The art of the mash-up is oh-so-important in today’s music scene. Everyone wants to rap, everyone wants to have a band, everyone wants to be signed by a major record label. But the mash-up artist’s experience is a bit different. For regular artists, they want to be signed so they can sell records, and thus, get paid. But if you mix songs, you can’t sell your work. (Unless you bought the rights to it, which would be more costly and probably wouldn’t net you a profit.) Most mashers start out as just doing it for fun: DJs with a hobby, music lovers with a cool program, people with eclectic musical tastes.
I love this genre because most of these guys started out just doing what they wanted to do; no big time dreams of record labels or big sold-out arenas. Just acapellas, instrumentals, and the desire to mix and sample them. This is what music is all about, finding your niche and perfecting your skill. So to celebrate, here’s a few mixes I like:
Pretty Lights: “Hot Like Sauce”
Super Mash Bros.: “I F*cking Bleed Purple and Hold”
And of course, as my esteemed colleague Dan Donohue said, it is Weezy Wednesday so…
