Go Home
Wednesday, 25 April 2007
Mash Ups are basically two songs mixed into one new song. But most Mash Ups are more complicated, so it is difficult to give an exact definition of the genre. The phenomenon started when the brothers De Waele, who worked as deejays under the name Too many deejays, discovered that certain songs could be played at the same time. I have read this story several times, but I never read what the first songs were that they played together. Not that it matters: Mash Ups have entered the mainstream media (like MTV) and it is more than a hype.
I got interested in Mash Ups a few years ago, after I heard some work of Mark Vidler a.k.a. Go Home Productions. He is still one of the best Mash Uppers that I know of, and his production is immense. Unfortunately he has taken all his Mash ups off of his website. Untill a few months ago you could download all of it, but it seems you now have to find other ways if you want to hear his work. It is probably for copyright reasons that the music is taken off line; Mark Vidler is also a producer for record companies. Other Mash Uppers still have their songs on their websites and there are several places on the Internet where you can find Mash ups. Like Mash Up Town, where you can also subscribe to the latest releases. A guy named Simon Iddol is a spider in the web of Mash Ups and along with the songs I get interesting information about the songs too. And mind you: almost on a daily basis! I used to make a surf tour every few weeks to find the newest Mash Ups, but this subscription me a lot of time.
I never go to clubs, and I have no idea which clubs play Mash Ups, how many people dance to them, I don’t know anything about the scene. I just love the music.
Over the years I have made about 15 compilation CD’s of my favourite Mash Ups, and this is only a fraction of all the Mash Ups that I have heard. But these 15 CD’s, with about 300 Mash Ups, are among the most played CD’s in our house. I used to hate remixes, but this stuff is so danceable and exciting!
One thing I like about Mash Ups is that they open up my ears. I think I “know” a song and then suddenly I hear it in a new context and then I realise how good and beautiful it is. And how danceable: this is music made to fill dance floors! I have tried to figure out how it is done, but even if could learn to do it technically, I would never come up with some so good as what Mark Vidler did here.