12 Nov 22 | Issue 41
In our age of social media, cancel culture, echo chambers, and tribalism, I propose that the mashup can teach us far more about dialectics than Plato, Kant, Hegel and Marx.
Proposition 1a. Love Will Freak Us - dsico
1b. The philosophical dialectic is the concept — championed by Plato, Kant, Hegel and Marx — that truth will be found by postulating a thesis (a vocal), rebutting it with an antithesis (an instrumental), back and forth, back and forth, until a synthesis (the mashup) is formed.
1c. For the uninitiated, a mashup is an (unofficial) blending of two songs. Usually the vocal from one, overlaying the instrumentation from another. Executed with enough technical panache that not knowing the originals you may think it a genuine recording.
Proposition 2a. Ray Of Gob — Go Home Productions
2b. Social media hasn't brought us all together. The algorithms of its profit seeking masters are instead creating echo chambers. 1
2c. The unspoken rules for a mashup to work say the two tracks should be from opposing genres. Ideally as radically different as possible.
Proposition 3a. You're The One That I Want In The Next Episode – Disfunctional DJ
3b. Ideologies are ill suited for real life communities. Religions damn those that don't believe, communism fails with agricultural communities — nature's yields not obeying targets and turnovers. A doctrine for the masses needs to be flexible enough to accommodate disbelievers, adaptable enough for disdainers. Otherwise we fracture into clusters of Amish-like communities, rigid and isolated in adhering to our (snoop) dogma driven clans.
3c. You could say that placing Snoop and Dre over the blatantly ridiculous Grease soundtrack is taking the piss, mockery. But it's not. It's done with such love – the mashup artist knows and understands both tracks intimately. Both are treated with equal respect.
Proposition 4a. You Should Be Smoking – Bill McClintock
4b. The complaint against cancel culture is a lack of communication. Agree or be outcast. Actually, I fully understand where the #woke strategy is coming from. The platforms of 'free speech' are owned by reclusive autocrats, Zuckerberg, Musk, et al. Governments are systemically making protest illegal, and weaponising police forces. There is no sense of debate, click-bait promotes the most outrageous view. No space for measured discourse. Protest is seem as one step away from terrorism. Late stage capitalism owns the media, the land, the lobbyists, 'snowflakes' only want to make the world fairer. So they are pushing back the only way they can, as hard as they are being kettled. 2
4c. Syncretism is taking aspects from different religions, or ideologies, and merging them to create a new doctrine 3. I propose we will do this. We must remember Hegel said learn from ideas you dislike 4. "Dialectic is here understood in the grasping of opposites in their unity or of the positive in the negative" The Science of Logic, 1812. Even doctrines you dislike, might have good ideas. The proto-fascist Gabriele d’Annunzio decreed music as a central duty of the state in his Free State slash occupation of Fiume, now part of Croatia. It states "In every commune of the province there will be a choral society and an orchestra subsidised by the State" and indeed apparently the occupied were delighted with free concerts (and nightly fireworks).
Proposition 5a. September Kids – William Maranci Mashups
5b. Narrowcasting, video on demand, Google personalised adverts. Technology and the unlimited choice of capitalism, is in fact building closed loops, reductive systems. Any one party state eventually fractures with splinter groups demanding ever more austere revisions.
5c. The mashup reminds us that pluralism can work. Not top down policy, but grass roots creation. Please tell me you listened to Snoop and Grease (prop. 3a), and tell me that you didn't beam with glee (or prop. 4a). It is a thing of marvel, showing equal respect to both sides. A musical aficionado and hip-hop fan can sit — or indeed carry out a number of fancy foot moves — together. Both appreciating that their preferred tribal anthem does indeed meld well, partnered with the music of the devil. To share a moment of joy. To find common ground. Outkast's 'My favourite Things', Jay-Z's 'Hard Knock Life'. And thus begin a dialogue understanding more of the other's world. Spreading out from the Venn diagram’s overlap. Finding they had more in common than they realised, once they can see past the differences.
Proposition 6a. Losing Your Tears / Save My Religion – SRUnknow CL
6b. Entrenched views lead to dead ends. Everything changes.
6c. To paraphrase REM, building my religion. A bit of Adam Smith, some veganism, a dash of socialism, a pinch of Hinduism. Bespoke, it only has to fit you. Others can admire the cut, the fabric, the thread, the lining, and use an element in their own life jacket.
Notes
The first mashup is credited to experimental band/artist The Evolution Control Committee, who released Rebel Without a Pause (Whipped Cream Mix) as a cassette, then a vinyl single in 1993.
Rebel Without a Pause (Whipped Cream Mix) – The Evolution Control Committee
My awareness of the mashup percolated during the summer of 2002 as a glut of Eminem's "Without me" versions filtered through. In particular the work of Go Home Productions and The Freelance Hellraiser.
Almost all pop songs mix the main vocal dead centre, meaning equal volume in the left and right channels. All other instrumentation is panned slightly, or hard, to the left or right. This practice allows a difference filter to be run on the track, which removes everything that isn't equal in both speakers, leaving only the vocals. If you are wondering how they did it.
These videos don't live long on Youtube as the copyright is a grey area. Mashup artists claim immunity under "fair usage" (www.rocketlawyer.com/business-and-contracts/intellectual-property/copyrights/legal-guide/mashups-and-sampling-whats-fair-use). Go Home Productions received the ultimate accolade when Blondie included his mash-up of Rapture using The Door's "Riders of the Storm" on their greatest hits album5. Both Madonna and The Sex pistols were up for Ray of Gob being officially released, but sadly vetoed by Maverick Records 6.
Be warned — mashups are a massive time sink — if you enjoyed these, if being a rhetorical phrase, then www.reddit.com/r/mashups is a good place for keeping up with the art form, along with searching Youtube for 'mashup' and 'bootleg'.
Bonus track as they say.
A Stroke Of Genie-us — The Freelance Hellraiser
All the songs featured have been added to a Youtube playlist along with a couple of bonus cuts.
www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdGVKsyfwP6ODL8UooBy-buJ5rhbAgjGs
Mashups exist in the literary world, see Jane Austen and zombies, sea monsters, etc. Rather than being obvious, I shall skirt around those, and epistolary novels. Instead I’m plumping for ‘City on Fire’ by Garth Risk Hallberg. It narrowly missed featuring in Issue 29, being a book with a fantastic sense of place — New York in the seventies. It’s described as Dickensian, accurately I feel, and comes across as a more streetwise Bonfire of the Vanities.
The two people I recommended it to so far, couldn’t get on with it, but I loved it. It’s a little like The Goldfinch but with a plot. A lot of plot. It’s a good fit with mashups as throughout the 900 odd pages there’s facsimiles of tear-stained, handwritten letters, an investigative report on firework display designers, and a punk rock zine amongst other ephemera. Many sources making a whole.
‘City on Fire’ by Garth Risk Hallberg Buy here
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This week featured
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Evolution_Control_Committee
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Freelance_Hellraiser
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_Home_Productions
References
Illustration up to scratch as always ;) ... Loved Snoop/Grease and not exactly a mash up but did you see Benediction where the Ghost Riders in the Sky/troops on the run combo piece is really excellent?
Do not fear the algorithm, it's not as powerful as it would have you believe.