A musician named DJ Danger Mouse took two albums — The Beatles White album and Jay-Z’s Black Album — and mixed them together, resulting in The Grey Album. I’m not a hip-hop fan, and I get uncomfortable when my speakers start shouting “nigga,” so I normally wouldn’t be interested in something like this. Except that DJ Danger Mouse is not being allowed to sell his record because the Beatles’ people (EMI) won’t allow him to infringe on their copyright. Jay-Z specifically released a vocals-only version of his album so that people could do exactly this, but EMI is living in some sort of rhetorical hole where artistic creations and variations based on their “properties” are somehow dangerous.
In honor of the right to create new culture based on existing culture, 40 years old and otherwise, today has been declared Grey Tuesday, and sites across the web are posting The Grey Album in protest of EMI’s pigheaded actions.
I downloaded the entire album off of Limewire in about five minutes. I’ve removed the local version, I don’t have the bandwidth to keep it up for any period of time.
New culture created from old culture almost always sucks. Combining Jay Z with the Beatles always sucks. You have to pick your battles.
tell me that when you get sued for having cnn footage set to the benny hill theme!