In today’s day and age, a new genre of music has taken the spotlight among music enthusiasts and musical artists. A unique amalgamation of music, mashups have stolen the show with their unconventional tunes. Even though mashups are produced using other artists’ samples, they have a distinctively creative and clever melody.
In my opinion, however simple they may sound, mashups are profoundly complex and difficult to produce. To find songs with intertwining similarities yet having dissimilar undertones and morphing them into a catchy tune requires an in-depth analysis of the song, for example, the tempo and key. The more the number of songs in the mashup, the more the level of analysis required.
When can a mashup be construed as an original work of art? Many critics often comment on the lack of creativity of mashups, since most of them are created using music from another generation or culture and remixed in a way that focuses on the target generation or culture. But, that is completely untrue. While it is a fact that other songs are manipulated in a way to please the target audience, it requires a level of creativity that allows you to think from a fresh perspective.
For example, SilviaO, a Colombian singer, sang a beautiful song in Spanish called ‘Nada Nada.’ This song was then donated to the Creative Commons website for free use by everyone who wanted to remix or reuse the track. After a couple of days, an artist remixed SilviaO’s song into a beautiful melody. Upon hearing the song, she was completely surprised; this remix had shown her a completely different side to her song. Consequently, she wrote new lyrics for the remixed track, thereby creating a remix of a remix.
Mashups are often called unauthentic or monotonous, which in some cases, is true. There is a lack in the number of studio-quality instrumentals released each year. Due to excessive recycling of instrumentals, some mashups start sounding similar. The part that requires a lot of work is finding and assessing the quality of instrumentals, acapellas, and vocals.
The primary issue with mashups is that more often than not, artists (especially, small artists) do not get credit for their music. As a consequence of this, some mashups are deemed illegal. Unfortunately, this has been normalised, and there are multiple mashups downloaded from pirated sites to exploit these musicians.
To conclude, I’d like to say that producing a coherent mashup requires a skill set that can only be learnt through months of experience, by experimenting with a variety of songs from different genres. Needless to say, this innovative genre is constantly evolving and will continue to grow in years to come.
Written by Arusha Raj
Image Credits: Pinterest
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