Mashup (music)

A mashup (also mesh, mash up, mash-up, blend, bastard pop or bootleg) is a creative work, usually a song, created by blending two or more pre-recorded songs, typically by superimposing the vocal track of one song seamlessly over the instrumental track of another and changing the tempo and key where necessary. Such works are considered "transformative" of original content and in the United States they may find protection from copyright claims under the "fair use" doctrine of copyright law. The 1967 Harry Nilsson album Pandemonium Shadow Show features what is nominally a cover of the Beatles' "You Can't Do That" but actually introduced the "mashup" to studio-recording. Nilsson's recording of "You Can't Do That" mashes his own vocal recreations of more than a dozen Beatles songs into this track. Nilsson conceived the combining of many overlaying songs into one track after he played a chord on his guitar and realized how many Beatles songs it could apply to. This recording has led some to describe Harry Nilsson as the inventor of the mashup. Although described as a medley in its title, "Do It Again Medley with Billie Jean" by Italian music project Club House could be described as one of the first ever commercially released mashups in 1983. The song combines elements of "Do It Again", a 1973 Top 10 hit in the US and Canada by Steely Dan, with Michael Jackson's #1 hit from earlier in the year, "Billie Jean". It reached #11 in the UK, and the Top 10 in Belgium, Ireland and the Netherlands. In 1990, Norman Cook reached #1 on the UK charts with his act Beats International with "Dub Be Good To Me", essentially a mashup of re-recorded vocals of The SOS Band's "Just Be Good To Me" with The Clash's "The Guns of Brixton", making it the first mashup to achieve significant mainstream success. The 1990 John Zorn album Naked City features a version of Ornette Coleman's "Lonely Woman" set over the bassline of Roy Orbison's "Pretty Woman".