Mash-ups are nothing new. Hell, mash-ups featuring Jay-Z are nothing new, but if you’re a fan of the Jigga Man, you definitely want to check out “Jaydiohead”. DJ Minty Fresh Beats has grabbed a bunch of the best songs from latter-day Jay (“Black Album”, “Blueprint”, “American Gangster”) and mixed them with some of Radiohead’s greatest songs (from “OK Computer”, “Kid A” and “In Rainbows”) and the results are almost as good as when Danger Mouse mixed Jigga with The Beatles on “The Grey Album”. My favorite happens to be “Dirt off Your Shoulder” mixed with “Paranoid Android”. Who said Kanye was the only person that could sample Radiohead? (oops, The Roots did it too). Check Jaydiohead out at www.jaydiohead.com where you can download the album for free!
Was I the only person who thought that the vocalist in this song was a guy. I remember hearing “Situation” on some decade-ending Top 100 countdown in ’89 or ’90 and saying “wow, that guy says ‘he is my lover’. That’s pretty ballsy for a song from 1982.” Hell, it would be ballsy for a song today. Imagine my amazement when it turned out that the full, deep voice of the singer turned out to be that of Alison Moyet, who is definitely a woman. A whole lot of woman, too. Regardless of the singer’s sex, “Situation” harkens back to the days when dance music was as interesting to listen to for the songwriting as it was for the beat. Moyet and partner Vince Clarke (of Depeche Mode and then Erasure) were a team that should have lasted way more than two albums (although I keep reading that they disliked one another) and this song should be all the reason you need to agree. Match Clarke’s synthesizer wizardry with Moyet’s vocal pyrotechnics and you’ve got a clear winner. Hopefully their well-received reunion this past year means more music is in the pipeline for Yaz. And can you imagine an album featuring the vocals of both Moyet AND Andy Bell? There would be some serious singin’ goin’ on there (not to mention the fact that every gay person over the age of 30 would run out for a copy).