Customer Reviews

The Grey Album

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Let's be honest---very few people would even consider paying $100-plus for this CD. I don't blame them. It's a good album, but in all honesty its hardly worth that kind of money. I believe, however, that there websites where the album can be downloaded for free. This I strongly recommend.

The Grey Album consists of the vocal track from the Black Album set to beats that are composed entirely of songs from the Beatles White Album. It remains, however, a Jay-Z record. His vocals, as another reviewer has stated, are the predominant track. They are, to the best of my knowledge, entirely intact and it is the Beatles who have been remixed in order to accommodate them. Likewise, if your not into Jay-Z, you probably won't like the Grey Album. If you're a Jay-Z fan, chances are you are going to like this album no matter what. If you are, like myself, a Beatles fan, then chances are that you will even consider this album to be far superior to the original Black Album.

Often, though, its hard to tell what Beatles song is used for the beat. That is to say that often they are altered beyond the point of recognition. For instance, if I had not gone to Wikipedia, I would never have guessed that the Allure mix (one of the Grey Album's best songs) was constructed from Dear Prudence. On other tracks, notably 99 Problems (Helter Skelter) and What More Can I Say (While my Guitar Gently Weeps) the Beatles songs are easy to identify and, relatively speaking, the original song is largely intact.
1 Public Service Announcement (2:45) "Long, Long, Long"
2 What More Can I Say (4:25) -- While my Guitar Gently Weeps
3 Encore (2:40) "Glass Onion" and "Savoy Truffle"
4 December 4th (3:34) "Mother Nature's Son"
5 99 Problems (4:06) -- Helter Skelter
6 Dirt Off Your Shoulder (3:59) "Julia"
7 Moment Of Clarity (4:00) "Happiness Is a Warm Gun"
8 Change Clothes (4:04) -- Piggies
9 Allure (4:06) "Dear Prudence"
10 Justify My Thug (4:12) "Rocky Raccoon"
11 Lucifer 9 (2:01) "Revolution 9"
12 My First Song (4:44) "Cry Baby Cry" and "Savoy Truffle"

If you're amongst the still large group of earbuds uninitiated to the world of mashups, you owe it to yourself to witness this quintessential groundbreaking bootleg effort of a still fledgling genre. The Grey Album is the unlikely yet planned serendipity of combining The Beatles' rock classic The White Album with Jay-Z's hip-hop neo-classic The Black Album. If you're a fan of either release, you'll find something to love.

This album is a terrific example of the power and creativity of hip hop. I would have liked to hear more of the Beatles vocals on the album as a whole, but the connotation of the mixture of the two are pure genius.
This album transcends black and white.

The Grey Album is a mash-up of songs produced by the musician Danger Mouse. The Grey Album is a composition of samples from Jay-Z's The Black Album and The Beatles' The White Album. The Grey Album was released in February 2004. The Grey Album contains 12 full songs: "Public Service Announcement", "What More Can I Say", "Encore", "December 4th", "99 Problems", "Dirt Off Your Shoulders", "Moment of Clarity", "Change Clothes", "Allure", "Justify My Thug", "Lucifer 9 (Interlude)", "My 1st Song". Only a limited number of copies (3000) were produced.

The technical styles of the songs in this album were inspired by the hip hop culture. Hip hop originated in the 1970s in Bronx, New York. Hip hop is characterized by 4 major stylistic elements: rapping, DJing, sampling, and beat boxing. The songs in The Grey Album implement all of the major stylistic elements except for beat boxing. The rapping is used from the a cappella samples of Jay-Z's The Black Album. Danger Mouse provides the DJing stylistic element and the sampling is heard from the samples taken from The Beatles' The White Album.

The technique of break beating is used throughout the album, but it is implemented the most in the songs "Dirt Off Your Shoulder" and "My First Song". Break beats are when DJs sample beats from one song and use them to form the rhythmic beat of a completely new song. This technique was created by DJ Kool Herc, who is often known as the grandfather of hip hop. Break beating in the two songs listed earlier is used to form the beat and rhythm of the new mash-up song. It provides the rhythm and flow to keep a steady and catchy beat.

This album is a very creative and unique production in which two separate songs are brought together in such careful unity. Although each song is comprised of samples from two separate songs, they are mashed together so beautifully that they cease to be two, but rather one catchy composition. The precision of each break beat and the details put into each composition, as a whole is quite impressive.

Danger Mouse's Grey Album, released in 2004, is a combination of the Beatles' White Album and Jay Z's Black Album. The genre of this album is certainly the mash-up, coming from things such as musique concrete and electronic sampling. The Black Album is used for the vocal content, a capellas with just the sound of Jay Z, while the background music and beats come from instrumentals of a number of Beatles samples. According to the artist, ""A lot of people just assume I took some Beatles and, you know, threw some Jay-Z on top of it or mixed it up or looped it around, but it's really a deconstruction." While it is obvious the songs do not perfectly match up on their own, splicing and concentration on certain parts of the songs really allow for the two different types of music to coexist. Also, it is apparent that track layering was certainly used in the making of this sort of album, probably using up to 20 or more tracks for some songs.

The Grey Album's contribution to music is more important than the methods used to make it. It made everyone think about intellectual property and what it means to own something. If it is changed enough, does the original form's copyright still stand? The owners of the Beatles certainly were not pleased with the Grey Album, however Jay Z came out with an a capella version of his Black Album to initiate creativity such as this. The Grey Album gained so much publicity that it really allowed for the mash-up type of music to take off. While it certainly existed before Danger Mouse, it was not as popular. Not only did this advance a type of music but initiated a new way of thinking about music. What really made this such a controversy is the fact it involved the Beatles, a band with such a strong following. These fans, and certainly the Beatles' copyright holder, were not open to their music being changed. However, recently there have been a number of Beatles fans who have come out and said they appreciate the hip-hop renditions of the songs.

The combination of Jay Z and the Beatles is certainly controversial, but seems to work effectively. The vocals are on beat and everything seems to sound natural; however this album is more meaningful than just the sound it produces. It started a new wave of not only music, but thinking. How to change the existing into something new. Mash-ups from then on were ever more popular and seem to be a staple for any DJ working a party today. DJ Danger Mouse decided to change multiple aspects of the existing into something new because it "just came to him", and we are certainly better off for it.

For the life of me, I can't understand how this got such great critical reception. While the concept is interesting and the legal issues surrounding mashups are certainly polarizing, I think that the music itself is almost unlistenable. The raps just didn't match the rhythm of the music - it all sounded decidedly foreign. I'm not opposed to mashup and remixes - I liked the Jay-Z/Linkin Park Collision Course album. The work here just didn't speak to me at all.

Yes the CD is amazing and epic, but the seller of the 9.99 used item, blackcloudent, is a con artist because he doesn't ship the item, doesn't reply to emails and steals your money! do not buy from him!

Pretty gimmicky though effective way for Danger Mouse to put himself on the map, as it became clear early on that only a few tracks explore a true mash up of the two artists, otherwise just putting Jay way in the foreground on what almost sounds more like an underground, underwhelming production from himself as it goes on.