Last night, I was bored and so I decided to download an assortment of mash-ups. Mash-ups, otherwise known as bastard pop, are songs that are created from the vocal and bassline tracks of two or more seemingly dispare songs. For example, the bubbly vocals of Destiny’s Child’s “Bootylicious” laid down on the grinding guitars of Nirvana’s “Nevermind.” Or Bjork’s “Hidden Place” over Daft Punk’s “Something About Us.” You wouldn’t expect the results to work, but they usually are surprisingly good. I’m tempted to try it myself, but I think it sounds easier than it actually is. I’d need to get my hands on some studio software and it would probably take me days simply to figure out how to use it. I’ve never been musically inclined and I think that would be something of a prerequisite. If you want to check out the mash-up culture for yourself, go here or here. The copyright implications of mash-ups are a bit foggy. The record labels aren’t thrilled with all this mixing and matching, but we need to remember that sampling is a practice that dates back to the Seventies. As an art form, mash-ups are inherently derivative, but the creativity behind them is hard to deny.
