Mash of the Titans
Even if The Beatles were so long ago they could have been your grandparen'ts' music, you've almost certainly heard of them. They are, after all, about as iconic as it gets in music, keeping company with the greats easily. (If you're curious, there's a sweet little graphic novel about their early days on our music booklist this summer, not to mention many, many other more serious and comprehensive books written about them.) This is not without reason – they have some amazing music, which you should definitely explore a bit if you don't know it at all.
Of course, even a highly revered band and artist has those particular albums that stand out as their biggest or best works, and with The Beatles, you're pretty much talking about either Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band or, more importantly, the untitled so-called White Album, which has acquired legendary status and nods from other artists. Jay-Z, for example, named one of his releases The Black Album. Nice little brag and tribute, all in one. But then? Then some magic happened.
According to a piece on BoingBoing, Danger Mouse first mixed these two together in a mashup he called The Grey Album in 2004, but this past fall, it was remastered with even better results and I've got to say, I all kinds of love it. Even Jay-Z and Paul McCartney (one of the Beatles) gave the original project their seals of approval. Take a listen here, or download here. It's pretty fun, relying largly on Beatles background melodies and Jay-Z vocal tracks, and somehow just totally working.
4 thoughts on “Mash of the Titans”
That was really awesome.
That is so cool, who would have thought of that?
I actually enjoyed that. Agreed, who would have thought
What an idea!!!! Its so important to combine the old with the new to make beautiful new pieces!