Successful mashup: Guns N' Roses and Stevie Wonder — "Living for the Paradise City"

Originally published at: Successful mashup: Guns N' Roses and Stevie Wonder — "Living for the Paradise City" | Boing Boing

4 Likes

That… really did work. Impressive. I did not expect that to be as solid given the two tunes it worked with.

Man, miss Stevie now, though. Haven’t heard from him in a while.

4 Likes

I think one of the real keys to a mashup that REALLY works is the source material having the same (or nearly the same) tempo. When one has to be sped up or slowed down it doesn’t work for anyone who actually knows the sources. In this case both songs run at ~100BPM so after that it’s just a bit of talented remixing because the hard part is already done.

For instance the DJ Topcat mashup of Folsom Prison Blues and Luv 4 Dem Gangsta’z is pretty good but the Eazy E vocal is sped up about 15BPM. It works in that case because Eazy E had such great articulate delivery but if you’re primarily coming at it as an Eazy E fan who knows the original cold it’s going to sound wrong.

1 Like

You removed Axl Rose from the audio, and for that I applaud you. Could you please remove him from the video as well… and from pretty much everywhere else too?

My teenage claim to fame was being front row in the crowd for that concert where GnR shot the Paradise City video. I remember taping it off MTV so I could freeze frame and pick my face out of the crowd shots.

5 Likes

You know what? Sure. But the vast majority of DJ Cummerbund’s stuff is far better and more interesting than this. He understands that a mashup needs to do more than just squeeze two songs together, and his skill level is insane.

1 Like

He’s still alive, yo.

The man’s in his 70’s and has been putting out countless records since he was 12 years old… I love him too, but I can’t be mad if he’s finished with his body of work.

5 Likes

Yep, I’m aware. I’m just used to seeing him once or twice a year, not necessarily performing, but showing up at things and just generally being awesome. But yeah, he’s earned whatever rest he wants.

3 Likes

Bill McClintock has been acing the mash-up game for a while now! I really thought his Stop and Bust a Move ought to have been a chart-topper, last summer.

3 Likes

I hadn’t seen that before, that was really good.

1 Like

I think this speaks a lot to appropriation as we clearly hear and see where the soul comes from as the posing and strutting tags along…

McClintock gives props here.

This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.