The Magic of Mashup Music

[@IAmEnormous]

SiIvagunner is more of a platform for mashup submissions than an actual collective of artists, so its upload schedule hardly means that the people submitting lack enough "passion." It is mostly about memes though, that is true.

[@Gibusnipu]

As a mashup artist who also does non mashup music, this video is a fucking treat and explains the sense of wonder that these funny mixes generate in my brain

[@mrdiamondegg]

_I was honestly a little heartbroken to see those "MEGA MEME MASHUP" videos thrown in there when talking about less-passionate memey stuff. I don't know if the creators take those mashups seriously themselves, but they mean a lot to ME, at least._ _When I first heard the mega mashup from DaymanOurSavior, I think I had one of those experiences you described with Ruby Rose where I was bombarded with the way so many songs from the earliest points of my childhood (which isn't that far away, I'm a teenager) were beautifully intertwined together with songs that matched my current music taste. I kind of cried a little the first time I heard it, and was so desperate for more I repeated more times than I could count._ _I think the meme mashups don't suffer from the cynical internet irony you described, there's a genuine love there for the music they use, regardless of how serious or silly it is. The humor or irony of the mashups isn't meant to make fun of the songs being used, it's the humor of seeing them unexpectedly put together, and more unexpectedly, see them work REALLY well!_ _I can't count the amount of times I've listened to the Quality of SoundCloud, the fan-favorite songs smashed together make some of the most silly, yet mindbogglingly amazing music I've had the pleasure of gracing my ears. It always makes me smile, because they always use so many songs I've heard in mashups before, but somehow put them together in a way that's fresh and new. It gives me a new appreciation for the music, and makes me love it even more. And I can't help but believe they love it too._ _And that's all just because of silly memes!_

[@mrdiamondegg]

_Sorry for the barricade of words, lol. :>_

[@p4trickb4tem4n]

I agree with you

[@cherti]

I think you perfectly summed up why Ruby Rose is such a perfect piece of art When me and my friend listened to it together for the first time we both sat there, mouths open wide, as we got the biggest nostalgia trip of our lives.

[@nobodyburgen4594]

Why all in italics? Do you just hate dyslexic people lmao

[@mrdiamondegg]

@@nobodyburgen4594 _Yeah, a dyslexic man killed my parents on cold blood when I was 7 ._

[@pulsarmashups9447]

Hi, i'm Pulsarmashups and I'm kind of inside plenty of layers of the mashup genre, having made 5 albums, especially 2 (the last ones) that I think have clear signs of me trying to go forward for the genre. Anyways, I wanted to comment a few things about your videos : -Firstly, about the Mashup vs Plunderphonics debate, I came to conclusion that mashups are where their samples (which are called sources) are carrying their cultural meaning with them, plunderphonics rather tends to use the sample by erasing that cultural meaning, as if it was just an inspiration to your music. -Secondly, I like your analysis about the "Meme Mashup" thing, this and Neil Cicierega "wannabes" makes me feel the genre wants to be stuck in the past (while I understand that people just wants to follow their passionnate love for mashups), I've seen more progress in the underground than with what gets the attention, but I guess it is the case with almost every music genre. -I'm glad that Cacola's Ruby Rose is one of your favorite albums, but I think you should definitely check these more underground mashups releases : - V-Fun - I Reject My Humanity -The Sheep Queen Experiment - Not My Music Not Performed By Me Vol.5 -And in honesty, I would love it if you took a look at my two last albums (almost went insane while making them)

[@pulsarmashups9447]

Damn, sorry for all these orthographical errors I wanted to add my statement on rap acapellas mashups, which is the easiest type of mashups to make since no pitch shifting is needed, but most of them disregards aspects of flow or any other syncing, these are boring and don't hold much interest in my opinion.

[@waytoobiased]

I disagree that the SiIvaGunner channel lacks passion. The bandwidth of jokes is actually quite wide, and there are some gems in there.

I have enjoyed mashup songs for quite some years now, and this video was such a joy to watch!!!! My friends like to tease me about my love for the genre ("can't you just listen to one thing at a time?"), so it was very refreshing to see a deep dive from someone knowledgeable about music that also respects the genre and sees it for what it is: a passionate homage to music itself. I agree that several (maybe even most) of SiIvaGunner's videos are one-off generic jokes that sound like they were procedurally generated, but as other commenters have pointed out, there is very much passion there, although of a different kind. Passion for exploring song combinations and finding something that truly *clicks* - songs that enhance each other, as you said. I agree that there is a distinction between "pure meme mashups" and "passionate, more sophisticated stuff", but the line is very blurry and often the same artists bounce between the two sides. BotanicSage comes to my mind as someone that usually does very standard "X meets Y" mashups, but often manages to find a beautiful synergy ("Pokemon GSC Is What I Like" makes me cry every time). (Also, I've never been inside SiIvaGunner's community, but I always got the sense that its ""low standards"" and collaborative aura were a great incentive to artists new not only to mashup culture but to music as a whole, which I think is awesome.) I never understood why I loved mashups so much, but I found your description of "feeling awed at music itself" very close to my own experiences listening to Gyrotron's "Extreme Soundclown Megamix II" for the first time, not to mention All Day by Girl Talk. I think you pretty much nailed it in that segment: in a mashup you never know what's gonna happen, the music is filled with surprises that make it easier to feel childlike wonder... It's possible to feel that with other "normal" songs, I'm sure, but for me mashups have always been the best source of that emotion for me. I had not heard of Cacola or of several other artists that you mentioned, I'm very very excited to listen to them! For anyone reading this that might be interested, here are some recommendations of my own: All Day by Girl Talk, nakinyko's Gravity Mash, DJ Shadow's Endtroducing and haircuts for men's Early Tape Works series. Thank you for the fantastic video, cheers from Brazil (:

[@aurisbunni]

nakinyko is the goat !!

[@jadefae]

Boundo with the correct takes. Once again

[@thecaremaker1001]

with the Gimix thing, that's sort of a nature of DJ mixes. You mix 2 songs together on a turntable, and if it was really obscure it probably wouldn't be really good at the club, but if you recognize the song you'd probably want to dance more. There are exceptions to this, like Fatboy Slim playing "Sliced Tomatoes" by the Just Brothers at a party and that becoming the basis for The Rockafeller Skank. Big beat music is highly underrated and I feel like could be in this discussion. I feel everyone only talks about the Sonic CD or Jet Set Radio Future and not the things that influenced them.

[@alisonm250]

I'm a little surprised there wasn't much mention of Girl Talk. It felt like All Day was the most seriously I've seen mainstream critics take the genre

[@JK-gm6kk]

Night Ripper to All Day are absolute gems. Makes me wanna go run. That and DJ Z Trip Uneasy Listening are my jams.

[@JK-gm6kk]

Girl talk probably went back to being a scientist. I think he will do a show now and then tho

[@ouzodestructo]

Early 2000's I heard 2 many djs - as heard on radio soulwax part 2, and it blew my mind. Threw it on at a house party I had and it was the easiest dance floor filler ever. Pretty much forgot about the genre but this has piqued my interest again, thanks

[@TakiInoueDidNothingWrong]

2manydjs' 'As Heard On Radio Soulwax Pt. 2' from 2002 deserves a mention in the history of mashup culture. Their combination of "Independent Women" by Destiny's Child with 10cc's "Dreadlock Holiday" is imo far greater than either of the original songs.

[@wheelsofmercury]

As someone who literally credits William Maranci's mashups as something that got me through the 2020 quarantine, this was a great video! I'll check out Cocola sometime.

[@BlueMarioGangsta]

I know im 2 years late but such a W for using nuclear throne as an example its one of my favorite games of all time :)

[@jmckenzie962]

Wow look how far Cacola has come. I actually discovered her through, get this, a Geometry Dash level that someone made using one of her old songs on Newgrounds (Lit Fuse by KrmaL) like 6 years ago. I believe a couple more of her songs have been used by the GD community too. Really weird and cool personally to see a former Newgrounds Audio Portal artist get this much serious acclaim.

[@kingkrab4872]

I think mashups were probably the first time I really got into music. I mean everyone listens to pop and their parents music when they’re a kid, but I think the first music I really claimed as my own were mashups. They introduced me to some of my favorite artists and were actually just good. I had looked through one of my old mashup and remix playlists recently and I had forgotten how many of those songs I genuinely enjoy. Big thanks on the Cacola recommendation, that album has some serious bangers and I think I need to check out their discography now.

[@GRANDDADDO]

This video is fantastic! Probably your best work so far, keep it up!

[@GaxMiu]

The Residents' The Third Reich 'n' Roll made a very well rock and roll mashup

[@djbrotherelectric]

Mashups have been around also known as melodies also dance hall has been doing it for a long time too.

[@finnaboing]

Good video, but I couldn't agree *less* with your take on SiIvaGunner. As someone who's been watching SiIvaGunner for about four and a half years now, the idea that this channel has no passion in it rings as completely false to me. Yes, it's based off of memes, and yes, it was originally designed around a practical joke, but in my eyes, there's an undeniable amount of passion going into the channel - it's a giant team of people that came together over a shared love of mashups, meme culture, and video game music, submitting rips that they've put hard work into, knowing that they will not be directly credited on the channel - a channel that, mind you, makes literally zero money on KZbin (even if they wanted to, they get copyright claimed so often and the videos are so short that using it as income would be impossible) and uses any and all revenue made off of their Bandcamp to either improve the channel or to donate to charity. Like, take King for a Day (and even more so its sequel, King for Another Day). It was a tournament made to decide what theme the team should use for an event day. It literally could've just been a Google Form (hell, it almost *was* just a Google Form), but instead, they decided to make it into an entire multi-week-long event on its own, making original remixes based around different characters that represent the different possible event days. They drew original art for them, they composed original theme songs for the tourney itself, they even gave the characters, like, actual personalities. In the case of King for Another Day specifically, they gave them fuckin' CHARACTER ARCS. If that isn't what passion looks like, then I don't know what does. Now, granted, this is the perspective of someone who's dug very, very deeply into this channel, and I will admit that their body of work being so massive does make it a bit difficult to find those real diamonds in the rough, but I can't possibly think of a world where I can hear someone sentence-mix the DK Rap to the *entirety* of Rap God by Eminem *and* re-make the instrumental in the style of various songs in the Donkey Kong 64 OST, or hear Your Best Nightmare from Undertale re-made in the soundfonts of various Mario games in one glorious medley, or watch something like MAXIMUM QUALITY ACHIEVED (seriously holy shit watch that one as soon as possible it's incredible) or Main Theme - 7 GRAND DAD, or see the incredibly moving tribute they made to GilvaSunner (the channel SiIvaGunner is parodying) when they shut down their channel, and think, "nah, there's no passion here." It also helps that their joke catalogue has expanded *massively* in recent years. Your critique definitely fits with mid-2016-era SiIvaGunner, but it doesn't work nearly as well with current year-era SiIvaGunner. Still a good video, just needed to get these thoughts out there. (also you were wrong they've been uploading since 2016 lol)

[@dnys_7827]

absolutely brilliant video, and it gets to a lot of stuff ive valuely had in my head for a while. also thanks for pointing me to cacola, ill def check her stuff out, but. but. i'd like to take a moment and defend the sincerity of siivagunner a little bit. here's the thing, you're absolutely right that the intense quantity over quality approach and the insistence of the same ten memes hurts the quality of the project, but i don't really feel the cynicism you mention in it. i mean its not intimate, but it certainly doesnt feel cynical. and the quantity over quality thing means that, well, when you take a thousand shots you will hit bullseye a bunch of times. and when it does, it hits hard. im sorry, panda playing over the buoy base galaxy theme from super mario galaxy is exquisite. seasons of love playing over the snowdin town theme from undertale makes me feel things i didnt know i could feel. i dont know what the folks behind the project were thinking when they made them, but these absolutely read as loving homage to me. and even the memes, well ok the memes do get old pretty fast, but on a basic level it doesnt feel mean to me, it just feels like a joke thats been run into the ground, but not a mean or bad joke.

[@leftovernoise]

This essay fuckin slapps Legit never knew about the guitar hero rock band thing, but that absolutely makes sense

[@smitty1937]

Thanks to the Neural Mix feature in djay Pro for iPad, I'm able to separate stems live :)

[@OddZockit]

Banger video. Found this thanks to a mashup buddy of mine posting a link to it in discord.

[@GRANDDADDO]

Listened to Ruby Rose yesterday and god DAMN you were right, this shit good.

[@ipercreeper3300]

Thanks for introducing me to Cacola, that album was great

[@Postwargamer53]

I wont stand for any Silvagunner slander, apart from that cool video

[@batmenic365StopMotion]

Where, praytell, is Boulevard of Broken Songs? I mean it forms the opening of Bouquet by Cacola

[@emil5294]

My favourite is Spiceknot; do you wanna breathe my sulfur

[@dogslovealex]

All Day by Girl Talk is great!

[@GraveyardMurmurs]

Mashup music/plunderphonics is some of my favorite music and people will think its ironic. It’s hard to describe what I love so much about wndrwll, but it isn’t the meme of it. I’m only 12 minutes in but I have to recommend you or anyone who hasn’t listened to it to check out Kids & Explosions - Shit Computer. It’s indescribable I really love that album

[@blmn564]

Yeah. This video. Yeah. In the past I've found it very difficult to find artists/users that made quality mashup music - to the same degree as Neil Cicierega. There's a handful I have in my Soundcloud favorites, but I had to sift through a lot of mixes where a person just puts some rap artist over a popular song. Anyone can do that. Cacola is something special. Ruby Rose is the kind of project I wish I had made, (if I were into making music). I hope she keeps making more entries and the Rose series, and perhaps more importantly, others will be inspired by what she's doing for the genre.

[@soualexander6532]

Loved the video! Immediately checking out Ruby Rose now

[@artemorbid]

Just found your channel and really enjoying what you have going on!!! pleause to check out your works.

[@EggBastion]

"every time you avoid a mashup you avoid two shitty songs for the price of one" said Drew from Toothpaste for Dinner (jokingly). *_"Hoh hoh hohhh!!!"_* I thought for a long time like as if I also was very smart... until TheVoiceofDog brought Boolus to my attention. Also Neil Cicierega 's _Bustin._ It won't be the first or last time I've been very, _very_ wrong.

[@DJCosmicLatte]

Brace yourselves, the Ma§hpit is coming...

[@BrettB-n1s]

Bill McClintock best mashups ever!

[@A-Saxy-Bard]

Ruby Rose AOTY2022

[@acebaltazar7833]

It feels just a little reductions to blame gamergate alone for the increse in irony and absurd in Internet culture

[@dylanweinholt4978]

ᴘʀᴏᴍᴏsᴍ ?

[@biygas]

my friend makes kinda mashup kinda vaporwave kinda house. he’s called R4YMiX on bandcamp.