Wouldn't It Be Nice If You Could Rock Like We Do?
I suppose this is sort of in a similar vein as the two posts about an upcoming electronica Beatles tribute album (which, having heard the original song linked in the second part, I am rather excited for), but apparently the Beatles/Beach Boys rivalry isn't dead. I just found Hippocamp Ruins Pet Sounds, a remix/cut-up of the original Pet Sounds album by a bunch of different artists.
It's kind of similar to Deconstructing Beck, but I think Hippocamp... is much more successful, at least as an album. It's much more enjoyable and cohesive at any rate. Not all of the tracks are great (the album kind of peters out in the second half), but it's definitely worth the download. The best tracks are Tiny Pixel's version of "Sloop John B", Nybbl's "God Only Knows" and "Pet Sounds" by Kidgloves and Autistici. Some of the tracks that don't work fail because they're basically the original song with effects added over the top, and others because they're too far removed (mikrosopht's "Here Today" sounds similar to a record I did where I loaded samples into a program that would slice/dice samples on the fly at random; I'm not sure if this is indeed the process, and would honestly doubt it, but it still sounds a bit like that). The most successful tend to strike the right balance between faithfulness and originality. (The opening track, Kams' "Wouldn't It Be Nice" does this well, as does The Star Fighter Pilot's "That's Not Me"; strangely enough, though, "Pet Sounds" is both one of the more open in its interpretation and one of the most successful tracks -- it's some outside samples of Brian Wilson talking about the making of Pet Sounds over a bit of a collage of the album, segueing into a rap name-checking the track titles in a clever way. Autistici's "Let's Go Away For A While" also works while being pretty removed from the source material.)
Overall, this is a pretty interesting compilation; much better than I thought it'd be from just reading about it (I first saw it referenced on Snuggles, the Negativland mailing list.). Check it out before it gets C&D'd off the Internet!
posted by Rev. Syung Myung Me @ Sunday, May 15, 2005
4 Comments:
Downloading now... I even snagged the cover to make a CD with. :) I can't wait to hear this! For some reason, I've always gotten a hoot out of hearing music that I idolize getting absolutely wrecked by someone (as long as it's on purpose, mind you).
Thanks man.. will report back when I've had a chance to listen to it.
I'm the same way -- I always get a little thrill out of recognizing a sample, too. But yeah -- I've got a few albums where I'll have them because they'll be a series of cut-ups (like some of John Oswald's stuff), and I'll like most of them (well, depending, heh), but the ones where I know/love the source are especially thrilling to me, even if there's no real difference in the actual quality of the track.
Sometimes it doesn't work so well, but I dug this one. Not all of it works, but for the most part, I think it's pretty cool.
Speaking of John Oswald, do you have the "Plunderphonics" set that Negativland put out about ten years ago? It's a double disc in this long book-type cover... it's a compilation of all the Plunderphonics stuff he got sued over, but since HE didn't release this set, it caused him no harm for them to put it out. :)
Yep! I picked that up as soon as it came out (I tend to do that with Seeland releases I'm interested in, just in case something happens to be the next U2). But yeah -- some of my favorite Plunderphonics stuff is from the Rubiyat/Elektra EP, but there's some keen stuff from the original full-length (and the bonus stuff, as well). I tend to find that with Plunderphonics, I can't listen to a whole bunch of it in a row, but it's good once in a while. (And the anagrammed artist names on the 2 CD set versions are hilarious.)
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