The State of the Mash-Up, pt. 1
I’m thoroughly tired of all those year and decade lists, and I’m sure you are too. Now it’s time to move onto something else. Back in October 2009 I saw Neon Indian live at the Magic Stick. It was a decent show despite the relatively small audience. Luckily Alan Polomo’s debut under that name hasn’t gotten played out — especially now that I have a copy in lossless audio. With my new super-powered, sound-reducing headphones, it’s a transcendent listening experience!
I’ll include a few low-res videos from the show below, but that’s not what I intend to talk about here. I want to take a look at the current state of mash-ups. I think it’s still a viable way to make music, and it’s fitting for the ongoing proliferation of digitized culture. But most of the best mash-up artists get barely any attention. Girl Talk got so popular that it made the whole idea seem like a fad. Part of the problem is that there isn’t just one way to make a mash-up. Girl Talk’s Gregg Gillis claims he’s “playing his laptop,” as if it were an instrument in itself. What he’s really doing is picking and choosing bits of songs that he cuts up in advance, and the on-stage mixing is done with DJ software.
MusicEdge Blog