March 28, 2004

Get this meandering screed started

I belong to a club. Music Club. (The first rule of Music Club is don't talk about Music Club, unless you want to.) We get together approximately once a month and play songs on a selected theme, and then we burn those songs to a mix CD for all participants. This month's theme was "songs about parties". (Tracklist here.) I chose Life in a Blender's charmingly dirgelike "Party Soon", and when we were playing some of our backup songs, I brought out "Pinkarama", a mash-up of Pink's "Get This Party Started" vs. the theme from Futurama. Daniel hated it, but Daniel is no fan of mash-ups, which is a nice way of saying he's wrong wrong wrong. Or such is my opinion on the matter.

He's by no means the only person I know who's dismissive of mash-ups as a genre, and I'm not sure why -- no one seems to feel it's controversial to enjoy remixes, and mash-ups are essentially underground remixes. Obviously a large percentage of the mash-ups that get produced are crap, but that's like dismissing pop music just because some pop musician wrote a song like "Get This Party Started".

That's right, I don't much care for the original Pink version of "Get This Party Started" (and I don't actually know if Daniel does either; I just know he likes the original more than the mash-up). Could be because I had managed never to hear the original before I heard the Futurama version. The Futurama version of the song is greatly sped up from the original, you see, so now whenever I hear the original, I can't help thinking it sounds waaaay too slow.

Anyway, you can decide for yourself who's right (but I'll give you a hint -- it's me), by downloading the song here, for a limited time (which is now over).

Posted by Francis at 11:34 PM
Comments

For the record I don't dislike mash-ups as a genre, I simply dislike virtually every one I've ever heard on its own merits. The exception is Stroke of Genius.

And I don't mind Get this Party Started, though it's no Don't Let Me Get Me.

Posted by: dlr at March 29, 2004 12:05 PM

What's best about this mash-up is what I like about all really good mash-ups -- the fact that it works at all. Who would have thought you could mix these two songs so successfully?

And I'm sorry, but Greatest Mash-Up of All Time, in my opinion is "Owner of a Lovely Butt."

Posted by: debby at March 29, 2004 02:07 PM

Well, I make no claim that "Pinkarama" is the greatest mash-up of all time -- merely that it is a worthy concoction. "Owner of a Lovely Butt" is also primo.

Posted by: Francis at March 29, 2004 02:23 PM