moodmat

Yep, already messed up the rhythm of Monday mash-up postings. Stick with me — I think this’ll make up for it.

We don’t reference it a ton, but Moodmat was named for the alternative to radio “formats,” a term The Electrifying Mojo coined and adopted as his DJ approach. His unique take on and Quixotic support of freeform radio still amazes and inspires us.

Mojo would often launch into a segment he dubbed (with little reference for Lucasfilm) “Star Wars.” Simply put, it was Artist A vs. Artist B, with audience call-in votes deciding the victor. I sat through many of these, including the agonizing Gap Band win over Cameo (Detroit, what were you smoking??).

But I digress. The best of these pitted superstar against superstar, blinding light vs. blinding light. Back catalog vs. Back catalog. Mojo was pretty astute in which artists were paired together, probably figuring out which would ones would generate the most controversy. Maybe he did really want to be starting something. Maybe he just wanted to plant a kiss on a PYT. What I’m trying to say is, all this talk of Michael Jackson has got me hankering for some Prince.

Enter the GYBO Prince Cover Challenge. And this is also where the tie-in to Monday mashups come in — none other than the retired McSleazy is hosting the challenge, right on his own forums. You may recognize a mash-up artist or two trying their hand at covering Mr. Nelson’s material. It’s been fun digging through the posts to see what hits collide with different styles, but it all ends tomorrow. I can’t wait to see who will be crowned the King of Prince! Or something like that.

For hours I was trying to think of the best video to show tonight. I had a bunch of clever, silly and rare-ish videos on deck, but ultimately I had to go back to the basics. Matt is right — it was all about the dancing.

In 1983, a TV special called Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever aired, and Michael Jackson blew away the nation with the Billie Jean bassline and dance moves to match.  This show had a reunited Smokey & The Miracles, Stevie Wonder, and the last national TV performance of Marvin Gaye before he was killed.  Back when “mass media” still truly meant you still hit just about everyone, at the same time.  Okay, yeah, the moonwalk was cool.  (How many millions of little kids were trying to copy that move the same night, in tube socks across their linoleum kitchen floor?)

But MJ had so many other awesome little micro moments of dance genius too.  From that Motown 25 performance, check his extended dance break about 1:00 and the mindblowing MicroTick robotic foot work at 1:20. He could move from liquid-poured-on-stage to ratchet-clockwork instantly, and played the 2 styles off each other perfectly. I love how when he drops the mic he picks up the hat just for dance solo…  all business.

On a broader note, music industry foil/genius/madman Bob Lefsetz sent out an essay called The King is Dead.  I kept wanting to link to it, and finally he put it on his archives site today.  It was the the first piece I read yesterday right after I heard the news. It’s poignant, honest but not sappy.  Here’s the intro, but it just gets better. Read The King is Dead.

He missed his childhood and now he’s gonna miss his old age.

How fucked up is that?

Michael Jackson never had a chance.  He had to succeed for his family, his parents’ dreams were dependent upon him.

And a boy with that much pressure delivers.  He works truly hard, so he will be loved.  That’s all Michael Jackson was looking for, love.

He wanted to be accepted.  Wanted to be so good that he couldn’t be denied.  But you can’t change family history, and the public no longer treats you as human, as an equal, once you break through.  People want to rip you off or tear you down, or shower you in faux love that’s more about their unfulfilled desires than yours.  It gets so confusing that you retreat.

The Jackson 5 broke through at the tail end of the sixties.  When both Motown and  Top Forty radio were in decline.  But the burst of energy known as “I Want You Back” could not be denied.  And the continuous singles made Michael Jackson a star.

He sang a horror movie theme.  He endured puberty.  He was a faded child star.  Then, suddenly, he released a dance floor epic.  When disco was supposedly dead, Michael Jackson and Quincy Jones concocted a synthesis of rock and beats that could not be denied.  Few were paying attention when “Off The Wall” was released.  But over the course of two years, word spread.  This was an album that could be played endlessly, that made you feel exuberant, totally alive.  We didn’t stop listening because we could never get enough.

Read the rest of it.

My favorite cut. I imagine he’d want the video to go something like this too.

Rest in peace MJ.

Mad Decent iPhone App from Mad Decent on Vimeo.

“I recently seen Paul Van Dyk has his own DJ app. I was like, “fuck that.”

Hope things go well for you this weekend, too.

I’ve been amazingly self-absorbed so far this year, so opening up my feed reader is always a bit of a shock. Other people have lives and things to say about them? Weird. Still, buried in a few hundred music posts, I somehow found McSleazy’s “retirement” announcement.

A mash-up pioneer, he very well could have crafted the first mashup I ever heard (they seemed to all come in waves back then). I also like to think it was his style of multi-genre, mash-up “mixes” that in a way, planted the idea for Moodmat. It’s hard to beat the ambition behind throwing Queens of the Stone Age, EMF, Tatu, The Clash, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Ladytron into the mix. Yet that’s exactly what he does with his five-hour finale, “Press Play and Record.”

Stop over and wish him well.

My favorite music discovery moment so far this year.

Mashups keep coming back year after year, month after month. In fact, they’re more pervasive than ever, creeping into stranger and stranger places. Don’t believe me? What about that delicious trio of condiments up top? Government and big industry? Autotune and talent?

Yes, I think it’s high time we stopped ignoring them and brought this feature back. I will confess that lobbing mashup query guesses into search windows is not the most scintillating way to spend a Sunday evening, but it makes Mondays just a little sweeter.

To that point, we’re adding a little klezmer to taste. Hey, it beats breakfast nachos:

House of Pain vs. Amsterdam Klezmer Band vs Pa Brapad
by Faroff via mashuptown

Woke up with this in my head today, and I don’t know why. Everybody do The Freddie!