George Gershwin meets Freddie Mercury and Co.

May 3, 2013 5:03 PM

Bohemian Rhapsody/Rhapsody in Blue mash-up done by a pretty good piano player.
posted by Seekerofsplendor (12 comments total)

Well, that was about 10 times better than I would have predicted possible. To my amateur ear, that's pretty good arranging. Wonder whether the mash-up will be a big source of creative new music going forward (i.e., the direct mashing up of two disparate tunes, not the gradual co-opting of styles and genres over time)? I heard some mashups on WBEZ (public radio Chicago) with somebody called the Hood Internet earlier this week that were to my ear just about 30% interesting, 70% annoyingly shallow and crappy, but there was enough there to keep me interested in the possibility. Could also turn into a new "Chopped" or "Top Chef" musical competition show: "Contestants: You have 15 minutes to write and perform a mash-up arrangement of St. Louis Blues and the fourth movement of Prokoviev's first symphony; GO!"
posted by JimInLoganSquare at 5:19 PM on May 3, 2013

JimInLoganSquare: Sturgeon's Law strikes again!
posted by curuinor at 5:22 PM on May 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

I would watch that show!
posted by TwoWordReview at 5:22 PM on May 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

Sturgeon's Law strikes again!

Yeah, but the difference here is that WBEZ and the Hood Internet duo curated a show to present on the radio, which presumably would be tailored to include only the best they've got to fit the 15 minute slot, and it was still 70% crap/30% good (to my ears). They could have left some on the cutting room floor. Anyway, if it was not apparent from the rest of my post, in which I at least implicitly indicated my belief that the mashup could potentially be a viable and vital source of new creative avenues in music (despite the majority crappy nature of what I heard on the radio the other day), well, THAT. The linked mashup of Gershwin and Mercury was really very good and totally non-crappy (to my ears).
posted by JimInLoganSquare at 5:29 PM on May 3, 2013

Are we talking about mashups again? Please allow me to plug my absolute favorite: dj BC presents The Beastles.
posted by djeo at 5:35 PM on May 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

My feeling is that mashups of the most primitive sort (just superimposing one track over another) might be just simplistic and obvious, because any two tunes in the same key, with the same time signature and tempo, could be mashed up successfully (if that's all you seek). The thing that grabbed my attention in the Gershwin/Mercury mashup was that there was some selectivity in the arrangement; some choices were made to let one melody rise to the top, and only rarely if at all were both pieces just playing one atop the other. So, I guess there are at least two categories of mashup; robotic and interventionist. Any music theory types want to weigh in?
posted by JimInLoganSquare at 5:42 PM on May 3, 2013

YES!!!

(But as someone who has tried to master RIB for a year, this makes me sick)
posted by robstercraw at 6:15 PM on May 3, 2013

Nicely done.
posted by HuronBob at 6:28 PM on May 3, 2013

I wish I could do... things.
posted by Stonestock Relentless at 8:10 PM on May 3, 2013 [4 favorites]

Somewhere, Oscar Levant is listening to this and asking himself why he couldn't have behaved just a little bit better in life.
posted by Spatch at 9:51 PM on May 3, 2013

I was astounded.
posted by bonobothegreat at 9:54 PM on May 3, 2013

Stuff like this makes me sad again that Freddie died...I wonder what he would have thought about it. But it also makes me self-conscious: what if this is just crap that I'm too musically unsophisticated to detect, and Freddie would be annoyed to have been re-animated just to hear it? (Or Gershwin, for that matter.)
At any rate, I liked it. And I wish Freddie, George and Frank Zappa were still making music.
posted by spacewrench at 11:20 PM on May 3, 2013 [1 favorite]