I can’t not share this.
May blow your musical mind.
Stuff like that is so great!
Reminds me of another, but much older mashup, which is almost a classic now; Ben E. King and The Police…
I… twitch… got an eye tick… but… shiver but my foot… it started tapping to the beat… and then I was quietly singing along.
The world makes no sense to me anymore… I can no longer trust my own feelings…
MeanJoe
I will never be able to unhear that, and I think I’m ok with it.
I love mashups, but they have to be done well.
This is not terribly done well, although “Call Me Maybe” mashes up with a lot of songs somewhat decently.
The echoey effect put on Trent Reznor’s voice was a good idea, but screaming just doesn’t fit the pop beat all that well.
Boulevard of Broken Songs matched a lot more of the songs together rather than just overlaying the lyrics from one on the beat from another.
Although not a true mashup (more of a remix), I find the following far more enjoyable: "Call Me Maybe" / "Payphone" MASHUP! (ft. Jessica Jarrell & James Alan) - YouTube
I do not understand this comment. The idea is that the notes and rhythm mesh perfectly in an abstract sense, while doing complete violence to the the bubble-gum sensibility of the one song, and the angry brooding sensibility of the other. In this sense, the screaming both “fits” and “doesn’t” fit the pop beat, and that’s the very point of putting them together.
Again, I don’t understand this comment. The whole idea of the thing was to point out that you can basically overlay one onto the other and get something that both completely works (in an abstracted music-theoretic sense) and is vaguely disturbing. If this makes for a simplistic example of the mashup genre, I don’t see that so much as a criticism as simply a characterisation. It’s not intended to be anything else.
Based on a sample size of one (the link you provided) I hypothesize that, in a mashup, you’re looking for something that somehow brings out what is great about each song and somehow unifies them so that the result is a single work that combines the greatness of each.
But the hlah/cmm mix I linked to in the OP isn’t trying to do this. It’s not straightforwardly expressing the sentiment of either song much less both. It is more like a joke on both sentiments.
Yes, exactly. If you’re a fan of either song, you’re fairly likely to hate the other one. They’re basically opposites. I can imagine someone using these two songs as an example of two things that would never go together in a million years: “What? You’re trying to mix X and Y?! That’s like trying to make a mash-up of Nine Inch Nails and Carly Rae Jepsen!”
But then, shazam! They actually do go together, in that abstracted music-theoretic sense. The meter, the melody, the chord progressions, the verse-chorus structure; they all work. And suddenly, something you expected to sound like racoons fucking on a pile of tin cans is making you tap your toes and hum along. And the fact that they don’t blend, but rather, move in parallel, actually makes it better, by highlighting what an unlikely pairing this is.
Exactly. I can’t say I love this mash-up (the only mash-up I’ve ever heard that I thought was great was The Grey Album by DJ Danger Mouse), but this is the kind of mash-up that I think is at least somewhat interesting. To me, the whole point is mixing incongruous and unexpected sources for a surprise. Mashing up songs that are already fairly similar is boring. Once again, to me.
I’m not sure why it would have occurred to someone to put THOSE two songs together, but the results are hilariously incongruous.
The thing is, I DON’T think the screaming fits from a “that the notes and rhythm mesh perfectly in an abstract sense”. You are allowed to think so, but I think it’s a bad mix. For me, it is NOT something “that both completely works (in an abstracted music-theoretic sense)”. It’s just the lyrics from a grunge song overlaid on the beat from a pop song. That doesn’t mean it magically works. In fact, I think it doesn’t work, and is a lazy example of a mashup.
See, I’m that rare person that enjoys both NIN and Ms. Jepsen. I love mashups. I should be the exact target market. And I think this isn’t that good. You might like it, but somehow it seems like people are more likely to like the irony of the juxtaposition of pop and grunge than the actual musical result.
NIN is “grunge”? 
I’m not hot on the verses, but I think the chorus works well enough for it to be a reasonably good mash-up.
Well… I actually don’t think it’s a matter of opinion, what I was trying to say. From the standpoint of music theory, as it applies to very simple popular melodies and harmonies, the mix definitely “works” in a very objective sense. The chords follow a traditional progression, and the notes in the melody fit directly into those chords in every case.
I guess we’d need to have a score in front of us to really adjudicate this, but here I just want to make sure I’m clear about what I’m communicating–I’m trying to say something that’s not an expression of musical taste, but is an objective statement about whether the notes fit into particular patterns or not.
I just listened again, real carefully this time ;), and AFAICT the only spot that’s at all questionable in terms of simple pop harmonies is near the beginning where he says “he wants it all.” On “all” the note is a little jarring in the context of the note that follows, against the background of the chord playing at that point.
AFAICT every single other note in the melody fits plainly and straightforwardly into the harmony.
Well, I loved it and thought it worked very well.
My wife doesn’t like it and doesn’t think it works because it, as she says it, “sounds off.” Through an interrogation process in which I unapologetically asked several leading questions in the style of Socrates* I came to think what’s happening is that she can’t “unhear” the minor key tonality of Reznor’s song and the major tonality of Jepson’s song, such that when she hears them together, things seem to clash rather than meld.
Could it be that’s what’s happening in your case yellowjacketcoder? Are you feeling like they don’t fit because of the different tonal centers of the two songs?
*I bet you can imagine she loves this just as much as it sounds like it should be loved.
Entirely possible. I’m well familiar with both songs. Could be my brain is doing some post-processing that makes it sound bad - the kind of post-processing someone that doesn’t like both songs wouldn’t do.
Well there’s your problem. If you already like both songs, then I would figure you probably wouldn’t like this. I think the appeal comes from expecting that mixing a “good” song and a “bad” song is going to result in something godawful, and then realizing, “Huh. I… huh. Okay. That is actually… not that bad. In fact it’s kind of… Oh, what the hell: whoo!” (Or, if you’re a Carly fan, “Rawk!”) And I think it’s because putting some aspect of the “bad” song in a new context it allows you to overcome your prejudice toward it and appreciate it more.
I mean, I do find the juxtaposition funny, but I also genuinely enjoy the musical result, and I assume most people do, too. I can’t imagine this would have gone viral like it has if it were just a dissonant mismatch of two different key signatures, tempos, time signatures, etc. That’s the sense in which Frylock is saying, and I agree, that it “works”. It’s not a matter of opinion; it’s a question of whether the parts interlock, basically. Like, let’s say you discovered that you could take a pipe organ and just snap it onto the chassis of a Prius, and the gears and pedals would all fit together somehow so that the result would be a fully functional organ-car. You might hate it or love it, but regardless, it works - Tab A fits into Slot B.
ETA: Or what you said.
The incongruity is what makes it fun. The Ben E. King/Police mashup works very well, but both songs are pretty much the same emotionally, so it doesn’t have the same impact.
See, for me, that’s a lazy mashup. I’m going to assume it’s “Stand By Me” and “Every Breath You Take,” right? That’s about as creative as mixing Sweet Home Alabama and Werewolves of London.