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Sometimes I play something and it makes me want to cry. Not for the sake of crying but finding the happiness that comes after. This is:
A lush, piano-focused drive into the dark that'll tug at your heartstrings, embrace you in its golden aura, and eat your babies. OK, everything except that last part.
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Two great love songs. Two lovely vocal performances which harmonize well, and whose lyrics also sync. What's a creative guy to do about it? MAKE A MASHUP!!!!
Katy Perry's "Hot and Cold" + Cher's "Believe" blends into a LOVELY combination.
As with my previous mashups, heading into Ableton Live and making a rough composite sparked the inspiration. Only one obstacle stood in my way, and that was my inability to procure the genuine "Believe" instrumental. No worries, the iTunes Store came to the rescue with a mildly awkward soundalike for karaoke performances. (So yes, what we have here is Cher not even singing over the original.) I had to fatten the kick drum, but it has its own "boutique charm".
I don't have evidence to support that Cher + Katy have ever actually done a duet onstage. But glory be to technology, it allows us to realize possibilities like this (and Fred Astaire pop 'n' locking).
Some parts are crowded. Some parts are sparse. I'm never content to just have "Acapella A layered over Instrumental B", so listen closely for details and signature'd tricks. Orbital's "Halcyon" had a definite influence on the more choral passages and even backwards vocals. Lots of variation as I'm known for. Not just because my attention span is as limited as astatine's half-life, but because I love a fresh cornucopia of ideas… yet making cohesive sense out of it all. Like LOVE, IT IS DIRTY AND CLEAN AT THE SAME TIME.
Sly: there's a snippet of another track with "cool" lyrics I inserted because I enjoy it immensely. See if you can spot it.
Delight!
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You can't curb unbridled, nubile creativity! Yesterday, I felt strongly that David West's "The Hideout" sounds like "The Sky Was Pink". It bothered me so much that I had to substantiate it. That minutes later, I was in Ableton Live and mixing those tracks and Sasha's "Who Killed Sparky?"
Herein described as:
Quitely mashup of Sasha's "Who Killed Sparky?" + David West's "The Hideout" + James Holden's remix of Nathan Fake's "The Sky Was Pink"
It's both a beautiful tribute to these works, which like Donald Kaufman's The Three, are REALLY ONE AND THE SAME! And it's a grotesque parody, altho you may not see it that way. I made sure to go over-the-top with extra white noise flourishes (like so many extra maraschino cherries) and unexpected surprises like lofi effects tweakage. Some subtle, some quite startling and starling.
Overall, the mixing (which sounds more seamless than "mashup") grooves smoothly. It's eminently listenable. But there are parts wherein I wanted to challenge the well-known idioms (which is one letter away from being "idiots") of modern techno-trance music.
It paves the way for future UNIFIED DANCE THEORY showing… while we are different, we're not so different after all.
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I had another case of rippleshock that told me that combining X melody with Y beats would work out right. In this case, it was a Transformers + hardcore DnB mashup. Watch the movie of how I put it together. Then, you can listen:
How'd I get on this trip? I was listening to Vince DiCola's wonderfully melodic work for Rocky IV. It's a shame the man hasn't been more prolific for the big screen, because he's a genius. Anyway, my mind was drawn back to Rupert Parkes' sinister, samurai-inspired stylings in 1997, and to more recent neurofunk productions. The Transformers score is wonderfully varied, whereas a lot of drum 'n' bass is quite repetitive, providing grounding for those wild synth solos. (Giant robots and badass basslines gel so well, as Cyantific exemplified.) Put it all together and what do you get? A wild ride to Cybertron and back!
None of this would've been possible without the original artists, so here are the source tracks. Mine is a fan production which in no way seeks to commercially profit, but it is a good indicator of where my mind roams on the weekends:
… and various samples like cymbal hits and voice clips from the 2007 Transformers live-action movie. Credz to all these great musicians.
I'm such a nosh for Easter Eggs and clever details. Lots, lots of changes. There are many edits here including the very end, keep your ears peeled.
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