All Day Samples – Thumbs Up
Girl Talk released his newest mashup album, All Day, a few weeks ago. Travis McLeskey put together a website, www.alldaysamples.com where he displays the songs currently being sampled visually as you listen. This really helps you appreciate all the detail that Girl Talk puts into his work and demonstrates why he is the best mashup artist around. Here is an interview that McLeskey did about the project.
(I realize that I am super late on this, but I thought I would post it anyway because I hadn’t blogged in a while.)
Double Rainbow All The Way Across The Sky – Thumbs Up
This rainbow is so sweet it made a grown man cry.
And in song form:
Hot Chip – ‘I Feel Better’ Video – Toss Up
I’m honestly not even sure what to think about this music video. It is so weird, first I thought it was from some comedy group, not real musical artists. Things start getting weird around the 50 second mark, with a character that could probably best be described as ‘Cancer Jesus’ but it only gets even more insane after three minutes in. My mind has been blown. What do you think?
Childish Gambino – Thumbs Up
Community on NBC became my favorite comedy this TV season, surpassing The Office and Parks and Recreation, and narrowly edging out Modern Family. It is one of the few shows that actually makes me laugh out loud on a regular basis. It has the perfect balance of goofiness and believability that lets its fantastic writing really shine through.
I originally tuned in because I met Joel McHale, the best known actor from the show, a few years ago, and chatted with him about the NFL (how the Packers were doing and how there is no team in LA). I had no idea who he was at the time and my sister had to tell me he was the guy from The Soup. I then had to Google The Soup to figure out what she was talking about. However, Joel is no longer my favorite actor on the show. That designation is now held by Don Glover, who plays the character Troy, a former high school football star.
It wasn’t Don’s acting that propelled him into Thumbs Up territory, but rather his rapping under the name Childish Gambino. I was introduced to his music a week and a half ago, and have been listening to it non-stop ever since. Because of his comedy background (Don was also a writer for the 30 Rock) Childish Gambino’s lyrics are probably the most clever and funny that I have ever heard (“Stay hard like my suit made by Tony Stark/This kind of music make your balls drop, Dick Clark.”) At the same time, he delivers them in a believable way, something which other rappers with a comedic edge oftentimes fail to do.
Check out my two favorite Childish Gambino songs below:
Thumbs Up – Lion King and other Disney Mashups
The Lion King is by far my favorite Disney movie – it combines such great characters, songs, and stories. Recently, I have found a brand new way to enjoy The Lion King – through mashups by DjDOYOU. There are three of them on his new mixtape including:
- Stuntin’ Like Mufasa (Lil Wayne and Birdman)
- Can You Feel The Best I Ever Had (Drake)
- I’m a Lion King (T.I. and others)
There are also several other Disney mashups from Little Mermaid, Mulan, Jungle Book, and more of your favorite childhood flicks. The mixtape is definitely worth a download. Check out his site to download the Stuntin’ Like Mufasa mixtape for free-ninety-nine: www.djdoyou.com/
DJ Steve Porter – Thumbs Up
DJ Steve Porter threw together this remix of the Slap Chop infomercial. I think the infomercial is much more interesting with some autotune.
He also put together this remix of famous press conferences which any good sports fan should enjoy.
Thumbs Up – The Hood Internet
Do you like mash-ups? Love listening to 100 songs in one album with Girl Talk or Super Mash Bros? Then you need to check out The Hood Internet. These guys put out great mash-ups all the time, and pretty regularly too. From Phoenix to Wale to Michael Jackson to Lauryn Hill to Bon Iver, these guys cover everything. And now you can sample the best of their work in one album, The Mixtape Volume Four.
First off, how can you say no to any album that had this cover. I would consider listening to Celine Dion if her album had a cover this awesome. Secondly, this album is just over an hour long, which is a bit longer than Girl Talk’s Feed the Animals and longer than all the Super Mash Bros. tunes I have. Now we come to the actual music, which is awesome. Most of the tracks are fairly short (there are 34 of them) so you get a similar effect to the fast paced nature of more well known mash-up artists. All in all, the album is upbeat and fun to listen to, as well as very eclectic in its selections. So check out this album, and if you like it, there’s 3 more mixtapes for you to enjoy too.
Thumbs Down – Ellen on “American Idol”? Absolutely Terrible
Now, I am not an “American Idol” fanatic. I don’t even watch or follow the show. However, when I came across this article on CNN I couldn’t not comment on it. “American Idol” announced recently that talk show host Ellen DeGeneres would join Simon Cowell, Randy Jackson, and Kara DioGuardi and replace former judge Paula Abdul on next season’s judge panel. DeGeneres has been a huge fan of “American Idol” and she has watched since its first season aired on FOX. But, does merely being a fan qualify DeGeneres as a real, true judge in a talent competition? Sure, she has performed stand up comedy for many years and has had her own talk show for seven years. She even hosted the 79th Annual Academy Awards. This sounds like a perfect resume for judging, critiquing, and offering advice for a comedy talent show, not a music talent show. DeGeneres will definitely offer a lighter side to the judges panel, whereas Abdul was popularly known for the tension and run-ins with the other judges that she brought to the show. 
I think that DeGeneres’ addition to “American Idol” won’t be as great as it originally sounds. “American Idol” should have searched for a more musically talented, musically oriented judge who has been in the music business exclusively for years. When “Idol” first introduced DioGuardi as another judge, I wasn’t too thrilled about it. I had never heard of her before, but at least she has some credentials in the music business as a songwriter and producer. Maybe if the contestants hope to sing and write parody songs will DeGeneres be of great help. But, as it stands now, selecting DeGeneres as Paula Abdul’s replacement is a poor decision in my book and it will not benefit “American Idol” or its contestants. I guess we will have to wait and see how next season goes.
Jackson Memorial Downers – Thumbs Down
Yesterday, as you all may know, the Staples Center in Los Angeles, CA held a two-and-a-half hour memorial service for the late Michael Jackson. I happened to watch all of it and thought it was nicely done and that all participants payed their respects to the greatest entertainer of all time. As I was driving in my car later in the day, radio station KISS FM 96.5 brought the memorial service up for discussion to see how their listeners liked or disliked the service. For the short time I was in the car during the call-ins, I was surprised and a bit shocked to hear callers and the radio’s dj complain about how the participants in the memorial service, specifically Reverend Al Sharpton, brought race up as a topic. They were complaining that not everything has to be about race and that they should have focused more on his achievements instead.
However, Michael Jackson’s achievements do include race no matter how you look at it. You wouldn’t have a memorial service for Jackie Robinson to honor him for his baseball achievements and not mention how he was the first African-American baseball player to play on a Major League Team. And, from him simply achieving that feat and breaking the color barrier, he allowed other African-Americans to dream: to dream to play in any professional sport league be it baseball, football, basketball; to dream to succeed at the highest level of a company; to dream to follow your dreams and never give up.
Yes, Reverend Al Sharpton did talk about Michael Jackson’s role as an African-American recording artist and the impact and influence he had on people as a result. But, that’s something you just can’t forget. Because of Michael Jackson, African-American music videos were played on MTV. Before “Thriller”, the only music videos on MTV featured white musicians. Jackson’s label threatened to pull off all of their other artists’ music videos from MTV if they wouldn’t play Jackson’s “Thriller” video strictly because he was an African-American.
Similar to Jackie Robinson, Michael Jackson broke down color barriers and allowed for younger artists to dream big. All of you downers who have complained about the memorial service being about race, pipe down and understand that race did play a huge part in the life and achievements of Michael Jackson, and, as such, race cannot be left out of any discussion.
Supernova – Thumbs Up
I’m a fairly big Kanye West fan, but he seems to be featured on so many songs by other artists, it’s hard to keep up with what he’s doing. Here is a song titled Supernova by Mr. Hudson, a band from the UK that is on Kanye’s G.O.O.D. Music label. The video came out on June 30th and is just as cool as the song is. I love the effect that makes it look like Ben Hudson and Kanye are made out of lights. I wonder how that was done.
PS Thumbs up for the Estelle (of the song American Boy) cameo in the video.
