Project Alpha 05

Yesterday we looked at a Kanye/Radiohead mashup. Today we reach the next link in the chain: Radiohead/Jay-Z. This song (and tomorrow’s as well) comes from the Jaydiohead album, which is exactly what you think it is. I won’t say too much about it, except to note that Jay-Z makes for a great half of a mashup, for a couple of reasons. 1) There seem to be a lot of vocal-only tracks of his work, which makes for a clean integration with other audio. 2) His delivery is really ideosyncratic–he stays on beat but varies his tempo within that framework, so if you lay it on top of a regular rhythmic background you get something more interesting than you would if you mixed two metronomic songs. When this really comes in handy is when he has a song with great lyrics/rapping but mediocre producing. Like, oh I dunno, how about “Fallin’“?

Other thoughts: unlike in yesterday’s song, the mashupper actually does quite a bit of manipulating the musical component here. The original song (“15 Step“, off of In Rainbows) is already kinda choppy, but it’s even glitchier and weirder in the mashup. Also of note is that we actually get a taste of the vocals from Radiohead’s contribution to the mashup, unlike in “Reckoner Lockdown”, which really bifurcated Kanye’s vocals from Radiohead’s music (though incorporating percussion from both). Okay, you get the idea. Here’s the song: Fall In Step.

Tomorrow: More Jaydiohead! Which, in all candor, you can listen to/download in its entirety on the aforementioned website!