Wax Audio - Metal Mashups
Speaking of Sabbath, Professor Nicola Masciandaro of Brooklyn College-CUNY has published a gloss (.pdf file) on the song “Black Sabbath.” In this case, “gloss” does not mean “a brief, often shitty explanation,” but “a long-ass philosophical commentary.” It’s 18 pages, more than one for each line in the song! Honestly, most of it goes over my head (it literally took me hours to work through it; for some reason, the odd-numbered pages go down more easily), and no doubt I would fail Masciandaro’s classes. However, he’s no nigel hipster; he goes to academic conferences in full medieval finery, which of course is quite metal.
Whole Lotta SabbathThunder BustersStayin’ Alive in the Wall
And speaking of Sabbath and Maiden, Australian producer Wax Audio (aka Tom Compagnoni) has posted some great mashups for free download at his MySpace.
Normally, he deconstructs more political sounds (unsurprisingly, Negativland is in his Top 16). With these mashups, though, he’s using pop, rock, and metal sources. I know mashups are so 2001, but some of these are extremely, extremely well-done. Some are not – avoid the Public Enemy/Iron Maiden one, which sounds like it would be interesting, but made me want to smash my computer into bits. Michael Jackson vs. Metallica also fared quite badly.
However, three were downright spectacular.
“Whole Lotta Sabbath” is perhaps the best mashup I’ve ever heard (next to Fugazi/Destiny’s Child). It had me headbanging and throwing goats, no joke. Unbelievably, the sum is greater than its parts, “Whole Lotta Love” and “War Pigs.” Sabbath may have been the first metal band, but I’ve always thought that “Whole Lotta Love” had the first metal riff ever – palm-muting + machine-gun articulation. This mashup creates a rather surreal supergroup with Page and Iommi as a guitar tandem. Lyrics are the only obstacles to complete cohesion. Ozzy’s singing about how the war machine keeps turning, while Robert Plant’s faking an orgasm. You can’t win ’em all.
In “Thunder Busters,” The Razor’s Edge and Ray Parker, Jr. make for a cheeky but seamless union. Brilliant move layering the best one-handed riff of all time over, ahem, thundering syn drums. What stands out is the quality of the production, which isn’t the “two radios at the same time” mess that mashups often are.
“Stayin’ Alive in The Wall” isn’t metal, but I had to include it because it’s so damn good. This is an amazingly logical pairing. Both songs have very similar grooves – why didn’t someone think of this earlier? “Another Brick in the Wall (Part II)” must be one of the strangest #1 singles of all time. I can’t think of any occasion (school dance, wedding, bar mitzvah) where someone would request it from a DJ.
