DJ N-Wee: What More Can I Sing and In the Mouth, An Encore”
From The Slack Album [Independent Release, 2004]
Pavement: No Life Singed Her and In the Mouth a Desert
From Slanted and Enchanted [Matador, 1992]
Dangermouse’s highly controversial, but rather groundbreaking The Grey Album in which the producer remixed Jay Z’s entire Black Album utilizing samples solely from the Beatles’ White Album, sparked a flurry of debate on the legality of sampling and ownership of intellectual property despite the fact that it was never meant to be officially released. Not only that, but it sparked a number of copycats trying to ride the mash-up wave, releasing similarly constructed Jay Z albums using samples from Weezer and Metallica albums. It’s been over a year since that craze, and I thought I was in the clear from hearing such forced creations, but during a recent perusing through Soulseek I found myself staring at what looked to be another Black Album remix, this time using Slanted and Enchanted by indie rockers Pavement, a band that I happen to be quite fond of. Immediately intrigued I proceeded to download it and discovered that a DJ that goes by N-Wee produced the album, seeing it as an opportunity to prove that Pavement fans are not slackers as he explains here. Coincidentally, both albums are 14 tracks, each track on The Slack Album corresponding to samples from the same track on Slanted and Enchanted, and even more coincidentally, the last track on both are the only ones in 6/8 time. It’s amazing to me that each track managed to work out.
Just like The White Album, N-Wee’s version can often sound awkward and forced at times, with brief moments of brilliance and cohesion. In fact “What More Can I Sing” is pretty hot and actually sounds like a legitimate radio mainstay. It uses Pavement’s “No Life Singed Her” and I honestly can’t hear any source material listening to it. Take a listen to both and let me know if you hear anything.
“Encore” uses “In the Mouth a Desert” and is much more straightforward than its predecessor. Despite mixing down Stephen Malkmus’ vocals which are clearly audible in the background, Jigga rides the wailing indie rock cadence about as well as anybody could hope for. You’ll have to visit your favorite p2p file sharing network to download the rest, as N-Wee encourages. I know a lot of people are going to hate so let’s hear it.
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Thanks for posting these – I've read about this mash up but never heard it, and it rocks! Thanks again.
You probably meant to write this, but the DJ Dangermouse record was called <I>The Grey Album</i>.
thanks for the correction
Just my two cents, but I think "Zurich Your Shoulder" is the winner in this particular experiment.
I'm sitting here in complete disbelief that you posted this, but believe me, I'm not bitching. I actually could not believe how many people remixed the Black Album, so for a while it was my part-time job collecting these mixes just to see how many I could accumulate. Having been a huge Pavement fan for years, this was one of the more enjoyable efforts for me. No one else I've ever spoken to about this has ever heard it. Some of Jon Doe's remixes were also very nice—if you haven't heard them, it might be worth putting yourself through a few more reduxes of Hova before you hang it up. I apologize for my wordiness, but that really made my rap nerd day.
Yeah, I'm hating. I thought this shitty mashup craze was over. When are people gonna get sick of this? While The Grey Album was interesting as an idea, it wasn't really fun to relisten to. Reusing that idea doesn't even have the original novelty. Mark this as something for only Pavement fans to hear and say, "Neat".
I tend to side more with the haters' camp myself. I remember listening to this when it first came out and not being very impressed – I agree that it's more of an inside joke for Pavement fans than anything else. The "My First Song" remix was dope, though.
I'm not the worlds biggest fan of either Jay-Z or Pavement, and the mash-ups aren't the coolest thing I've ever seen or whatever (though I dig "What More Can I Sing" even though it was a more conventional remix), but I think there's more value to mash-ups than just novelty dance tracks and spot-the-artist trivia.
I mean, New Things don't just pop out of nowhere – movements in music result from the collision of different genres and aesthetics with each other and with non-musical concepts. The thing I like about mash-ups is the way they (if they're any good) force disparate elements together in a unified whole. They're slamming rock and rap and pop and whateverthehell together in ways that they simply wouldn't normally encounter each other. New sounds come out of it, and new artists will take advantage of those sounds and make new music. It's an evolutionary thing, ultimately, just like dropping simple couplets over a single sampled beat transformed into god-knows-how-many genres and subgenres.
Hell yeeeeah – Pavement are the illest MCs on the planet – why are they f**kin with Jay-Z?
Holla back!