March 04, 2004
DJ Danger Mouse - The Grey Album
- In case you were unable to download it before the EMI cease and desist letter, here is a place where you can download the songs.
The Grey Album is an art project/experiment that uses the full vocal content of Jay-Z's Black Album recorded over new beats and production made using the Beatles White Album as the sole source material. Danger Mouse insists he can explain and prove that all the music on the Grey Album can be traced back to the White Album and its musical content via sampling. Every kick, snare, and chord is taken from the Beatles White Album and is in their original recording somwhere.
The first mash-up I heard was Ragtime Eminem -- hilarious. Nate pointed me to NiN vs. Super Mario which is long but funny. Boom Selection seems the definitive collection of these art?works: see DJ Danger Mouse's 50 Cent vs. Tom's Diner or Freelance Hellraiser's "Stroke of Genie-us" (Christina Aguilera vs. The Strokes) (hard to find on the web, easy to find on P2P). For more discussion see this Slashdot thread:
Mashes are using tracks as if they were "object trouvés" (found objects) and blending them in an audio collage.
This is an accepted technique in the visual arts. It does not produce great art. Its not meant to. It borrows from others to juxtrapose and blend and possibly morph in order to communicate something beyond the original pieces.
Its should and most likely will be granted the same acceptance in audio art. The concept is identical. Its an audio collage, a reassemblage of sound tracks with tempo and/or frequency shifting to create a new wortk of art.
Here is a whole album and art exhibit telling the recent history Illegal Art, including Negativland, Public Enemy, and Invisibl Skratch Piklz. All tracks are availiable on mp3 from the site.
This borderline on the fringes of copyright law has spawned all sorts of awesome stuff. Some other things to note are that Flip's "Illegal Art" link leads to some songs that spawned other lawsuits that you've (probably) heard of involving The Verve and Elastica for unauthorized sample stealing. Also, the Illegal Art site features lots of video, including a really awesome remix by Negativland which incorporates animation from the Little Mermaid (actually done in the Disney studios late at night, without permission, of course) and includes a very irate phone message from the copyright owner about how he owns his source material in perpetuity.
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This album is available by public FTP as part of Gray Tuesday, a protest organized by Downhill Battle: news at NYT, excellent editorial from UC.
EMI is not content with quashing the commercial distribution of the music -- it is trying to prevent its distribution in any form. Their standing under current copyright law is clear: they can do so. And if they're successful it will kill this audacious and imaginative new artistic approach to making music.
posted by mrflip at 12:42PM CST on March 04