Smash-Ups

Description

Smash-Ups is a multi-artist remix project released on Sparrow Recordings in 2003, distributed in the US by Chordant Distribution Group.

If you’re not familiar with the smash ups craze, as spawned by the internet, it involves taking two (or even three) songs recorded by different artists and editing them together to make something new, fresh and sometimes surreal. Most smash ups only exist on illegal downloads but clever ol’ EMI Christian Music Group have brought in some top engineers/producers, given them access to their vast catalogue and here is the result. Sometimes the results are weird – Steven Curtis Chapman’s «Live Out Loud» simply doesn’t go with Out Of Eden’s «River» – sometimes the results are surprisingly radio friendly (catch the amalgamation of The Benjamin Gate’s «All Over Me» and John Reuben’s «Do Not» currently playing on Cross Rhythms radio). To get the full effect, you’ve got to know the originals, but for those with left-of-centre and, dare I say it, somewhat disjointed tastes, ‘Smash Ups’ is a lot of fun. [Tony Cummings, Cross Rhythms, March 2004]

Admittedly, the idea of joining portions of two or more pieces of music together is hardly a new one. Disc jockeys have been fading the end of one song into the beginning of another for their weekend dance party segments for years. And ever since the Sugar Hill Gang lifted the bass line from Chic’s «Good Times» for their 1979 breakout hip-hop single «Rappers Delight», an entire genre has made its bread and butter constructing new compositions around snippets of old ones. That said, the fusing together of disparate tracks over the entire length of their constituent parts seems to be something of a more recent practice, with Sparrow Records’ Smash-Ups serving as a flagship release of sorts from the Christian music camp.

As might be expected with such potentially unstable forms of experimentation, the results tend to run the gamut. On the positive side, the mixing of Switchfoot’s «You Already Take Me There» with Grits’ «TN Boys» shows that there are still a few new wrinkles to be uncovered in the mixing of hip-hop and rock. Likewise, PAX 217’s «Tonight» pulls off the seemingly impossible feat of breathing at least a hint of new life into the Newsboys’ now inescapable «Shine» anthem. In the middle ground, fusions such as dc Talk’s «Colored People» and the Newsboys’ «Entertaining Angels» come across as roughly equal to the sum of their parts – no more and no less. And, in the negative-approaching-unachievable category, Carman’s «Who’s in the House» is arguably a losing proposition no matter whose song one decides to “smash” it with.

While the Smash-Ups album admittedly falls just shy of groundbreaking, it nonetheless merits at least a modicum of praise for outdistancing the better portion of what is now a sated remix-oriented market. Some listeners will no doubt be duly impressed by the seamlessness with which the individual songs are able to be stitched together. Others may very likely be sobered by just how little ostensible effort seems to have been needed to create the hybrid offerings–hinting, perhaps, at a certain pre-existing sameness in the underlying tracks themselves. Those who throw advanced music theory and verse-by-verse dissection to the wind, though, will find the Smash-Ups release a mostly enjoyable coal mine of pop/rock reimaginings from which they can extract at least the occasional musical diamond. [Bert Gangl, The Phantom Tollbooth, 07.22.03]

> iTunes

CD tracklist:

01. Audio Adrenaline vs Steven Curtis Chapman vs Grits – Get Down vs Dive vs All Fall Down (Remix by Tedd T.) 4:58
02. dc Talk vs Newsboys – Colored People vs. Entertaining Angels (Remix by Rusty Varenkamp) – 3:30
03. Grits vs Switchfoot – TN Bwoys vs. You Already Take Me There (Remix by Rusty Varenkamp) – 3:13
04. Rebecca St. James vs Earthsuit – God vs One Time (Remix by Rusty Varenkamp) – 4:37
05. Relient K vs TobyMac – Pressing On vs Yours (Remix by David Larring) – 3:58
06. The Benjamin Gate vs John Reuben – All Over Me vs Do Not (Remix by F. Reid Shippen) – 4:16
07. dc Talk vs ZOEgirl – Jesus Freak vs. Dismissed (Remix by Tedd T.) – 4:51
08. Newsboys vs Pax 217 – Shine vs Tonight (Remix by Rusty Varenkamp) – 3:36
09. Steven Curtis Chapman vs Out Of Eden – Live Out Loud vs River (Remix by F. Reid Shippen) – 3:17
10. Carman vs ZOEgirl – Who’s In The House vs Even If (Remix by Rusty Varenkamp) – 3:28

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