t it sound great if you could just listen to ’em at the SAME TIME? Well, it’s 2012, you dummy! Girl Talk has been doing his thing for over ten years now. Get with the program! MASHUP DERBY looks at 5 mashups from different producers and artists, and assigns them a mostly arbitrary score out of 5. Let’s get MASH’D!
Adele vs. Daft Punk – Something About The Fire (Carlos Serrano Mix) (Adele vs. Daft Punk)
A mash-upper’s primary trick of the trade is to take a song that is the flavour of the moment, and mash it up with something that is totally different aesthetically. There’s a built in audience there because people love the song, but are kinda sick of hearing it for the 1000th time in its traditional arrangement. If you can toss the acapella from that song onto an instrumental that is from a different genre, and it works, well, that easily impresses even the most discerning masses. San Diego remixer Carlos Serrano clearly knew what he was doing when he mashed-up the powerful organic ballad “Set Fire To The Rain” by Adele, and Daft Punk’s 2001 disco odyssey “Something About Us.” It works, but it’s not dazzling.
3 Sweaty Girl Talks out of 5
The Jane Doze are a female mash-up duo based out of New York. This one is a bit older, but it’s easily their best work to date. It’s a special thing when a remixer can take 4 or 5 songs, and turn it into a coherent mix with a song structure of its own. The Jane Doze definitely take notes from the main man of mashups Greg Gillis, seeing as their debut mixtape Girls Talk was just released. Make sure you go cop it now, it’s Pop Hunter party approved. Perfect for the pre-drink or the main event.
4 Sweaty Girl Talks out of 5
The Reborn Identity – This Charming Video Game (The Smiths vs. Lana Del Rey)
The Reborn Identity takes away everything that you hate about Lana Del Rey (ie. her entirely) out of “Video Games” and replaces it with “This Charming Man”-era Morrissey. Really moving stuff. It shines a light on how emotionally evocative Lana Del Rey’s instrumentals are.
Divide & Kreate – Dancing in Houston (Zooash “Glam-Pop” Edit) (Whitney Houston vs. Robyn)
A song so good that we already talked about it in our best of February list. RIP Whitney. Long live Robyn.
4 Sweaty Girl Talks out of 5
Mashup-Germany – Every Teardrop Has A Super Bass (Sean Paul, Nicki Minaj, Coldplay, Childish Gambino)
27 year-old DJ Ben Stiller (really) a.k.a. Mashup-Germany is known for cranking out incredible mashups that often include dozens of genre-spanning songs. His 2011 pop retrospective “Top of the Pops 2011 (What The Fuck)” nearly trumped DJ Earworm’s always anticipated United State of Pop for my favourite year-end mashup of 2011. This one seems a little forced to me. The Coldplay vocals are just sprinkled in there seemingly for the sake of it, and the Sean Paul tune that forms the basis of the song isn’t strong enough to carry the load on this one. I’m just holding Ben Stiller to a higher standard, because I know he can do better. Hey, kind of like the real Ben Stiller.
2.5 Sweaty Girl Talks out of 5
Tags: Music, Featured, News, Adele, Childish Gambino, Coldplay, Daft Punk, Girl Talk, Katy Perry, Ke$ha, Lana Del Rey, Nicki Minaj, Robyn, Sean Paul, The Smiths, Whitney Houston, will.i.am
