In recent years, the art of the mashup has continued to gain more and more prominence in the music world.  Actually, “art” is probably not the most accurate term to use, considering that it has reached a point of excess in which endless amateur Youtube “deejays” are willing to forcefully press together anything that they feel might get them even the slightest amount of attention.  Generally, it’s all about the gimmick and, unfortunately, there is far too often next to no focus on creating anything of substance.  Like I said, it’s all about quick attention and the sheer novelty of seeing if you can layer somethings like a Beyonce vocal over a track from The Man Machine (hmmm….not a bad idea).  If you think about it, the idea really isn’t all that original in the first place, because stacking tracks is the basic concept behind beat juggling and, although there are genuinely some really good tracks to come out of this genre, most of these mash ups just eliminate the requirement for any skills on the tables.  Another thing that has helped to over-saturate the mashup game is that a large percentage of the people creating these things prove to be one-notes.  If you want to hop in with something to grab attention and then step things up from there, that’s one thing, but if you have little more to deliver after that point, it’s pretty much like telling the same joke over and over again.

With all of this being said, it’s is definitely true that something will occasionally comes through that’s actually worthy of the attention. Read the rest of this entry →