Running Head: MASH IT UP!
Mash
it up!
Hearing
a new musical form as an aesthetic resistance movement
Aram Sinnreich
Doctoral Candidate
Annenberg School
for Communication
University of Southern
California
aram.sinnreich@usc.edu
Abstract
Mash-ups,
a new musical form in which vocals from one popular song are digitally
juxtaposed with the rhythm section of another song, can be understood as
aesthetic dissent in the vein of rap music, slash literature and video game modding. By mashing together songs from different genres,
artists both subvert traditional producer-consumer power dynamics and question
the music industry’s use of genre as an instrument of market segmentation and
product differentiation. This movement has emerged on the Internet in recent
years as a reaction against music industry consolidation, aesthetic
consolidation, and mounting battles over the control of intellectual property.
Mash it up!
Hearing
a new musical form as an aesthetic resistance movement
The
mash-up, also known as “bootleg” or “bastard pop,” is a new musical form that
has developed in the last five years from an arcane online oddity to a
celebrated and infamous worldwide phenomenon. In this paper, I argue that the
form represents an emergent, self-organized aesthetic resistance movement
against the consolidation of the music industry and the resulting consolidation
of popular music aesthetics.
The form has a few
relatively well-defined rules. First, all source materials must be recycled.
Vocals, accompaniment, ambient noise, and anything else that goes into the mix
must be sampled from an already existing piece of recorded music. Usually, the
mash-up is comprised of only two pieces – the vocal track from one song and the
instrumentation from another song. However, there are many less frequent
variants, incorporating samples from anywhere between three and hundreds of
different source songs. Mash-up artist Osymyso, for
instance, has produced a popular track called Intro Inspection that incorporates samples from 101 separate songs.
The second
fundamental rule of mash-up aesthetics is cognitive dissonance. As one mash-up
artist explains, “a good mash up / bootleg is a
culture clash . . . styles that shouldnt work
together but do” (Mash-up artist 2003, pers. comm., 3
November).
In other words, the more disparate the origins of a mash-up’s sonic components,
the more successful it is considered to be.
One
of the first mash-ups to gain widespread prominence, Smells Like Booty by Soulwax (also known
as 2 Many DJs), is a perfect example of this rule in action. It combines the
vocals of R&B group Destiny’s Child’s Bootylicious with grunge band
Nirvana’s anthemic Smells Like Teen Spirit. It is difficult
to describe the surprising perfection of this unlikely juxtaposition without
playing the song itself. As one mash-up artist describes, the two source songs
simultaneously attract and repel each other with equal force: “the impact comes
with either 2 trax being so made for each other or so
diametrically opposed.” (Mash-up artist 2003, pers. comm., 6 December).
This
near perfect application of practice to theory has made Smells Like Booty the ideal vehicle for
bastard pop’s introduction into mainstream culture. It was cited by nearly
every major media article about the phenomenon in the two years following its
2002 release (Norris, 2002; Strauss, 2002; Taylor, 2003), and was chosen as a
top ten single by 18 different critics in The
Village Voice’s annual Pazz & Jop issue (18 February, 2003: 93). Interestingly, however
(considering the form’s deconstruction of authorship), the Voice misidentified the creator of the track – a different mash-up
artist, Freelance Hellraiser, was credited.
Like many new musical forms,
mash-ups were enabled by the development of new technologies. Western classical
music aesthetics crystallized during the baroque era due in large part to the
invention of the clavier (Abraham, 1979). More recently, rap music developed
following technological advances that made audio mixing and copying
technologies available at consumer prices (Rose, 1994). The enabling technology
for mash-ups is the Internet-connected PC.
The rapid penetration of Internet
access in consumers’ homes over the last decade has created a fundamentally new
social infrastructure for music; for the first time in industrialized society,
the majority of people have access to the means of production, distribution and
consumption in a single, affordable, easy-to-use device. As a result of this
development, we have already seen drastic changes in distribution (e.g. file
sharing networks) and consumption (e.g. MP3 players, self-compiled CDs). Viewed
in this light, mash-ups can be understood as an equivalent shift in the
production part of the process.
More specifically, the sudden
proliferation of mash-ups on the Internet in 2000 and 2001 can probably be
attributed in large part to a single piece of software. Sonic Foundry’s Acid
Music 2.0, released in October, 1999, has been cited by many mash-up artists as
their first and/or favorite production tool (Mash-up artists 2003, pers. comm., October-December; Strauss, 2002; Taylor,
2003). The software, currently in version 5 release and now owned by Sony
Pictures Digital, makes mash-up production far easier than it would be with
standard audio editing software – users can alter and match the tempos or
pitches of separate samples with a mouse click, apply audio effects like reverb
and distortion, and export to a range of audio formats, including streaming
audio and MP3.
However, as easy as mash-up
production is with software like Acid, the technology alone does not explain
the emergence of the new musical form. As many communication theorists have
argued, technology’s use and development are always shaped by social forces (Bijker & Law, 1992; MacKenzie
& Wajcman, 1985; Williams & Edge, 1996). This
interrelationship can be observed historically in musical development as well.
Writing about hip-hop, Rose (1994: 71) explains: “although rap music is shaped
by and articulated through advanced reproduction equipment, its stylistic
properties are not merely by-products of such equipment.” Rather, she argues,
musicians use technological innovation as a springboard for aesthetic innovation,
expressing ideas that existed in latent, inchoate form prior to their
development.
What social forces, then, shaped the
development of mash-ups? I argue that the new musical form may be understood as
an emergent aesthetic resistance movement positioned against a global recording
industry that no longer adequately serves the needs of its audience. More
specifically, mash-ups can be understood as an appropriative art form in the
vein of slash (Penley, 1997, Wooley,
2002) and video game modding (Marriott, 2003). By
actively juxtaposing songs that “shouldn’t work together but do,” the mash-up
artist is simultaneously reversing the traditional producer-consumer dichotomy
and laying bare the illusion of choice promulgated by genre-based music
marketing tactics.
This movement was not born in a
vacuum. Contextually, it may be understood as a reaction to three forces
shaping the music industry today: increased focus on control over intellectual
property, corporate consolidation, and aesthetic consolidation.
The mounting war over intellectual property
Throughout most of the twentieth
century, the music industry had a relatively simple system for exploiting the
ownership of intellectual property. For many decades, there was only one
copyright associated with recorded music in America:
the publishing right for a musical composition. In 1972, a second copyright was
added: the right to a sound recording itself, as embodied on the master tapes
made during a recording session (Krasilovsky & Shemel, 1995). These two copyrights are commonly referred
in the industry as “publishing” and “master” rights.
Profiting from the control of these
rights was simple because there were very few ways in which music could be
exploited for revenues. The four primary distribution avenues for music were
live performances, sheet music, broadcast radio, and recorded media, such as
vinyl records and cassettes. A handful of organizations, such as ASCAP, BMI,
and the Harry Fox Agency, policed these avenues, collecting royalties and redistributing
them to rights owners. Redistribution by consumers, although frowned upon, was
considered a minor threat, and in some cases, was afforded privileged status as
“fair use.” If a person played a record at a dinner party, or made a free
cassette copy for a friend, it was unthinkable that the music industry would
actively seek to restrain these behaviors or seek compensation for them (Krasilovsky & Shemel, 1995; Vaidhyanathan, 2001).
The dominance of the CD format in
the 1980s, followed by the proliferation of Internet PCs and CD-writable drives
in the late 1990s, posed a serious challenge to this system. Because CDs hold
music in a digital, unencrypted format, CD-writers allowed consumers to make a
potentially infinite number of copies with no loss of quality. By contrast, copies made on cassettes drastically reduced sound
quality with every iteration. Meanwhile, online file sharing networks
and other Internet music services allowed consumers to redistribute music to an
audience of millions, rather than to a limited circle of friends.
These developments changed the
industry-consumer relationship in profound ways. Music listeners, exposed to
the flexibility, malleability and broad availability of digital music files,
began to develop new, more empowered relationships to recordings. The album
format, with its brief, single-artist song list arranged in a predetermined
sequence, diminished in appeal. Personalized playlists,
comprised of a wide range of artists and styles, and endlessly permutable,
became the norm for digital music listeners. Simultaneously, many of these
consumers began to think of themselves as producers as well, either by
tailoring their music playlists or by remixing or
otherwise altering the sound files themselves (Rojas, 2002; Sinnreich &
Romano, 2001).
The music industry, accustomed to a
profit system predicated on control, became justifiably concerned. Record
labels, publishers, and other rights holders were faced with the unenviable
choice between fundamentally reorganizing a multibillion dollar industry with
no clear blueprints to accommodate an increasingly unpredictable consumer base
or retrenching and defending the traditional system through increasingly
draconian measures.
The largest businesses in the music
industry have focused primarily on the latter strategy. As Lessig
(2001) and Vaidhyanathan (2001) have described, the
recording industry has developed an increasingly antagonistic relationship with
its own customers in recent years. The situation is approaching crisis levels for
both businesses and consumers. Record sales slumped significantly in the first
few years of the new century, as consumers shifted their spending money to
music equipment (e.g. MP3 players) and other, more appealing entertainment
products (e.g. DVDs, video games) (Masson, 2003). The recording industry
responded by decreasing the functionality of its own product through measures
like CD copy-protection technology (Sinnreich, 2002) and by spying on, and
suing, digital music listeners. By the end of 2004, the Recording Industry
Association of America (RIAA) had sued nearly 7,000 Americans for engaging in
file sharing (McGuire, 2004).
Music
industry consolidation
The
battle over intellectual property is hardly the only sea change affecting the
music industry today. It is both a consequence of, and a justification for,
increasing corporate consolidation. Like many other commercial and industrial
sectors, the music industry has lobbied for, and received, numerous regulatory
concessions over the last two decades. The increasingly deregulatory
environment has allowed companies within the industry to conduct mergers and
acquisitions of unprecedented size and proportion, which have in turn produced
an ever-diminishing oligopoly of market leaders. This trend holds for every arm
of the industry, including record labels, radio stations, concert promoters,
and retailers.
In
1998, the American music market was dominated by six “major” record labels,
which collectively accounted for roughly 84 percent of the market (Hochman, 1998). In 2002, five major labels controlled
approximately 85 percent of the market (Christman,
2003). Two of these five (BMG and Sony) recently merged operations,
consolidating their record label operations into a single joint venture.
Another two (Warner and EMI) planned to merge as well, but a third party ended
up purchasing Warner instead (Billboard, 13 December 2003: 14). As a
result of these developments, four companies now dominate a larger portion of
the recording industry than six companies controlled a mere seven years ago.
The
radio industry has undergone an even greater degree of consolidation than
record labels in recent years. Historically, the Federal Communications
Commission (FCC) limited the number of radio stations a single company could
own, in the interest of maintaining both local and diverse programming. Over
the years, this ownership cap slowly inched up, from seven AM and seven FM stations in 1953 to 20 AM and 20 FM
in 1994. Throughout this period, companies were only allowed to own a single
radio station on each band (i.e. AM and FM) for any given geographic market (DiCola & Thomson, 2002).
The
Telecommunications Act of 1996, signed into law by President Clinton, changed
these rules. The national ownership cap was eliminated, and local ownership
caps were raised significantly. The result was massive consolidation. The
number of radio station owners nationwide dropped 33 percent between March,
1996 and March, 2002. The largest radio owner, Clear Channel, grew from 40
stations (the legal maximum) in 1996 to over 1,200 today. Much like the
recording sector, radio has become dominated by a handful of players. Clear
Channel and three other companies now account for approximately half of all
commercial radio audience and revenues (DiCola &
Thomson, 2002).
The
concert promotion and retail sectors have followed similar lines in recent
years. Clear Channel, the largest radio conglomerate, also owns SFX, America’s
largest entertainment venue owner and concert promoter. The company has been
accused of, and investigated for, using its tandem dominance as an
anticompetitive tool, threatening to withhold radio airplay for artists who
book their tours with other promoters and venues (Boehlert, 2001; Boucher,
2003). Similarly, an increasing portion of music retail volume is controlled by
a handful of giant companies – some of which aren’t even dedicated music
stores. For instance, Wal-Mart, the discount retail chain, is now estimated to
account for about 20 percent of all American music sales (Zimmerman & Wingfield, 2003). This is indicative of a general trend.
The RIAA has reported that in 2002, for the first time ever, more music was
purchased at consumer electronics stores and discount stores than at dedicated
music retailers (Podmolik, 2003).
Aesthetic consolidation
There
is some debate among media researchers as to whether the attrition in the
number of companies controlling music production and distribution has led to an attenuation in the aesthetic diversity of music available
via mainstream media and retail channels. Peterson and Berger (1975) initiated
the academic debate in their groundbreaking work Cycles in Symbol
Production: The Case of Popular Music. In this article, they demonstrated
an inverse relationship between music industry consolidation and aesthetic
diversity in the music marketplace, based on analyses of Billboard magazine’s
Hot 100 charts from 1948-1973.
In the 30 years
since this article was published, several scholars have followed up on Peterson
and Berger’s (1975) research, some supporting it (Christianen,
1995; Peterson & Berger, 1996; Rothenbuhler &
Dimmick, 1982) and some refuting it (Alexander, 1996;
Dowd, 2004; Lopes, 1992). As a thorough review of the arguments and measured
used by these scholars could easily fill an article of its own, I will simply
cite a few relevant data to illustrate what I feel is a convincing trend
towards homogeneity, or, as I call it, aesthetic consolidation.
One
indicator can be observed in the increasingly limited artist rosters at major record
labels and in the resulting reduction in the number of major label album
releases and attenuation of commercial radio playlists.
Each of the major labels “has seriously slashed its artist rosters” in recent years,
by as much as 20 or 30 percent (Anderman,
2003). Additionally, Willcox (2003) cites several
data sources demonstrating a 20-25 percent drop in the number of albums
released in the U.S. over a two year period,
from 1999-2001. These trends are compounded by an aesthetic trend: an
increasing portion of recording artists are solo musicians, rather than groups.
This is a long-term pattern; big-band jazz was replaced by small-group jazz and
rock, which in turn have been unseated by the dominance of solo and
smaller-group forms like hip-hop, modern pop, and electronic music.
DiCola and
Thomson (2002) chart a reduction in the number of songs played on commercial
radio, as well. They demonstrate that although the diversity of radio formats
nominally increased in the years following the 1996 Telecommunications Act, the
growing degree of playlist overlap between radio formats led to a decrease in actual programming
diversity, measured in terms of the total number of songs played. In their
words, “formats with different names, that would seem to distinguish different
kinds of programming, actually serve as labels for playlists
with many of the same songs” (2002: 67, original emphasis). Because
deregulation is touted for its putative positive impact on diversity, this
distinction is quite significant.
This
artificially constructed impression of aesthetic diversity in radio formats has
an analog in the recording industry: despite the broad range of genres promoted
by the record labels, their methods of finding, recording, and marketing
artists encourages a pervasive sameness in the products they eventually
produce. This can be observed in the development of new technologies for
streamlining the music production and marketing processes. One popular tool in
the recording industry is pitch correction technology, available with high-end
mixing and editing software such as ProTools. Pitch
correction allows technicians to alter the pitch of sung (or played) notes
after they have been recorded, thus smoothing out the irregularities of a given
performer, and in essence, making any given performance more predictable and
similar to other performances. While music label executives and employees tout
the cost-saving benefits of the technology, critics complain that it produces
an environment in which “artists are no longer signed
on the basis of vocal ability” (Taylor, 2000). Although there is no
official tally of the number of new songs using pitch correction, its sonic
artifacts are audible to the experienced ear in hundreds of new releases.
Another
new technology that contributes to increasing song predictability and
similarity is Hit Song Science (HSS), produced by Polyphonic HMI. HSS uses
proprietary waveform analysis software to automatically identify dozens of
musical qualities, such as melody, harmony, pitch, tempo, and rhythm, for any
given song. The company then compares a new song’s acoustic profile to a
database consisting of millions of songs recorded over the decades. By
identifying songs that have a strong “affinity” with other recent hits, the
company advises record labels which songs to release and which songs to keep to
itself. Record labels seem to find this technology
compelling; several major labels currently use HSS in their decision-making
process (Werde, 2003; M. McCready
2003, pers. comm., October-November).
Using
HSS, it is possible to measure the similarity between songs empirically. Polyphonic’s own analysis shows that the entire database of
hit songs released over a recent five year period (defined as songs listed on
the weekly Billboard Hot 100 chart
from 1998-2003) comprise only 50-55 separate “clusters.” Within each of these
clusters, there is little appreciable difference between songs. Moreover, at
any given moment, only a subset of these clusters actively contain new popular
songs; some clusters lay dormant, passed over by the prevailing aesthetic
fashions for years before being “reactivated” as the fashion cycle repeats
itself (M. McCready 2003, pers.
comm., October-November).
There
are a fair number of songs that fall outside these clusters, but Polyphonic
attributes their success to:
the
so-far infallible theory that some songs have become hits due to their lyrics
more than their music (e.g. patriotic songs after 9/11) or because the artist
was at the pinnacle of their career and could have released anything and it
would have shot up the charts. (M. McCready 2003, pers. comm., 21 November).
An
interesting result of HSS analysis is that genre becomes irrelevant. As an executive of the company writes: “A hit from genre X could be
mathematically similar to hits from many other genres. . . [genres] cannot be distinguished by mathematical patterns.”
(M. McCready 2003, pers.
comm., 21 November). In order to demonstrate this fact, Polyphonic shared the
generic contents of three clusters – this time, culled from a larger database
of roughly 1 million songs recorded over the last 50 years.
Table 1
Generic components of Polyphonic HSS
clusters
Genre Cluster A Cluster
B Cluster C
Pop/Rock 41% 18% 1%
R&B 21% 36% 3%
Novelty 3% 5% 0%
Soundtrack 11% 6% 4%
Latin 7% 20% 0%
Blues 3% 3% 7%
Country 4% 6% 0%
Jazz 8% 3% 12%
Classical 0% 2% 73%
Other 2% 1% 0%
As
the data show (see Table 1), Clusters A, B, and C each contain music from a
variety of different genres. The majority of songs in Cluster A can be
categorized as pop, rock, or R&B; however, it contains a considerable
number of soundtrack, Latin, and jazz songs as well. Cluster B contains
primarily songs from the pop, rock, R&B, and Latin genres, but it also
contains a considerable number of novelty, country, and soundtrack recordings.
Cluster C is the only one of the three to have a single-genre majority,
classical music. However, this fact serves to emphasize the relative similarity
of popular music in contradistinction.
The
uses of genre
If
genre has very little bearing on the fundamental similarities or differences
between songs, then why does the concept exist, and how can we identify it so
easily when we hear it?
Clearly
there is a sonic basis for genre that exists on top of “deeper” musical
qualities such as harmony and rhythm. Psychoacoustic research (Perrot & Gjerdigan, 1999) has
shown that most people can accurately predict whether they will like a song or
not after hearing it for as short a time as 250 milliseconds. Aucouturier and Pachet (2003: 89)
argue that this means “humans can judge genre by using only an immediately
accessible ‘surface.’” This fact suggests that music producers have become
adept at marking musical genre using such “surface” elements, and that music
listeners have become equally adept at interpreting these markers.
However,
there are also generic markers that exist independently of the sonic artifact
itself. Popular music today is marketed heavily through music videos,
magazines, fashion, and a broad variety of other visual media. As Goodwin
(1992) has observed, visual cues often contribute to and reinforce existing
perceptions regarding music and genre. Generic distinctions are also reinforced
through corporate structure; vital record label functions such as artist
relations are organizationally segregated by genre, and are often
geographically separated, as well (e.g. by being located on different floors of
the corporate offices, or on different coasts of the continent).
But
why do music producers and listeners tacitly conspire to support the illusion
of aesthetic diversity through the artifice of genre, when such distinctions
are measurably irrelevant? The answer is systemic: genre is a social delineator, not an aesthetic one. This argument is familiar
to cultural theorists and genre systems theorists, and applies to a broad range
of both communicative and aesthetic practices. As Yates and Orlikowski
(2002: 14) argue: “The purpose of a genre is not an individual's private motive
for communicating, but a purpose socially constructed and recognized by the
relevant organizational community for typical situations.” Aucouturier
and Pachet (2003: 84, original emphasis) apply this
argument specifically to music. In their words, “music genre is an ill-defined notion, that is not founded on any intrinsic property
of the music, but rather depends on cultural extrinsic habits.”
This
interpretation helps explain the value of genre to both producers and consumers
of music. For the music industry, genre serves as a system of market
segmentation, a method of differentiating an otherwise undifferentiated
product, thus creating the illusions of choice and novelty, which are vital
elements of modern commercial marketing strategies (Frank, 1997). Neale (1990: 63; quoted in Abramson, 2002: 262) describes
the film industry as similarly “ruled . . . by market pressures to
differentiate to a limited degree in order to cater to various sectors of
consumers, and to repeat commercially successful patterns.”
For
many music listeners, the social messages embedded within generic conventions
serve as an important signifier of in-group/out-group distinctions, much as
consumption of any commercial product would (Jenkins, 1996; Lamont & Molnár, 2001). By purchasing and listening to music from
one genre, rather than another, the music listener is, in effect, choosing to
identify with one social group over another. This power is profound, and
applies to even the broadest cultural identity distinctions. As Abramson (2002:
257, original emphasis) observes, music “can be said to function as a mediation of nationhood.”
Effects
of consolidation
Although
most music listeners are complicit in the system of generic categorization,
this should not be taken as a sign that they benefit from, prefer, or are even
aware of the aesthetic consolidation that such distinctions help to mask.
Arguably, the system could not work unless it was invisible – in other words,
genre has meaning because people believe it does.
Aesthetic
consolidation does have a considerable, albeit largely unacknowledged,
detrimental effect on music listeners. Aesthetic practices and artifacts are
often interpreted as tangential or subservient to our social, psychological and
political lives, even by cultural studies scholars. Hall (1998: 435), for
instance, writes that he is primarily interested in the study of popular
culture because it “is the arena of consent and resistance . . . otherwise, to
tell you the truth, I don’t give a damn about it.” Goodwin (1992: 5), one of
the few contemporary scholars to focus on music, argues that its fundamental
role in human life and society is all too often ignored by researchers because
“music, more than any of the arts, is commonly thought to be somehow above and
beyond rational analysis.”
However, there is
another, equally valid tradition of understanding aesthetics as a fundamental
dimension of the human condition. Dewey (1934) was the first to elaborate this
theory of aesthetics, although many communication and cultural scholars have
followed his lead. As Jensen (2001: 119) explains, Dewey is “adamant that
aesthetic experience is everyday experience, and that the arts are more
intense, meaningful, revealing and portable versions of things that happen each
day. . . they are the human practice of
communication.”
According
to Deweyan theory, experience without an aesthetic
component is impossible, because the aesthetic process is by definition the mechanism through which the human mind translates
pure sensation into meaningful experience. As Dewey (1934: 54) writes in his
seminal Art As
Experience, “to perceive, a beholder must create his own experience.” This
argument has been supported by neurobiological research. Newberg and d’Aquili (2000), reviewing contemporary research in their
field, argue that from a mechanical standpoint, the aesthetic mind is located
in the same regions of the brain that are responsible for constructing a
coherent understanding of reality.
If
aesthetic experience is, by definition, the brain’s reality-construction
mechanism at work, then we can understand aesthetic artifacts (e.g. songs) as
both the product of, and a vital contributor to, the subjective reality
construction process. Viewed in this light, the dangers of aesthetic consolidation
become clear. As the aesthetic diversity of music available via mainstream
distribution channels diminishes, so does music listeners’ choice of templates
for understanding the world around them.
This
problem is compounded by the ethically dubious source of those templates. Jones
(2001: 24), writing about architectural review boards, laments that the diverse
tastes of the public are too often “defined in singular terms and juxtaposed to
the design professional in matters of aesthetic judgment.” Consequently, he feels that aesthetic
decisions affecting the public at large are too often “subject to the process
of hegemonic control, and the subversion of resistance or alternate points of
view” (2001: 31). This same complaint could be levied against the consolidated
music industry. Wedded to the bottom line and predicated on principles of
predictability and control, the major labels and radio conglomerates have
little incentive to provide an outlet for “alternative points of view.” Only by
acting against the interests of music listeners can these organizations best
protect their own interests.
Mash-ups
as aesthetic resistance
Viewed
against the backdrop of intellectual property wars, corporate and aesthetic
consolidation, and a music generification system that
perpetuates the illusion of consumer choice, the mash-up can be understood as a
new resistant art form. However, in many respects, it owes much to what came
before. In its formal, methodological and political aspects, the mash-up
resembles a number of prior aesthetic and social movements.
Formalistically,
the mash-up can be described as a subset of the remix aesthetic. The remix is
predicated on the notion that an existing recorded performance can be recontextualized through the introduction of new sonic
elements. The origins of this aesthetic lay in the cutting-and-splicing
techniques of academic composers such as John Cage and John Oswald (Lochhead & Auner, 2002), and
in the “versioning” approach to popular music embraced by dub reggae producers
such as Lee Scratch Perry and Augustus Pablo (Hebdige,
1987). (In fact, the new musical form’s linguistic pedigree can probably be
traced to reggae performers’ common exhortation to “mash it up!”, a phrase aptly encapsulating both the flux and violence
of musical innovation).
While
these twin origins both began as deconstructive aesthetics, the remix is now a
common tool of the commercial recording industry, which can extend the market
lifetime and broaden the audience for a given song by releasing several
separate remixes (Paoletta, 2003). However, mash-ups
differ from other remixes in that songs aren’t recontextualized
with new sonic elements – rather, they are juxtaposed with sonic elements from
other previously existing (and copyrighted) songs. This makes them a far less
accessible tool for profit exploitation.
File
sharing, a popular online activity in which millions of individuals use
peer-to-peer software to exchange music and other files via the Internet, also
informs the mash-up movement. Although file sharing is a social rather than
aesthetic phenomenon, it is commonly understood as a form of politicized
response to music industry consolidation and a weapon in the battle over
intellectual property (Robinson & Halle, 2002; Vaidhyanathan, 2001). Like file sharing, mash-ups represent
an emergent movement self-organized entirely via the Internet. Also like file
sharing, a crucial element of the movement is its inherent illegality; the act
of transgression serves as a potent symbol for protest.
Appropriative
aesthetic movements such as slash (Penley, 1997; Wooley, 2002), a form of literature in which fans of a
television show or some other popular entertainment product provide a
(frequently erotic) backstory for their favorite
characters, and video game modding (Marriott, 2003),
in which computer-savvy fans edit and augment the appearance of commercial
video games, shed light on the mash-up as well. In all three forms, people
unaffiliated with the aesthetic industry take advantage of the available means
of production (i.e. copy machines, editing and modding
software) and distribution (i.e. the postal system, the Internet) to subvert
the traditional consumer-producer dichotomy. This is usually done with an eye
towards broadening the discourse in the public sphere. In Penley’s
(1997: 101) words, slash authors “manipulate the products of mass-produced
culture to stage a popular debate.” Exactly the same means and motive can be
ascribed to mash-up artists.
Perhaps the most relevant precursor
to the mash-up movement is rap music, an art form that developed from a
localized, underground phenomenon in the mid-to-late 1970s to a dominant
mainstream aesthetic of the 1990s and 2000s (Rose, 1994). As with mash-ups,
“rap’s use of music technology [was] a crucial aspect of the development of the
form” (1994: 25). Early rap musicians converted turntables, a technology
explicitly built for consumption, into a species of “talking instruments,” with aesthetic
similarities to traditional African and Afrodiasporic
traditions such as talking drums (1994: 53). This decision was both aesthetic
and social; in Rose’s words, we can understand the re-appropriation of
turntable technology as “a blueprint for social resistance and affirmation”
(1994: 39).
Like mash-ups, rap music sought both
to undermine dominant power structures, and to rebuild them in a more
egalitarian image. As Rose (1994: 65) argues:
[T]he arrangement and selections of sounds rap musicians
have invented via samples, turntables, tape machines, and sound systems are at
once deconstructive (in that they actually take apart recorded musical
compositions) and recuperative (because they recontextualize
these elements creating new meanings for cultural sounds that have been
relegated to commercial wastebins.
However, rap and mash-ups differ in
a subtle but important respect. Rap music’s activism may have used aesthetics
as a vehicle, but its aims lay in other arenas; faced with a legacy of racial
discrimination and media system that marginalized them, black and Latino
artists used the hip-hop movement as an alternative medium for the
dissemination of political and social dissent (Chang, 2003; Rose, 1994;
Stapleton, 1998). This fact is perhaps best reflected in rapper Chuck D’s
oft-quoted claim that rap was “like a CNN that black kids never had” (Gates,
1990). Mash-up artists, by contrast, use aesthetic means to protest aesthetic
power structures; their motive can be interpreted as the subversion of a
consolidated music industry, and the exposure of a consolidated aesthetic
landscape masked by the artifice of genre. In this respect, the mash-up
movement has more in common with file-sharing than with hip-hop.
Mash-ups
as art
The mash-up is more than just a
political tool; it is, after all, an art form, and like all art forms, it has
the capacity to express a broad range of thoughts and emotions, expressed for a
myriad of different reasons. On the one hand, as I have shown, the mash-up’s
cognitively dissonant “culture clash” can be interpreted as a conscious
deconstruction of genre. On the other hand, it may simply be an unconscious
acknowledgement by music listeners that in the age of MP3s and unlimited access
to online music, the power of genre as a tool for market segmentation and
identity-building is diminishing.
Most
likely, one motive applies to some mash-up artists at some points in time,
while the other motive applies to others or at other points in time. Some
mash-up artists I conversed with explicitly recognized the political dimension
of their work. In the words of one artist, generic juxtaposition is a powerful
aesthetic tool because “most ppl are brought up to be
narrow minded when it comes to listening to music . . . u cant like punk if u
like C&W etc” and a powerful political tool because “I love the idea of getting
rid of the record company influence” (Mash-up artist 2003, pers.
comm., 6 December).
Other
mash-up artists, however, cited other, more predictable reasons: pleasure and
profit (Mash-up artist 2003, pers. comm.,
October-December). Neither of these motivations is necessarily incommensurate
with a political agenda. As Penley (1997: 101)
observes, slash authors, if asked for their motives, “would say they are just
having fun.” Similarly, Rose (1994: 22) refers to rap music practices “not only
as sources of survival but as sources of pleasure.” To Hebdige
(1979: 129), pleasure and politics may not only coexist in art, they require
one another: “both artistic expression and aesthetic pleasure are intimately
bound up with the destruction of existing codes and the formulation of new
ones.”
Although
the mash-up aesthetic is predicated in part on the form’s inherent illegality,
several mash-up artists conceded that they expected their notoriety to
ultimately aid their music careers (Mash-up artist 2003, pers.
comm., October-December). This potential for “going pro” is also reflected in
the literature on slash and hip-hop. Rose (1994: 40) describes rap music’s
evolution “from precommodity to commodity,” citing
several underground rappers and DJs who became mainstream celebrities. Penley (1997) also describes slash as a starting-off place
for literary careers, observing that a considerable portion of slash-writing
amateurs eventually become professional writers.
The
future of the mash-up
Although subversion may
comfortably coexist with profit in the mash-up artist’s list of motives, the
aesthetic form itself undergoes significant changes in its journey from precommodity to commodity. The movement, once named,
becomes reified. What was once emergent and chaotic becomes quantifiable and
ultimately controllable. Frank (1997: 33) describes this process as a sort of
capitalist auto-immune system, calling counterculture the “official aesthetic
of consumer society.” Thus, resistant aesthetic forms like the mash-up are doomed
to failure at their inception. In his words:
[T]he problem with
cultural dissent in America
isn’t that it’s been co-opted, absorbed, or ripped-off. Of course it’s been all
of these things. But it has proven so hopelessly susceptible to such assaults for
the same reason it has become so harmless in the first place . . . [i]t is no longer any different from the official culture
it’s supposed to be subverting. (1997: 44)
Although
the mash-up is still a relatively new aesthetic form, there are already signs
from within and without that this process of reification and hegemonic
appropriation is taking place. First-generation mash-up artists complain of
Johnnies-come-lately who seem motivated more by the form’s flash and notoriety
than by its aesthetic principles. As one self-described “old school” mash-up
artist laments:
its
changed a lot .. I dont consider myself part of it
anymore .........I suppose I'll always be seen as part of it but most of the
new bootleggers I have very little in common with ...... [. . . ] I find that
most of the new ppl about are into the more electro
side of things rather the fact that it should be a culture clash . . . rap vs rap ... r&b vs r&b .... whats
the point (Mash-up artist 2003, pers. comm., 6
December).
The
mainstream media, marketing and music industries have already taken notice of
mash-ups, as well. In the Spring of 2003, Time magazine published a how-to article explaining the ins and outs of mash-ups
to the uninitiated (Taylor, 2003).
The New York Times also published
several articles on the phenomenon in 2002 and 2003 (Norris, 2002; Strauss,
2002; Ratliff, 2003). Then, in December, 2003, a mash-up artist named DJ Danger
Mouse released The Grey Album, a remix of rapper Jay-Z’s The Black
Album and the Beatles’ 1968 rock classic The Beatles, commonly known
as “The White Album.”
If Smells Like Booty was the mainstream’s introduction to
mash-ups, The Grey Album was the form’s first genuine mainstream hit.
Although the unlicensed project was never sold commercially, it prompted
millions of downloads, and drew
more news coverage than all previous mash-ups coverage combined. In December,
2004, the New York Times listed the “mainstream mash-up” in its annual
roundup of “The Year In Ideas” (Ferguson,
2004). Some cultural critics consider this development alone to be a death
knell for any resistant art form. Bernard-Donais
(1994: 133), speaking of hip-hop, argued that “the very fact that it is covered
by an institution like the (New York) Times suggests that rap . . . has
ceased to be . . . subversive.”
However,
those looking for signs of mash-ups’ entry into commercial culture need not
stop with mainstream news media. After the popular success of the Grey
Album, the music industry has responded by releasing several officially sanctioned
mash-ups, including one mixing Jay-Z’s Black Album with music by
hard-rock group Linkin
Park. However, the industry’s
interest in the mash-up predates DJ Danger Mouse’s breakthrough. Lollapalooza,
perhaps commercial music’s best known annual music event, featured a “mash-up
contest” as part of its 2003 tour. Software behemoth Microsoft co-sponsored the
competition, which offered participants the opportunity to remix music loops of
Lollapalooza performing artists made
available by their record labels (Microsoft,
2003).
MTV,
arguably the world’s leading commercial music media brand, debuted a show in
the Fall of 2003 called MTV Mash. The show, which is
sponsored by mobile technology giant Motorola and broadcast throughout Europe,
is substantively quite similar to the Lollapalooza contest: mash-up artists
compete, on air, to produce the best remix of commercial tracks donated by
record labels (MTV, 2003). Mash-up artists appearing on this show seem to feel
somewhat equivocal about it. As one such artist explains, “Im
ok with it as I only have to mash what i like/want
... so i dont think i've [. . .] ‘sold out.’” However, the artist concedes that
few of the tracks the show provides him are aesthetically appealing: “a lot of
the songs i wouldnt touch”
(Mash-up artist 2003, pers. comm., 6 December).
Another
mash-up artist reports that, even though his work doesn’t appear in the
mainstream media (yet), he has begun to receive promotional clips for mashing
from record labels and publishers. As he explains, the music industry is
beginning to “recognise the value of being mashed” as
a marketing tool (Mash-up artist 2003, pers. comm., 3
November).
This
sudden rash of interest in mash-ups by the very industry the form’s pioneers
sought to undermine clearly has a profound effect on the aesthetic itself.
Juxtaposing songs from different genres and illegally redistributing the
product on the Internet is a radically different form of expression than airing
promotional materials on a popular television show. By choosing which songs may
and may not be legally mashed, the music industry is, ironically, exerting the
same form of aesthetic attenuation that prompted mash-ups’ appearance in the
first place. Furthermore, by exclusively using the functional term “mash-up” at
the expense of synonymous titles such as “bootleg” and “bastard pop,” the music
industry has linguistically wrenched the form free of its illicit origins.
Yet
mash-ups’ transition from precommodity to commodity
may not be as smooth as proponents would hope and opponents would fear.
Proactively obtaining the rights to mash promotional tracks may be a relatively
simple procedure, but obtaining the permission to use songs after they’ve been mashed – a necessary
process if mash-ups are to be released commercially in significant numbers –
will require a whole new legal framework within the music industry.
The
development of such a legal framework took over a decade for rap music (Vaidhyanathan, 2001), and there seems little reason to
expect it will be accelerated this time around. In the meantime, even
commercially successful mash-up artists continue to produce illicit bastard pop
and distribute it freely via the Internet. As one artist who has appeared on
MTV Mash boasts, “only some of the stuff i do .. is ‘leagle’[.
. .] i still make and upload track that i've done outside of MTV” (Mash-up artist 2003, pers. comm., 6 December). This is a promising sign for
those who see value in the mash-up as a form of aesthetic dissent. As long as
artists continue to produce this unprofitable and illegal art form, emphasizing
the clash of cultures over the culture of cash, the reports of its death are
premature.
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