"please try not to make any mash-ups with two songs in different keys."
--I don't think you're saying what you really mean here, since "songs in different keys" includes some of the messes you like best, right? How about, "please try not to make any mash-ups with two songs in different keys unless you've got an ear or intuition for tonal effects, in which case mashing two songs in different keys may be exactly what you want to do." Hadn't heard Girl Talk (as far as I can remember) till 20 minutes ago, but I think you'd have the same – bored – problem with him even if he were mashing songs in the same keys. If I'm reading you right, it isn't the different keys you're objecting to, but the sonic-emotional randomness of the result.
Two different keys not necessarily a problem but should have been specific that “two melodic songs in two close together but not the same keys” usually sounds pretty bad!
Been thinking about these in relation to DJ Joecel, wondering just what Joecel does to consistently play the *right* wrong note. Maybe that's a slightly different issue, but I don't think Joecel's necessarily got a trained ear for deliberately dissonant "chromatics"; my guess is there is more of a "let it rip and see what works" or "here're some of my go-to brake screeches."
That’s interesting — those are off by a half step “on paper” but the Human League song is sort of between proper keys (it’s just flat of A minor without being A flat minor) — synth plays in an off key warble so it scans as the same key
What works is probably highly intuitive, doubt it requires conscious knowledge if it just sort of “sounds right,” and what I suspect about Girl Talk’s results is that he was often just throwing things together with beat-matching
I do think on the track ("Being Scrubbed"), Richard X is trying to be deliberately "off," though: to put our ears into a struggle. I'm not contradicting what you're saying, just wondering - if it even can be analyzed or understood - what works for me as successful offness: took me several tries to learn to like "Being Scrubbed"; once I did take to it, I decided to put it as track 2 on my 2001 mix, thinking it would help set the mood, foreshadow the various challenges and distractions to come.
I also sort of wonder about that -- successful offness -- and am trying to think of other mash-ups that are in different keys, or are trying to find "offness" by playing around with the keys. Will need to think of it a bit -- certainly there are gonzo mash-ups that disregard key altogether (like the one you shared with "Apt Thai"), where the force of the two songs together sort of makes the key irrelevant. (Can imagine this getting grating and not in a good way if stretched out too long.) Girl Talk does this, too, sometimes, but he will also just play one song against the other with no regard to its key in a way that feels dissonant in a lazy way that's wrong-wrong instead of right-wrong
Also, the *next* song on my 2001 playlist, J'Lo's "Love Don't Cost A Thing," is *accidentally* off – not tonally, but (Lopez's voice not being the most shimmering-with-tunefulness thing) the track is its own struggle, the singing having trouble getting unswallowed by its accompaniment; actually think my placement of the song on my playlist, between the jostling mixed-up sounds of Richard X and Cannibal Ox, makes her sound better than she did in the wild.
The Tamil and Telugu mashups of "Apt Thai" are the ones that push the envelope hardest, though I think the priority is to create top excitement by pushing Silvy against the fiercest rolling downbeat toms*, and it may not be that the Tamil/Telugu remixers have a great ear for good-wrong tonal relations as much as they're just seeing what they can get away with. Doesn't always work; here's one I linked but didn't embed in my "Apt Thai" piece; DJ Munna Party Remix 2025 "Lollipop Lagelu x Riva Riva x Anana Pathiya," High Energy EDM Mix.
"please try not to make any mash-ups with two songs in different keys."
--I don't think you're saying what you really mean here, since "songs in different keys" includes some of the messes you like best, right? How about, "please try not to make any mash-ups with two songs in different keys unless you've got an ear or intuition for tonal effects, in which case mashing two songs in different keys may be exactly what you want to do." Hadn't heard Girl Talk (as far as I can remember) till 20 minutes ago, but I think you'd have the same – bored – problem with him even if he were mashing songs in the same keys. If I'm reading you right, it isn't the different keys you're objecting to, but the sonic-emotional randomness of the result.
Two different keys not necessarily a problem but should have been specific that “two melodic songs in two close together but not the same keys” usually sounds pretty bad!
Anyway you’re right that what I’m objecting to is Girl Talk’s results and not the idea that songs in two different keys couldn’t ever go together
Here's a 2003 Richard X wrong-key mashup (or conglomeration) that works very well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJ3Dsjaj_l0
Been thinking about these in relation to DJ Joecel, wondering just what Joecel does to consistently play the *right* wrong note. Maybe that's a slightly different issue, but I don't think Joecel's necessarily got a trained ear for deliberately dissonant "chromatics"; my guess is there is more of a "let it rip and see what works" or "here're some of my go-to brake screeches."
That’s interesting — those are off by a half step “on paper” but the Human League song is sort of between proper keys (it’s just flat of A minor without being A flat minor) — synth plays in an off key warble so it scans as the same key
What works is probably highly intuitive, doubt it requires conscious knowledge if it just sort of “sounds right,” and what I suspect about Girl Talk’s results is that he was often just throwing things together with beat-matching
I do think on the track ("Being Scrubbed"), Richard X is trying to be deliberately "off," though: to put our ears into a struggle. I'm not contradicting what you're saying, just wondering - if it even can be analyzed or understood - what works for me as successful offness: took me several tries to learn to like "Being Scrubbed"; once I did take to it, I decided to put it as track 2 on my 2001 mix, thinking it would help set the mood, foreshadow the various challenges and distractions to come.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLshHxICULapnRnVGNJ6Yw92vGuNRsqpZv
I also sort of wonder about that -- successful offness -- and am trying to think of other mash-ups that are in different keys, or are trying to find "offness" by playing around with the keys. Will need to think of it a bit -- certainly there are gonzo mash-ups that disregard key altogether (like the one you shared with "Apt Thai"), where the force of the two songs together sort of makes the key irrelevant. (Can imagine this getting grating and not in a good way if stretched out too long.) Girl Talk does this, too, sometimes, but he will also just play one song against the other with no regard to its key in a way that feels dissonant in a lazy way that's wrong-wrong instead of right-wrong
Also, the *next* song on my 2001 playlist, J'Lo's "Love Don't Cost A Thing," is *accidentally* off – not tonally, but (Lopez's voice not being the most shimmering-with-tunefulness thing) the track is its own struggle, the singing having trouble getting unswallowed by its accompaniment; actually think my placement of the song on my playlist, between the jostling mixed-up sounds of Richard X and Cannibal Ox, makes her sound better than she did in the wild.
The Tamil and Telugu mashups of "Apt Thai" are the ones that push the envelope hardest, though I think the priority is to create top excitement by pushing Silvy against the fiercest rolling downbeat toms*, and it may not be that the Tamil/Telugu remixers have a great ear for good-wrong tonal relations as much as they're just seeing what they can get away with. Doesn't always work; here's one I linked but didn't embed in my "Apt Thai" piece; DJ Munna Party Remix 2025 "Lollipop Lagelu x Riva Riva x Anana Pathiya," High Energy EDM Mix.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXfMdRqoBNY
*or whatever drum it is