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“Mashup” is a Jamaican Creole term meaning to destroy. The world’s first mashup-based artform was hip-hop music, which combined pieces of pre-existing music with an MC’s rap. (Appropriately, rap grew out of a Jamaican dancehall technique called toasting, which involved talking or chanting over an R&B beat.) More recently, artists like Dangermouse created a new kind of musical mashup, often combining a hip-hop song with a song from another genre. (Danger’s groundbreaking Grey Album conflated the Beatles’ White Album with hip-hop impresario Jay-Z’s Black Album, jump-starting what is proving to be an enduring trend.)
Inevitably, perhaps, the mashup phenomenon has gone A/V, and now video mashups are appearing on content-sharing sites like YouTube. Truly a democratic art form, anyone with a computer, editing software and lots of spare time on their hands (OK, so mostly rich suburban kids) can create their own. Since we here at the floss can relate to having a computer and (at least some) spare time, we present our picks for the top six most genius-y video mashups.
1.
Title: My Body is a Cage
Combines: “My Body is a Cage” by peerless indie rockers The Arcade Fire and clips from Sergio Leone’s Western masterpiece, Once Upon a Time in the West.
Verdict: Borderline profound.
2.
Title: I Wanna Trek You Like An Animal
Combines: Nine Inch Nails’ provocative “Closer” with clips from Star Trek.
Verdict: It’ll make you think about the relationship between Kirk and Spock in a way you never have … and never wanted to. Edited by man of mystery T. Jonesy, also responsible for “My Body is a Cage.” Who are you, T. Jonesy??
Warning: F-word alert! Nine Inch Nails’ frontman Trent Reznor wants to &^%@ you like an animal, and he’s not afraid to say so.
3.
Title: Velvet Welk
Combines: 2:23 seconds of the Velvet Underground’s 17-minute psycho-pop freakout “Sister Ray” with clips from The Lawrence Welk Show.
Verdict: Trippy, young man!
More after the jump!
4.
Title: Darth Vader, Practical Joker
Combines: A scene from Star Wars … and that’s it. Some very fancy time-remapping happening to get the lips to move right, but otherwise, just a little old-fashioned ingenuity.
Verdict: I’m not a big Star Wars guy, but I thought this was a riot.
5.
Title: 8 1/2 Mile
Combines: Fellini’s 8 1/2 and Eminem’s 8 Mile, trailer-style.
Verdict: Low-culture + high-culture = pop culture!
6.
Title: A Hard Day’s Night of the Living Dead
Combines: Zombie remake Dawn of the Dead and the classic Beatles film.
Verdict: Groovy and gory.
Comments (10)
Comment
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I never saw anything like these. They are great! Velvet Welk is phenomenal (I had a great uncle that made us watch Lawrence Welk in the mid 60s). I also thought My Body is a Cage, 8 1/2 Mile, and the Beatles one where great.
It takes some real talent to think of the idea (linking some specific video to a song) and then actually making it work on a video. The tempo of the people on Lawrence Welk playing the music and dancing were perfect for the Lou Reed song.
posted by Stew on 3-16-2007 at 9:27 am
nice, but…
who’ll come up with some real new stuff…
or is everything that’s retrospective holy?
Geniuses usually come up with new theories, new movies, new music.
They build it upon the old stuff and build it on what we usually refer to as tradition…
posted by pixites on 3-16-2007 at 10:45 am
Wouldn’t Burroughs cut-up work be the first mash-up art?
posted by justin case on 3-16-2007 at 12:07 pm
EBN did this much better many years ago.
Google: Emergency Broadcast Network
posted by Ryan on 3-16-2007 at 12:20 pm
Well, I only managed to force myself to watch part of the first one and I was left very unimpressed. All it does is to make the brilliant music and editing of the Leone movie not work anymore. The new music/message doesn’t add anything new because it doesn’t work. It’s just not very good editing.
As pixites say… something someone has actually made themselves would be real proof of talent. People think that everything old is just stock. I don’t think they even understand that someone actually made those earlier artwork without digital aid. Someone a lot more talented than them. Who will remember these mashups in 30 years? Who will remember them in 30 days?
posted by Storm on 3-17-2007 at 7:36 am
Storm, no fair criticizing the lot when you only watched half of the first one! And to say that art is only someone “making something themselves” definitely opens up a huge can of worms — so much of our modern art is recycling, from Andy Warhol to any number of hip-hop artists.
Anyway, this stuff is just for fun. I’m sure people who make video mashups aren’t expecting fame and fortune; they’re just having fun in their spare time. So why shouldn’t we enjoy it if we can?
And in a way, isn’t that a purer form of artistic expression than a movie studio recycling formulaic plots because that’s what they think people will pay to see?
posted by Ransom on 3-17-2007 at 9:19 am
The last one hardly counts; it’s got Shaun of the Dead clips, and the zombie footage is from an inferior remake.
Still, kudos to the creators of Star Trek/Closer. That pairing is the granddaddy of all fandom slash, and it’s cool to see people still having fun with it after all these years.
posted by Katrina on 3-17-2007 at 6:46 pm
Dear Storm,
Why does the song not work? Is it because “The Body as a Cage” metaphor could stand for something like rage and revenge? Could him not being able to dance with the one he loves, be because of that revenge? Maybe no one will remember it in 30 years, but that doesn’t make it any less enjoyable or beautiful.
posted by Scott on 3-19-2007 at 8:19 am
“the world’s first mashup-based artform was hip-hop music, which combined pieces of pre-existing music with an MC’s rap”
What about collage? Hip hop is nothing but a musical approach to collage, which existed a lot earlier in painting!
posted by Luis M on 3-19-2007 at 3:41 pm
I thought the last one was excellent! I haven’t watched them all yet (because I’m at work and I don’t want anyone else to hear me listening to “Closer” :D), but it was well-timed and cut well to look like it could all be part of the original Hard Day’s Night trailer.
Nobody claimed it was perfect, did they? And who cares what remake the footage is from…the entire point was to have zombies running just like the girls in Hard Day’s Night. Don’t be so hard on other people’s trivial amusements!
posted by Fruppi on 4-9-2008 at 11:50 am