So... on a somewhat less serious note, this is MASHOPOLOS! It's a pop, hard-rock, metal, disco, movie-soundtrack, hindi-pop, bhangra type album put together using other people's music. Each pairing was achieved by loving cajoling and violent contortion of the source materials and was produced here in Athens, Greece (hence the album title) throughout February and March 2007. I was supposed to be resting and recouperating after 15 months hard overland slog across Asia - but just couldn't resist getting my hands dirty again. Stay tuned for more traditional Wax Audio fare later in the year!
IRON MAIDEN - HALLOWED BE THY NAME / PUBLIC ENEMY - PUBLIC ENEMY NUMBER ONE
I love Iron Maiden - surely the most unfashionable platinum selling act still doing the arena circuit. And yes, those of you that hate them can't understand what the appeal is - is it the medieval regalia? the tennis sweatbands? the air-raid siren vocals? I hope the introduction of Public Enemy's widely revered raw rappin' style to this otherwise heavily metal brand of English pomp will help to allow the glory of Maiden to gallop into battle with your heart.
METALLICA - EYE OF THE BEHOLDER / MICHAEL JACKSON - SMOOTH CRIMINAL
Ahhh yes 1988... Metallica were good and Michael Jackson was "Bad". Now it's 2007 and and I don't have enough room in the space I've allocated myself here to even begin finishing that sentence. Just listen to the track.
KATE BUSH - RUNNING UP THAT HILL / PRINCE - SIGN 'O' THE TIMES
These two artists have collaborated before - I was disappointed with the result. So here's my version - especially for those who love Kate Bush (sacred territory for me). Special thanks also to Robert Fripp from King Crimson for his unwittingly supplied ambient guitar noodlings.
Maiden Goes to Bollywood : Sexy Maiden on the Floor
IRON MAIDEN - FLIGHT OF ICARUS / SUNIDHI CHAUHAN - CRAZY KIYA RE (DHOOM 2)
Yes folks, Iron Maiden vs Bollywood - for the first time ever (surely!). Let Bruce Dickinson and the boys along with a stunning cast of Bollywood studs and starlets get you doing choreographed gyrations and headbanging all at once in this celebratory mashup in recognition of Iron Maiden's upcoming historic concert in Bangalore on March 17th 2007!!
Iron Maiden's album Powerslave was released in September 1984, just one month prior to the release of Frankie Goes to Hollywood's equally seminal Welcome to the Pleasuredome. Whilst the two albums represented opposite ends of the pop music milieu, both shared equal measures of camp, chest-beating bravado, epic songwriting and interestingly, themes based on the work of the 18th century English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
Maiden's longest ever song - The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, was of course a re-telling of the famous Coleridge poem in which a wedding guest is regaled by a world-weary mariner about his supernatural encounters on an ill-fated sea voyage. The epic title track of Frankie's Welcome to the Pleasuredome is based Coleridge's other best know poem Kubla Khan - from which the opulent ancient Mogul capital of Xanadu was made (in)famous.
Sources:
- Iron Maiden - The Rime of the Ancient Mariner - Powerslave (1984)
- Iron Maiden - Moonchild - Seventh Son of a Seventh Son (1988)
- Iron Maiden - The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (Live) - Live After Death (1984)
- Iron Maiden - Only the Good Die Young - Seventh Son of a Seventh Son (1988)
- Frankie Goes to Hollywood - Relax - Welcome to the Pleasuredome (1984)
- Frankie Goes to Hollywood - Relax (12" New York Mix - 1984)
- Frankie Goes to Hollywood - The World is My Oyster - Welcome to the Pleasuredome (1984)
- Frankie Goes to Hollywood - Welcome to the Pleasuredome - Welcome to the Pleasuredome (1984)
- Ian McKellen - The Rime of the Ancient Mariner - Recited for BBC Radio (2007)
- Gyorgy Ligeti - Requiem For Soprano, Mezzo Soprano, Two Mixed Choirs & Orchestra (1963-65)
These not-for-profit works (mashups, bootlegs, bastard-pop tracks etc) were created as non-substitutable, non-commercial derivatives of recognised recorded works. They do not compete with the market for the original material, nor do they undermine, defame or otherwise harm the original artists. Contrarily they promote each artist's commercial work by further validating their iconic status in popular culture.
