[rayword45]

I'm sad that nobody commented on Fantomas. Seriously, such a good album.


Day 10: The Grey Album by Danger Mouse

Today it's Ringo Starr's birthday, and even though he was undeniably the worst Beatle I'm still using this as an excuse to celebrate. So today I'm listening to The Grey Album by Danger Mouse. It's a mashup album consisting of Beatles instrumentals underneath the Jay-Z album "The Black Album". This album was notorious for EMI's utter failure to halt distribution of this album despite Paul McCartney and Jay-Z both approving of the album. Danger Mouse is a great producer in my opinion, I was fond of his work with Beck even if I felt that album was a bit weak. I like the Beatles, I don't like Jay-Z's camel-looking ass. I don't need a prediction for this one. If I have time I'll keep to my word and do a double, probably of Nas as someone recommended.

Knowing most of these Beatles songs (though they are often heavily altered) and very few Jay-Z songs, I can't help but laugh at times solely due to the oddity of rap over the Beatles. That being said, it's often uncanny how well the two artists complement each other despite being two completely genres. This is very different from The Mouse and the Mask and Modern Guilt, the other 2 Danger Mouse produced albums I can remember. That's expected out of a mashup album, and the production (or mashing) is still top notch (my phone corrected notch as bitch, wow.) I'm going to assume the Beatles instrumentals sound LESS dated than Jay-Z's beats, but they could use a remaster, even if that's just raising everything by a few decibels. Also, it's of worthwhile note that this isn't simply putting instrumental underneath as I expected, there's a lot of mixing often doing some awesome stuff like turning John Lennon's voice into percussion. A key example of this (and one of my personal favorite tracks) would be the interludes. These feature lots of vocal reversing and added percussion, creating a sound unlike the rest of the album, which I liken more to DM's work on Modern Guilt, especially Replica.

This is what rap rock should be, not Lil Wayne's talentless guitar playing. Not any of those "nu-metal" atrocities like Limp Bizkit. Not rap metal bands that aren't nu-metal (though I do like a few Red Hot Chili Pepper tracks). And most definitely not any of those crunkcore bands, if that's considered rap at that point. THIS. IS. IT. Even as a non-Jay-Z fan I still think this is a prime example of rap rock. A shame it's not an actual original album because this should be a watermark of that genre.

I decided against doing a double because I'm almost outta time. To summarize briefly, this album is a huge highlight of mine, probably right below Fantomas as my favorite album thus far. Even though I consider Jay-Z one of the most overrated rappers ever, the mashup work here is so good it brings new life to it. This comes as highly recommended.