Music Video: DJ Earworm "No More Gas" (multi-artist mashup)

I don't think I'll do this again, at least not to this degree: even if the "extra" posts aren't huge, and don't take that long to write, any time I spend working on extra stuff is time I'm not spending on the bigger, more complicated posts like the plant profiles. Which is the excuse I'm going to use for why I didn't get the Persea americana profile done this month. (UPDATE: It's done.) I'm not saying we're completely done with mashups, just that I think it was maybe a bad idea to try to write about so many of them in so short of a time. It was fun, but I'm glad I don't have to do any for a while.

Having said all that, "No More Gas" is a personal favorite, and we may as well go out with a bang. The songs which were put together to make it:

"4 Minutes" (Madonna, Justin Timberlake, & Timbaland)
"American Boy" (Estelle & Kanye West)
"Bleeding Love" (Leona Lewis)
"Closer" (Ne-Yo)
"Damaged" (Danity Kane)
"Dangerous" (Kardinal Offishal & Akon)
"Disturbia" (Rihanna)
"Gimme More" (Britney Spears)
"Low" (Flo Rida & T-Pain)
"Superstar" (Lupe Fiasco & Matthew Santos)
"When I Grow Up" (Pussycat Dolls)

Music Video: DJ Earworm "No-One Takes Your Freedom" (Aretha Franklin / George Michael / Scissor Sisters / Paul McCartney mashup)

This has been one of my favorite mashups for a very long time, almost since the day I was first aware of the existence of mashups. DJ Earworm has become someone who takes hundreds of tiny snippets of songs and fits them together into a brand-new song, but his earlier stuff was more like this, taking large chunks of songs and playing them over top of one another. I don't have strong feelings either way which is better, though I suspect the mosaic-mural approach he's doing now is more time-consuming. Either way, this is still an amazing job of finding a set of four songs that work well together musically and thematically, and turning them into something entirely new, and I've listened to it some uncountably huge number of times over the past three years or so.

Music video: DJ Earworm "United State of Pop 2008 (Viva la Pop)"

I hate Top 40 music for roughly the same reason I hate Christmas music: because I'm exposed to it involuntarily, over long periods of time, and most of the time it's in situations where I'm unable to substitute something I like better, so I just have to grit my teeth and get through it. After which it gets stuck in my head for unbearably long periods of time, which is even worse.

I also tend to dislike mashups, not because they're necessarily worse than the source material, but because there's rarely any more creativity on display than lowering the volume on song A while increasing it on song B, and then eventually slipping back into song A. Which even I can do.

This video, then, is a mashup, created from the top 25 pop songs in the U.S. during the year of 2008, and by any reasonable logic, I should haaaaaate it. (I do haaaaaate "Love in This Club," "Don't Stop the Music," "Paralyzer," and "Low." I like Pink in general but I do not like "So What," and I think I dislike Katy Perry on general principles but I'm still undecided about her song specifically.) But I do not. In fact, with the possible exception of Coldplay's "Viva la Vida," which I dig, I like this mashup so much more than any of the source material that listening to it raises my opinion of the source material. If that makes any sense.

The starting material:

1. Sara Bareilles - Love Song
2. Natasha Bedingfield - Pocketful of Sunshine
3. Chris Brown - Forever
4. Chris Brown - With You
5. Chris Brown Featuring T-Pain - Kiss Kiss
6. Colbie Caillat - Bubbly
7. Mariah Carey - Touch My Body
8. Coldplay - Viva La Vida
9. Finger Eleven - Paralyzer
10. Flo-Rida Featuring T-Pain - Low
11. Alicia Keys - No One
12. Leona Lewis - Bleeding Love
13. Lil Wayne Featuring Static Major - Lollipop
14. Madonna Featuring Justin Timberlake - 4 Minutes
15. Ne-Yo - Closer
16. Katy Perry - I Kissed a Girl
17. Pink - So What
18. Rihanna - Take a Bow
19. Rihanna - Disturbia
20. Rihanna - Don't Stop the Music
21. Jordin Sparks Duet With Chris Brown - No Air
22. Ray J & Yung Berg - Sexy Can I
23. T.I. - Whatever You Like
24. Timbaland Featuring OneRepublic - Apologize
25. Usher Featuring Young Jeezy - Love in This Club

The finished product:



If you liked that (and give it a couple listens before you decide: the first time through, all you're likely to be able to hear is Coldplay), 2007's mashup is, I think, an even better song (more complex, better transitions), despite being nearly ruined (for me personally) by the appearance of Avril Lavigne about two-thirds of the way in. But, you know, the music shakes her off, rallies itself, and carries on like nothing happened.



He's some kind of genius, this DJ Earworm fella. Check his website for more: most of the mashups he does are just two songs going in and out of one another, but there are some gems even so. I'm especially fond of:

"Believe Somebody" (= Madonna "Like a Virgin" + Cher "Believe" + Whitney Houston "I Wanna Dance With Somebody" + George Kranz "Din Daa Daa"),
"No One Takes Your Freedom" (= Scissor Sisters "Take your Mama" + Beatles "For No One" + George Michael "Freedom '90" + Aretha Franklin "Think (Freedom)")
"Stairway to Bootleg Heaven" (= Dolly Parton "Stairway to Heaven" + Eurythmics "This City Never Sleeps" + Beatles "Because" + Laurie Anderson "O Superman" + Art of Noise "Moments in Love" + Beastie Boys "So Whatcha Want" + Pat Benatar "Love is a Battlefield")
"No More Gas" (= Rihanna "Disturbia" + Kardinal Offishall Feat. Akon "Dangerous" + Ne-Yo "Closer" + Estelle Feat. Kanye West "American Boy" + Pussycat Dolls "When I Grow Up" + Leona Lewis "Bleeding Love" + Danity Kane "Damaged" + Madonna Feat. Justin Timberlake "4 Minutes" + Lupe Fiasco Feat. Matthew Santos "Superstar" + Britney Spears "Gimme More" + Flo-Rida Feat. T-Pain "Low")