This post is dedicated to the hebetudinous droves of Beachles-haters out there. Unless you’re a solicitous moron, it’s easy as pie to enjoy Sgt. Petsound’s. No two ways about it. Either you possess a sense of humor, or you’re a slobbering halfwit who deserves to be murdered violently in your sleep. And catch up a little, okay? The joke’s on you. Some of you might regard yourselves as precocious analytical powerhouses, but the truth is far more revolting. Your emphatic and semi-detached expostulations do nothing to convince others of your supposed exactitude, you whining little bitches, and you further humiliate yourselves by illustrating to the World just how completely devoid of humor you truly are. Hell, I’m embarrassed for  you. I won’t deny it: I butchered the Beachles. Your suffering makes me climax. I gave you fair warning, and I even told you that it wasn’t  a mash-up record. I never called it a noise record, either. I said that it was a novelty record, and “more of an abstract record” than a mash-up. Still, it’s more of a semi-sadistic bit of musical blasphemy than any of these, and, unlike every other Beatles mash-up you’ll hear, there are extended, unaltered passages of the Beatles’ work. The Beach Boys, too. So, say what you will about the alleged lack of reverence that went into this, and I’ll just keep repeating: for the love of Christ, just suck my dick already. This week, dear reader, I offer you a long-overdue post: Top 5 Examples of Why the Term “Mash-Up” is Just Another Unnecessary Bit of Evidence of How Uninspired, Incompetent, Derivative, and Pointlessly Self-Congratulatory Most DJs and Bootie Tweens Really Are, Part 1.

1. Louis Armstrong, Danny Kaye & Susan Gordon - “Five Pennies Medley”

  Y’see, out here in the real world, guys, there’s this strange, little-known thing called “harmony.” And every once in awhile, somebody borrows (or steals) a melodic notion, incorporating it harmonically into a new piece; a tradition that’s been going on for centuries in classical music. Skip ahead a bit, and in the age of sampling it’s become easier than ever to express new ideas, even dissonant ones. But here is a fun, innocuous number from a time not so long ago. Indeed, well before we had such things as mash-ups, this was one kind of evocative interplay between distinct melodies, serving much the same purpose by delighting the listener with overlapping auditory phrases. Round singing, they called it. Remarkable. This gem is from The Five Pennies, which, in spite of its sappiness and embellishment, is a tremendous musical film. It tells the story of jazz cornetist Red Nichols, played by Danny Kaye. With brilliant performances throughout, it comes as highly recommended as any jazz biopic. This song features a young Susan Gordon, Kaye, and, of course, the great Satchmo, doing what they do best—exactly what they were told to do. It’s a pretty good bedtime song, too.

2. Buchanan & Goodman - “The Flying Saucer (Parts 1 & 2)”

  In 1956, Dickie Goodman and Bill Buchanan pioneered a new kind of record called the “break-in” with their massive hit single “The Flying Saucer.” It utilized snippets of other performers’ work, including Chuck Berry, Don Cherry, Etta James, Smiley Lewis, Nappy Brown, Little Richard, and Fats Domino, and resultantly Goodman was taken to court on multiple counts of copyright infringement. In the end, Goodman’s song was declared a work of parody, and the matter was settled out of court. Although many people consider Goodman the father of sampling, musique concrete  composers were the first to employ the idea. However, it is doubtful that the technique would’ve gained such widespread popularity, especially its use in radio bumpers, without Dickie Goodman’s contribution. Over the years, Dickie managed to record quite a few break-in records. One such record, a Jaws  send-up entitled “Mr. Jaws,” would even grace the pop charts in 1975. Goodman took his own life in 1989, but his son Jon has continued to promote his father’s work, even releasing a break-in record of his own, “Return of the Flying Saucer.”

3. Ornette Coleman - “Variants of a Theme of Thelonious Monk”

  Every so often, a composer decides to borrow an idea from another composer. It’s really not that uncommon. To wit: Herbie Hancock said, “I could not play what I play had it not been for Ornette Coleman.” Coleman, a native of Forth Worth, Texas, has drawn from many influences throughout his career. His improvisational style has been compared to many jazz greats, but his philosophy can best be described by a word he coined, “harmolodics.” Ornette revitalized bebop with new ideas relating to spatial relationships, melody, harmony, and timbre, but harmolodics is a largely misunderstood theory, perhaps because Ornette himself has done little to disambiguate. Wikipedia refers to it as a theory that eschews “traditional European notions of tension and release,” but this hardly does it justice. Like the sound of Eric Dolphy and John Coltrane, the music that Coleman plays has been described as “anti-jazz,” but that makes about as much sense as calling human beings “anti-australopithecines.” Ornette has given back to jazz far more than he’s taken, and his unconventional style is at times wonderfully understated; at others wailing and aggressive. Here is an amazing piece by Gunther Schuller, with elements borrowed, as its title would suggest, from Thelonious Monk. It features Coleman on alto sax, Eric Dolphy on flute, Bill Evans on piano, and quite a few other people doing a lot of other things. A long, captivating number.

4. Culturcide - “They Aren’t the World”

  Culturcide are my kind of band. For starters, they’re not really a band—they just scream highly questionable lyrics over other people’s records. But more than that, they’re from Texas. You know, between Ornette Coleman and the Butthole Surfers, Texas has a ridiculous concentration of musical weirdos. But Culturcide are a couple of freaks who really made a difference. Or at least got a little college radio play back in the ’90s. Anyway, they’re amazing and I love them. They sang about venereal disease over the Beatles’ “Yesterday,” and I really can’t think of anything funnier than that. Co-founders Perry Webb and Dan Workman carved out a phenomenal little niche back in the day, and apparently they’re still releasing material sporadically. I had the good fortune of meeting Webb years ago in Houston, but forgot to ask him if he was related to Jack Webb. Not that it matters—he’s a strange enough character on his own. But this song is the best response to the unabashed do-gooder hokum of the coke-addled 1980s that a deviant like me could hope for. Favorite lyric: “As Michael and Lionel have shown us, the World’s just TV. If children are starvin’, let ‘em drink Pepsi.”

5. Negativland - “U2”

  Negativland, like Culturcide, like to sing and scream and say things over other peoples’ music, but I like to think that they’ve done so a bit more tastefully. Also, just like Culturcide, they neglected to include the letter ‘e’ in the middle of their band’s name. Must be some connection there. This little stunt practically bankrupted Negativland, but the Universe is so much better for it. I’m sure that a few of you’ve heard this by now, and it is here merely as a further reminder that the satirical use of sampling has been around for a bit. But for those of you who haven’t heard it, you’ll never see Casey Kasem the same way again, unless you’re just staring at those ridiculous ears of his. And no, John Oswald didn’t invent mash-ups. If anyone, Robert Burns invented them when he mashed up one of his poems with a traditional song called “Auld Lang Syne.” Of course, we all know that Burns’ version isn’t the same melody heard at New Year’s celebrations the World over. That’s just the way it goes, kids. Out with the break-ins and in with the mash-ups. But mash-ups weren’t ever “in,” really. People listen to them a couple of times and forget about them forever.  Just like DJs.