This is from a blog post I had posted to my former Blogger account. Figured it was relevant now that Jaydiohead (a NYC DJ named Max Tannone) dropped a second round of mash-up tracks today:
After all the writing I do about politics, I sometimes forget how much I actually love to write about music/pop culture. (Seriously, the daily drum beat of tax figures and political rhetoric can drive a man insane). Anyway, a friend of mine introduced me today to the newest in a long list of DJs ripping off Jay-z by mashing his tracks with another notable rock band. Everyone, meet DJ Minty Fresh Beats. Simply put, dude has done us all a favor by combining the best from Jay-z’s requiem album with some of Radiohead’s greatest songs (Optimistic, Paranoid Android, etc…)
Listen here for his newest tracks. For the original album: Jaydiohead :: Listen
Sick, huh? I’ve written about the changing nature of music and how independent agents out there can make long-lasting sonic impressions, usually to the chagrin of the original artists. But what’s usually surprising, especially when these mash-ups work – evident with Jaydieohead and DJ Danger Mouse’s The Grey Album – is that it makes the original creative piece that much better. Here’s to EMI having a sense of humor…
So this is from a paper I wrote for an American Music and Literature class I took in 2007 while at the University of Nevada. Figured it was slightly relevant:
Some call it the most important technological revolution to occur in decades. It is fundamentally changing American culture – from the way Americans read the news to the way they listen to music.
They are calling it Web 2.0, a word associated with phrases such as “blogging,” “user-generated content,” and the “democratization of the media.” And this so-called revolution is having a profound effect on a multi-billion dollar music industry that has enjoyed continuous success throughout most of the 20th century, that is, until a college freshman by the name of Shawn Fanning decided to make a pesky file-sharing program called Napster in 1999. The rest is history.
This digital revolution (another one of those phrases) is also taking place just as one of the world’s youngest musical genes, hip-hop, is picking up momentum and coming into its own rite around the globe. The music industry is fiercely trying to figure out how to maintain profits in light of the mass exodus from the record store to the digital store – amid an ocean of digital pirates who steal and swap songs in the Internet’s underbelly. And as music becomes easier to share, through Internet mediums like online radio, YouTube, and podcasting, artists are sprouting up all over the world –such as overnight success and underground hip-hop producer DJ Danger Mouse – all becoming new-media Horatio Algers. Bands are figuring out new ways of marketing themselves, like rock outfit OK Go’s self-produced YouTube music videos, by avoiding the muscular (and expensive) marketing power of the major record labels.
The next big thing for music isn’t white rappers or multi-million dollar pop-princess machines. No. The next big thing is the way Americans – and the rest of humanity – will produce, obtain and listen to music for years to come, all of which will fundamentally change the type of music everybody listens to.
