210 songs in 10 minutes

August 26, 2009 7:44 AM

Last week, Eddy Temple Morris, a DJ on UK radio station XFM, challenged Twitter to remix as many songs as possible into 10 minutes. The previous record was held by Wizard of Deekline and Wizard - it is now held by rapper, producer and all-round renaissance man Akira the Don, who managed to fit a staggering 210 tracks into 1/6 of an hour. He's just put together a video to accompany the mix - watch it here
posted by muggsy1079 (20 comments total)

This would be a lot more interesting if he'd just abandoned the beat entirely. As it is, it's sort of like a rush to the lowest common denominator: what are the simplest, most boring rhythms you can think of? Program those into your beatmatching software, cue up your 210 tracks, and let the computer do the work.

Not that there's anything wrong with that; I just think a mash of near-unlistenable noise would probably be a hell of a lot more interesting than the boring rap rhythms implied here.
posted by koeselitz at 8:21 AM on August 26, 2009 [2 favorites]

the video and the song seem equally interesting... that is too say I started both very interested, and by 2 mins in found both kinda boring, lotta scan-n-pan, lotta garble garble garble.

So, what is the smallest musical unit one can get away with and still call it sampling?
posted by edgeways at 8:34 AM on August 26, 2009

The Vanilla Ice/Tom Petty part was awesome.

I'm only half way through but am enjoying it for the most part. It's like one big radio commercial for itself.
posted by weezy at 8:38 AM on August 26, 2009 [1 favorite]

God, that made me feel like Oscar the grouch. Finally, a kids-off-my-lawn moment!
posted by robself at 8:38 AM on August 26, 2009

That’s what part of the inside of my brain looks, and sounds like.

Hell is other people's brains.
posted by owtytrof at 8:42 AM on August 26, 2009 [1 favorite]

Could've done it in 10 seconds instead and saved us all some time.
posted by LordSludge at 8:45 AM on August 26, 2009

This is exactly what I'd expect from a mashup that puts a gimmick over listenability.
posted by flatluigi at 8:45 AM on August 26, 2009

Here, this is Osymyso's Intro-Inspection. 101 songs in 12 minutes and massively more listenable.
posted by flatluigi at 8:47 AM on August 26, 2009

Just because one can does not mean one should. Did we learn nothing from the horrible mash-ups craze?
posted by Theta States at 8:54 AM on August 26, 2009

Seconding hippybear 100%.
posted by flatluigi at 8:59 AM on August 26, 2009

Challenged twitter? I scanned through weeks of EddyTM tweets and only saw the hype around Akira the Don's mix.

According to the CMU Remixed website, the Wizard's record was 204. And Akira the Don's mix was "210 recognisable tracks with many, many more tiny samples tucked away filling out any space there might have been left." Without hearing it, I'm thinking of Girl Talk's Feed The Animals album.
posted by filthy light thief at 9:00 AM on August 26, 2009

This shit could be one Planck time long and still be boring.
posted by Damn That Television at 9:03 AM on August 26, 2009

Now, not all mashups are actually horrible. There are some real charming ones out there, where the synergy of the tracks leads to greater insight into each of the elements.

Oh yes, there are great mashups, but the craze itself was horrible because of the glut it caused. I'd put the quality cut-off more near 5%. And I do love that 5%, but still resent sifting through the other 95.

For condensed mixes like this one, I tend to not to be able to groove to it when there are more than 4 songs per minute.
posted by Theta States at 9:08 AM on August 26, 2009

I've remixed all 20000 mp3s in my collection into this wav.
posted by klangklangston at 9:16 AM on August 26, 2009 [1 favorite]

Here's Jason Forrest's 36 Favorite Punk Songs, percentage-wise somewhat close to Akira's creation (36 in 4mins) and a listenable—actually an excellent all around mashup.
posted by carsonb at 11:07 AM on August 26, 2009

John Oswald.

Plunderphonics.

1990.


(and Plexure in 1993).
posted by Shepherd at 12:01 PM on August 26, 2009

Every Beatles song in 16 minutes.
posted by spasm at 12:57 PM on August 26, 2009

I stuck around until the 'Ante Up' part ended.
posted by box at 1:53 PM on August 26, 2009

Without hearing it, I'm thinking of Girl Talk's Feed The Animals album.

It's like Feed the Animals minus any real feel for the songs' flows or apparent interest in creating a coherent whole. The first time I heard Feed the Animals, I thought, holy cats, that's a fabulous bricolage that I want to listen to over and over. The first time I listened to Akira the Don's mashup, I thought, huh, that's almost brown noise.
posted by sgranade at 2:45 PM on August 26, 2009

See- Diminishing Returns, Law of.
posted by Magnus at 5:01 PM on August 26, 2009