Three Albums: Britpop Rebooted
I've downloaded three albums recently, and listened to them all over the last couple of days. Each is currently on their second listening. I was going to review them all in one post, but I seem to have more to say about them that I expected, so I'll draw it out.
Britpop Rebooted by The Reborn Identity
The Britpop era was one of the formative phases in my musical experience ( as a subset of the 90s alternative phase) so when I saw Z. at Hipster, Please tweet about this album I was pretty excited. I downloaded the whole album, played the first track and was immediately disappointed. Supergrass - Pumping on Your Stereo (fine, not my favourite artist of the era, but important) mashed with David Bowie - Rebel Rebel? I scanned down the list of artists in the mash: The Pixies, Marvin Gaye, The Temptations, Fleetwood Mac, Snow Patrol, The Isley Brothers. Eh? I was not impressed. Having stewed on that for a day and listening to it again, I'm prepared to judge it on its own merits.
This is a solid album of pretty chill mashups. There's not much to dance to here, so I don't expect much play at Bootie and some of the tracks are a little awkward, but there are some gems here. The aforementioned Supergrass track works well with the Bowie. 'The London Line' mashes the vocals from Londonbeat's 'I’ve Been Thinking About You' and the funky baseline and riff of Elastica's 'Line Up' work pretty well together. I was initially dubious of the mix of Oasis' Rock and Roll Star and The Pixies' Debaser, but it won me over. My favourite track is probably 'Spirit World'. The Reborn Identity overlays and interweaves the vocals from several haunting tracks onto the guitar line of Radiohead's 'Steet Spirit' (an original which has definitely grown on me over the years) to produce a rich soundscape which showcases the remixers art. Another of my favourite Radiohead tracks (My Iron Lung) is mashed in a similar way with Snow Patrol (You Could Be Happy) to lesser effect in 'Thom Yorke Could Be Happy'. 'Shake Doggy Shake', a mix of two songs I hadn't heard or didn't remember, '500 (Shake Baby Shake)' by Lush and 'I’ll Be Doggone' by Marvin Gaye, is one of the highlights of the album; the kind of track that inspires me to look into the component parts, much like a good cover. I feel the same about 'Blurring the Sheets' which inspired me to look into Ellie Goulding. Of course, the joy of mashups is that the blend is often better than the component parts, a classic example being Party and Bullshit (in the USA), the Biggie Smalls and Miley Cyrus mashup which beefs up and critiques an insipid pop track. In the case of the original Ellie Goulding track, if that was on this album, I would be criticising the mismatch of lyrics to track. The Reborn Identity does better than whoever mixed the original.
Just as the album is something of a mixed bag, so too are some of the tracks. I like the blend of Pulp and Fleetwood Mac in some parts of 'Disco Your Own Way', but in others, particularly the blended chorus, the differently keyed components seem to fight. This applies to a lesser degree in 'Love Spreads the Species' (Space - Female of the Species vs The Stone Roses - Love Spreads) in which The Stone Roses chorus sounds great with the Space trumpet line, but the verses seem a little incongruous.
Finally, some tracks just don't work for me. 'She Makes My Girl Bleed' seems less like a mashup than three stereos playing Mansun, The Temptations and Oasis at the same time. 'Take me in your Tattva' dances this line too.
This album is like one of those essays that starts with an inane and very general introduction, makes a horrible assumption, but then manages to string together a decent argument and earns a grade in the B range.
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Britpop Rebooted by The Reborn Identity
The Britpop era was one of the formative phases in my musical experience ( as a subset of the 90s alternative phase) so when I saw Z. at Hipster, Please tweet about this album I was pretty excited. I downloaded the whole album, played the first track and was immediately disappointed. Supergrass - Pumping on Your Stereo (fine, not my favourite artist of the era, but important) mashed with David Bowie - Rebel Rebel? I scanned down the list of artists in the mash: The Pixies, Marvin Gaye, The Temptations, Fleetwood Mac, Snow Patrol, The Isley Brothers. Eh? I was not impressed. Having stewed on that for a day and listening to it again, I'm prepared to judge it on its own merits.
This is a solid album of pretty chill mashups. There's not much to dance to here, so I don't expect much play at Bootie and some of the tracks are a little awkward, but there are some gems here. The aforementioned Supergrass track works well with the Bowie. 'The London Line' mashes the vocals from Londonbeat's 'I’ve Been Thinking About You' and the funky baseline and riff of Elastica's 'Line Up' work pretty well together. I was initially dubious of the mix of Oasis' Rock and Roll Star and The Pixies' Debaser, but it won me over. My favourite track is probably 'Spirit World'. The Reborn Identity overlays and interweaves the vocals from several haunting tracks onto the guitar line of Radiohead's 'Steet Spirit' (an original which has definitely grown on me over the years) to produce a rich soundscape which showcases the remixers art. Another of my favourite Radiohead tracks (My Iron Lung) is mashed in a similar way with Snow Patrol (You Could Be Happy) to lesser effect in 'Thom Yorke Could Be Happy'. 'Shake Doggy Shake', a mix of two songs I hadn't heard or didn't remember, '500 (Shake Baby Shake)' by Lush and 'I’ll Be Doggone' by Marvin Gaye, is one of the highlights of the album; the kind of track that inspires me to look into the component parts, much like a good cover. I feel the same about 'Blurring the Sheets' which inspired me to look into Ellie Goulding. Of course, the joy of mashups is that the blend is often better than the component parts, a classic example being Party and Bullshit (in the USA), the Biggie Smalls and Miley Cyrus mashup which beefs up and critiques an insipid pop track. In the case of the original Ellie Goulding track, if that was on this album, I would be criticising the mismatch of lyrics to track. The Reborn Identity does better than whoever mixed the original.
Just as the album is something of a mixed bag, so too are some of the tracks. I like the blend of Pulp and Fleetwood Mac in some parts of 'Disco Your Own Way', but in others, particularly the blended chorus, the differently keyed components seem to fight. This applies to a lesser degree in 'Love Spreads the Species' (Space - Female of the Species vs The Stone Roses - Love Spreads) in which The Stone Roses chorus sounds great with the Space trumpet line, but the verses seem a little incongruous.
Finally, some tracks just don't work for me. 'She Makes My Girl Bleed' seems less like a mashup than three stereos playing Mansun, The Temptations and Oasis at the same time. 'Take me in your Tattva' dances this line too.
This album is like one of those essays that starts with an inane and very general introduction, makes a horrible assumption, but then manages to string together a decent argument and earns a grade in the B range.
31