DJ Earworm - Music Mashups

United State of Pop 2009: Blame It on the Pop Lyrics

Earworm — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 03:10:45 +0000

Here are the lyrics for United State of Pop 2009 (Blame It on the Pop).
They are color-coded to reveal the source of each of the lyrics.
Each block of color represents a fragment of the original vocal, so you can see where I made all my edits.

The Black Eyed Peas - BOOM BOOM POW

Lady Gaga - POKER FACE

Lady Gaga Featuring Colby O’Donis - JUST DANCE

The Black Eyed Peas - I GOTTA FEELING

Taylor Swift - LOVE STORY

Flo Rida - RIGHT ROUND

Jason Mraz - I’M YOURS

Beyonce - SINGLE LADIES (PUT A RING ON IT)

Kanye West - HEARTLESS

The All-American Rejects - GIVES YOU HELL

Taylor Swift - YOU BELONG WITH ME

T.I. Featuring Justin Timberlake - DEAD AND GONE

The Fray - YOU FOUND ME

Kings Of Leon - USE SOMEBODY

Keri Hilson Featuring Kanye West & Ne-Yo - KNOCK YOU DOWN

Jamie Foxx Featuring T-Pain - BLAME IT

Pitbull - I KNOW YOU WANT ME (CALLE OCHO)

T.I. Featuring Rihanna - LIVE YOUR LIFE

Soulja Boy Tell ‘em Featuring Sammie - KISS ME THRU THE PHONE

Jay Sean Featuring Lil Wayne - DOWN

Miley Cyrus - THE CLIMB

Drake - BEST I EVER HAD

Kelly Clarkson - MY LIFE WOULD SUCK WITHOUT YOU

Beyonce - HALO

Katy Perry - HOT N COLD

I know you want pop, you want dance, you want rock and roll

You wanted boom boom? This year’s remix got symphonic soul

I got pop, I got dance, I got rockin’ electronic club beats,

I got hip-hop music with the future flow,

So don’t worry, even if the sky is falling down, down, down

Gonna be ok when it knocks you down, down, down,

So baby don’t worry, it’s alright, a-alright when it knocks you down

When you go down, when you go down down

No need to worry, just pick back up when you’re tumbling down, down, down (down, down)

It’s like I’ve been awakened

Every step I’m taking

Every rule I had you breaking

Every move I’m making

The risk that I’m taking

The chances I’m taking

With a big smile on my face

And it never seems out of place

Blame it on the pop, blame it on the dance, blame it on the rock and roll

Blame it on the rumba, so in sync with the symphonic soul

I like that pop, I like that bass, I like them rockin’ electronic club beats

Blame it on the hip-hop music with the future flow

Baby, don’t worry, it’s alright, a-alright when it knocks you down

Somewhere far along this road,

Stressed out, I wanna let it go, I feel down, down, down (baby are you down, down, down, down, down)

And oh, (hey) I’ve been traveling on this road too long (too long)

Just trying to find my way back home (back home)

The old me is dead and gone, dead and gone

I gotta feeling

Woo hoo

I found God

Blame it on the pop, blame it on the dance, blame it on the rock and roll

Blame it on the feeling of the music deep insi-i-i-ide your soul

We got the pop, we got the dance, we got the rockin’ electronic club beats

We got the hip-hop music with the future flow

People in the place

Put your put your hands in the air

Now put your hands up, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh

Forever united here,

Blame it on the po-po-po-po-poker face po-po-poker face

So live your life (hey!)

Let’s live it up (Ho!)

If you wanna get down (Hey!)

down (Ho!) down (Hey!)

Muh muh muh muh (Ho!)

I wanna get down, (hey!) down, down (Ho!)

So baby, don’t worry, it’s alright, a-alright when it knocks you down

When you go down, when you go down down

No need to worry, just pick back up when you’re tumbling down, down, down (down, down)

Blame it on the pop, blame it on the dance, blame it on the boom boom boom

Gotta get that rumba, blame it on the 808 with the boom boom boom

Gotta get that pop, gotta get that dance, gotta get that boom boom pow

I gotta get, I gotta get this year’s remix with the future sound.

I gotta feeling,

But I never really had a doubt,

that tonight’s gonna be a good night,

and I say the same thing every single time

you know that I could use somebody, (woo hoo)

Open up your plans and damn your free (Hey!)

Look into your heart and you’ll find love, love, love

Stop stop stop feeling down, down, down

Can’t you see love, love love?

Isn’t this easy feeling love, love love?

Down down down,

It’s like I’ve been awakened

Can’t you see every step I’m taking

Don’t be afraid

The risk that I’m taking

Can’t you see, I’ve had a little too much feeling down, down, down

Can’t you see every move I’m making

Every rule I had you breaking

Isn’t this easy feeling love, love, love

We’ll make it out of this mess.

Change your mind

Baby just say yes,

Da da da da da da da da da da..……

As far as the instrumentals go, it’s mostly backed up by Black Eyed Peas’ “I Gotta Feeling” throughout. Black Eyed Peas’ “Boom Boom Pow” forms the beat from 0:13 to 1:42 and then the breakdown at 2:50-3:05 (all timing info here is for the mp3, not the video). A very slowed down instrumental riff from Lady Gaga’s “Just Dance” comes in from 0:30-:045 and again from 1:29-1:44. The piano from the Fray’s “You Found Me” accompanies the Beyonce/Miley duet from 0:45-1:00, reappearing at the break from 1:44-1:52 and again at 4:23. The intro of Flo Rida’s “Right Round” makes an appearance from 3:05-3:09. The guitar intro from Kelly Clarkson’s “My Life Would Suck Without You” makes an appearance from 2:21-2:36. A nice synth riff from Soulja Boy’s “Kiss Me Through the Phone” appears at 0:42,1:41,and 2:47.

United State of Pop 2009: Blame It on the Pop

Earworm — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 09:18:40 +0000

United State of Pop 2009

Another year, another year-end mashup, once again consisting of the top 25 most popular hit songs of 2009, according to Billboard Magazine.

This is a follow-up to last year’s
United State of Pop 2008 (Viva La Pop)
and the original United State of Pop from 2007.

This year in the charts, so many of the pop songs this year seem to tell the same story: Yeah, we’ve been through a lot, but right now we’re gonna celebrate with music and dance, and it’s gonna be ok. With that spirit in mind, I invite you to…BLAME IT ON THE POP

The Black Eyed Peas - BOOM BOOM POW
Lady Gaga - POKER FACE
Lady Gaga Featuring Colby O’Donis - JUST DANCE
The Black Eyed Peas - I GOTTA FEELING
Taylor Swift - LOVE STORY
Flo Rida - RIGHT ROUND
Jason Mraz - I’M YOURS
Beyonce - SINGLE LADIES (PUT A RING ON IT)
Kanye West - HEARTLESS
The All-American Rejects - GIVES YOU HELL
Taylor Swift - YOU BELONG WITH ME
T.I. Featuring Justin Timberlake - DEAD AND GONE
The Fray - YOU FOUND ME
Kings Of Leon - USE SOMEBODY
Keri Hilson Featuring Kanye West & Ne-Yo - KNOCK YOU DOWN
Jamie Foxx Featuring T-Pain - BLAME IT
Pitbull - I KNOW YOU WANT ME (CALLE OCHO)
T.I. Featuring Rihanna - LIVE YOUR LIFE
Soulja Boy Tell ‘em Featuring Sammie - KISS ME THRU THE PHONE
Jay Sean Featuring Lil Wayne - DOWN
Miley Cyrus - THE CLIMB
Drake - BEST I EVER HAD
Kelly Clarkson - MY LIFE WOULD SUCK WITHOUT YOU
Beyonce - HALO
Katy Perry - HOT N COLD

And here’s the video

To view the video in full screen, click HERE.

The complete lyrics are HERE, along with a guide to which song all of the words and music came from.

Sean Kingston - Beautiful Mashup

Earworm — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 22:17:58 +0000

Sean Kingston - Beautiful Mashup

In a brief but impressive career, Sean Kingston has always had a knack for creating amazing hooks. At 17, he released the Ben-E.-King-inspired “Beautiful Girls”, somehow managing to sing about suicidal thoughts without losing his trademark smile. This was followed up with “Me Love”, a twist on Led Zeppelin’s “D’yer Maker”, and “Take You There”, which pointed towards a more electronic futuristic sound. By the time he released this summer’s inescapable euro-flavored infectious dance hit “Fire Burning”, the sound had gone fully electronic, while remaining as catchy as ever.

So when his label approached me about mashing up his greatest hits, I knew I had all the raw material I would need to make an ultra hook-y mashup. And finding the actual words “mash up” in “Beautiful Girls” was just icing on the cake.

I mixed up these four hits, along with “I Can Feel It” from his last album “Sean Kingston”, and bits of “Tomorrow” and “Face Drop” from his upcoming album “Tomorrow”.

And I made a video for it as well!

To view the video in full screen, click HERE.

Download the full version here.

I also made a shorter radio edit of this mashup which you can download here.

Annie Lennox: Backwards/Forwards

Earworm — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 23:31:49 +0000

Annie Lennox: Backwards/Forwards

I’ve always held a deep respect for Annie Lennox and her music, so when she gave me her multi-track masters to mash up, I was thrilled. The task was to tie together all of her solo career into single song and video, and I could deconstruct it as much as I wanted! Woohoo!

Her music expresses much hardship and sadness, but also defiance, joy and triumph, and I wanted the mashup to reflect that journey. Here’s the tracklist:

Why
Walking on Broken Glass
Little Bird
No More I Love You’s
Waiting in Vain
Something So Right
Dark Road
Sing
Shining Light

To listen to the streaming audio (sorry, no downloads on this one), click HERE

And here’s the video for it:

To view the video in full screen, click HERE.

Annie Lennox: Backwards/Forwards Video

Earworm — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 22:14:16 +0000

Annie Lennox: Backwards/Forwards

Here is the video I put together for the mashup
Annie Lennox: Backwards/Forwards.

Download/stream audio HERE.
View the video in full screen HERE.
See more mashup music videos HERE.

My Life Would Suck Without You in My Place

Earworm — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 06:47:53 +0000

My Life Would Suck Without You in My Place

Kelly Clarkson - My Life Would Suck Without You
Coldplay - In My Place

Coldplay’s “In My Place” reveals the power ballad lurking within Kelly’s recent hit.

To view the video in full screen, click HERE.

The State of the State of Pop

Earworm — Mon, 25 May 2009 02:21:00 +0000

The State of the State of Pop

I have to say the success of United State of Pop ‘08 (Viva La Pop) has exceeded my most optimistic expectations. It just hit its 1,000,000th view on Youtube, and received enough radio play to make its way onto Billboard’s Pop 100 Airplay chart, peaking at #58, and even breaking into the Pop 100 chart! Not bad, considering a total sales of $0.00, and all the marketing muscle of a guy with a website. Thank you all for your support, your comments, and for spreading the word. There are many exciting developments afoot, so stay tuned!

Heartless (In a Bottle)

Earworm — Thu, 21 May 2009 13:59:19 +0000

Heartless (In a Bottle)

The Fray - Heartless (Kanye West Cover)
Black Eyed Peas - Boom Boom Pow
The Police - Message in a Bottle
2Pac - Dear Mama
Alan Parsons Project - Ammonia Avenue

Kanye West’s latest album was a real change of pace for him, veering more towards moody pop than hip-hop. Recently, I did a mashup of his “Love Lockdown” with Radiohead’s “Reckoner”.

When I heard The Fray performing this beautiful cover of Kanye’s “Heartless” on BBC’s Radio 1, it really seemed to capture the song’s melancholy feeling. The Police’s “Message in a Bottle” also fit the mood, and for the beat I used a sloooowwwed down “Boom Boom Pow”, the Black Eyed Peas’ inescapable hit.

Kanye based his original “Heartless” on a sample by the Alan Parsons Project, “Ammonia Avenue”, so I grabbed that sample, and also added a little bit of 2Pac’s “Dear Mama”, where he talks about being “heartless”.

And here’s the video for it:

To view the video in full screen, click HERE.
An even higher quality version can be seen on Facebook HERE.

Love and Wonder

Earworm — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 16:01:19 +0000

Love and Wonder

Maroon 5 recently released a remix album entitled Call and Response, where they got various of remixers to radically re-interpret their greatest hits. I commend them on their spirit of experimentation, especially since they opened up their entire archive for me to ~~destroy~~ interpret! I basically had the Pro Tools digital recording sessions for all their songs, so I could go in and grab whatever instrument or vocal I wanted. This is the first time I’ve gotten such a depth of data to work with.

As I picked apart the recording sessions, the thing that really stood out to me was the level of musicianship buried in the many layers. What sounded like a simple guitar riff was actually made up of many guitars, carefully layered and ordered to get just the right tone. Background vocals revealed themselves to be beautiful melodies in their own right.

Club Mix

This version has an electro house club feel.. I added some guitars from “Goodnight Goodnight”, “This Love”, and “Makes Me Wonder”, and brought in the piano from “She Will be Loved”. Other little bits from other M5 songs are found scattered in there. Click on the buttons to the right for a radio/ipod-friendly version, and for the DJs, here’s an extended version.

extended club version mp3 link.

extended club version zip download.

United State of Pop 2008

Earworm — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 08:27:55 +0000

United State of Pop 2008

Well it’s that time of the year again and I thought I’d do another year-end mashup. Here are bits of the Top 25 hits of the year, according to Billboard Magazine, arranged into a four and a half minute song. This is a follow-up to last year’s mashup of the Top 25 hits of 2007.

This year in the charts, we’ve gone all soft. The songs are sexy and defiant, less macho than in previous years. Accordingly, I’ve selected Coldplay as the instrumental track, giving the whole year a sort of symphonic feel. This edit is called “Viva La Pop”, and I hope to post more edits soon.

Flo Rida Featuring T-Pain - Low
Leona Lewis - Bleeding Love
Alicia Keys - No One
Lil Wayne Featuring Static Major - Lollipop
Timbaland Featuring OneRepublic - Apologize
Jordin Sparks Duet With Chris Brown - No Air
Sara Bareilles - Love Song
Usher Featuring Young Jeezy - Love in This Club
Chris Brown - With You
Chris Brown - Forever
Ray J & Yung Berg - Sexy Can I
Rihanna - Take a Bow
Coldplay - Viva La Vida
Katy Perry - I Kissed a Girl
T.I. - Whatever You Like
Rihanna - Disturbia
Rihanna - Don’t Stop the Music
Natasha Bedingfield - Pocketful of Sunshine
Chris Brown Featuring T-Pain - Kiss Kiss
Ne-Yo - Closer
Colbie Caillat - Bubbly
Mariah Carey - Touch My Body
Madonna Featuring Justin Timberlake - 4 Minutes
Pink - So What
Finger Eleven - Paralyzer

I made a video for it, in YouTube’s fancy wide screen format

To view the video in full screen, click HERE.
You can also view a very high quality version HERE on Facebook.

If you liked this mashup, make sure to check out No More Gas, which mashes up a bunch of recent hits.

Bootleg Battle Lines

Earworm — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 09:31:14 +0000

Bootleg Battle Lines

I’m honored to get this great write-up from MIT’s Technology Review.

It basically compares and contrasts two emerging aesthetics of mashups. One is the more DJ-oriented style of Girl Talk, and the other is the songwriting-oriented style that I tend towards.

Article here.

Earworm on Facebook

Earworm — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 21:11:45 +0000

Earworm on Facebook

Come join me on Facebook.

I’ve uploaded a bunch of videos, and the playback quality is outstanding.

If I Were a Free Fallin’ Boy - Tom Petty/Beyonce Mashup Video

Earworm — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 16:01:35 +0000

If I Were a Free Fallin’ Boy - The Video

I put together this video to my latest mashup
If I Were a Free Fallin’ Boy.

Download/stream audio HERE.
View the video in full screen HERE.
See more mashup music videos HERE.

If I Were a Free Fallin’ Boy

Earworm — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 00:39:34 +0000

If I Were a Free Fallin’ Boy

Beyonce - If I Were a Boy
Tom Petty - Free Fallin’

To view the video in full screen, click HERE.

As a bonus, here is the edit that’s on the radio, with Beyonce starting it off cold. To Download, right click HERE and save as (If you have a Mac, ctrl-click)

Britney’s Leaving Home

Earworm — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 20:09:54 +0000

Britney’s Leaving Home

Britney Spears - Womanizer
The Beatles - She’s Leaving Home

IDEA Conference

Earworm — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 19:46:02 +0000

IDEA Conference

I recently had a chance to speak at the IDEA Conference in NYC. Here’s an excerpt from it.

Reckoner Lockdown - Radiohead/Kanye West Mashup Video

Earworm — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 00:46:32 +0000

Reckoner Lockdown - The Video

Instamatic, who produces his own mashups as well as the Radio Clash podcast, put together this beautiful video for my recent Kanye West / Radiohead mashup Reckoner Lockdown.

Download/stream audio HERE.
View the video in full screen HERE.
See more mashup music videos HERE.

Reckoner Lockdown

Earworm — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 18:35:35 +0000

Reckoner Lockdown

Kanye West - Love Lockdown
Radiohead - Reckoner

Both Kanye West and Radiohead are participating in a long overdue trend that seems to now be emerging where musical artists are beginning to release “stems” from their tracks. Until recently, a mashup or remix artist would feel lucky just to find an instrumental version or acapella (vocals only) of a favorite track. But these musical stems allow us much more control.

Most modern recordings have many tracks, usually more than ten, and sometimes more than a hundred. Each track typically represents a single recording or electronic sound. Traditionally, before all these tracks are mixed down into a final stereo mix, it is first mixed down into about four to eight separate audio files (stems). All the foreground vocals might be on one stem, all the drums on another, while the guitars and keyboards might be on yet another. When all the stems are added together, you hear the song as it was originally meant to be heard. The traditional purpose of these stems was to enable the mastering engineer to give the final mixdown just the right sound for various formats (radio or club, CD or vinyl).

Now, with DIY remix culture exploding, we sonic manipulators are growing hungry for disassembled pop music, and the music industry is beginning to see the benefit of increased exposure through releasing stems directly to the public, allowing us much greater freedom than if they had simply released the instrumentals and acapellas. Now we can choose which instruments are playing.

This new trend augers well for us in the mashup community, and I look forward to the practice expanding. Thank you Kanye, thank you Radiohead, and thanks to all the other musicians (and music execs) that are starting to see the light!

Instamatic put together the following video.
View the video in full screen HERE.

Earworm Electro Volume 1

Earworm — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 04:23:22 +0000

Earworm Electro Collection Volume 1

I love the electro house sound, & it’s the perfect vibe for late night club gigs. These mashups are intended to move your body more than mess with your head. Most of the backing tracks in this collection come from Europe, and all the vocals are from the U.S. (except for Mick Jagger). The first seven tracks are previously unreleased, while the last two have not yet been featured on my main page. For your convenience, you can listen to all nine tracks in the player above, or you can download the entire collection in a massive 109MB zip file (click me).

Gimme Freaks