I finally got my hands on ten of the twelve tracks that make up DJ Danger Mouse’s “The Grey Album,” a remix of Jay-Z’s “The Black Album” in which he backs the megastar M.C.’s vocals with loops and samples lifted entirely from the Beatles’s “The White Album.”
Talent or Nostlagia
There are plenty of reasons that Jay-Z is the rap luminary that he is — some of them even have to do with rhymes — but I’m not sure he’s ever sounded quite as powerful as this. What I can’t figure out is if that’s a result of the DJ’s uncanny ability to match his percussive relentlessness almost perfectly with these well-known samples.
Or, if it’s the result of my intimate familiarity with these samples, and the way that familiarity resonates in my headphones. I’m enthusiastic enough about these tracks to want to hunt down the two that I’m missing, but I suspect that the motivation for that enthusiasm tilts just a tad bit more towards a preoccupation with novelty than towards a real appreciation for whatever artistic merits this high-concept album may possess.
Anyway, I know for sure that if Jay-Z’s lawyers and the Beatles’s lawyers (and Jacko’s lawyers too, for all I know) are ever able to sort out their obligatory litigious instincts and come to an agreement on actually releasing “The Grey Album,” it would almost assuredly be a hit.
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