In the article "Danger Mouse's Grey Album, Mash-ups and the Age of Composition," Phillip Gunderson talks about Danger Mouse's attempt to combine the Beatles White Album with Jay-Z's Black Album. I believe that Gunderson states an argument that music has racial boundaries. He does this to point out that Mash-ups can have a positive impact on how society views music. His argument points out the fact that African American hip-hop is a descendant of sixties-era British Rock which is a descendant of African American blues. With this he says that mash-ups draw attention to the racial boundaries of music.





Mash-ups can bring alot to the music industry and to the people listening to it. They mix together two different songs and with this they make a new genre. Gunderson states that they break boundaries, and if you listen to the different mash-ups you will see that they do. When you bring together two different songs you can also bring in two different types of people. If you like the Beatles then you will want to listen to their mash-up with Jay-Z and by listening to it you here another type of music. This can break the boundary between "black music" and "white music" by blending the different styles together and by doing this you bring different races together. Mash-ups gives people a chance to listen to a song that they really like and to experience a new song at once. When Danger Mouse did the mash-up he was bringing together different cultures of music just like we as people try to do that with the different cultures of society and Gunderson was stating that in his article. When you listen to the Mash-up of Nirvana and Destiny's child, you get to listen to both the pop side of music and rock. Some people didn't enjoy the mixture of the two but others enjoyed it. The video below is a Mash-up of "Smells Like Booty" a fusion of Destiny's Child and Nirvana.
























The Grey Album brings a mixture of culture into the music industry. This album "highlights the culture industry's specious opposition of white 1960s Brit-pop and twenty-first century black American hip-hop." Not to many people know that present music has been taken out of music from the 60s and earlier. Music as come a long way and has evolved in each generation going all the way back to songs sung on the plantation. Phillip Gunderson points out this fact. He tells us in the article that Danger Mouse uses the Grey Album to show people that "African American hip hop is in many ways a direct descendent of sixties-era British rock." In return British Rock is a descendent of early twentieth century African American blues which is also connects to Christian spirtuals sung on plantations. Some people may not know it but music today has its own background and that each genre of music comes from one another. Danger Mouse reminds his listeners about the becoming of popular music. The mash-up crosses the line of race, gender, and class when it comes to music. You learn the history of music and people can start to break down the differences in music because if you really think about it and learn the history of it you'll see that genres of music come from each one.

Reading Log: Response to Mash-Ups

When I read the Philip Gunderson article about Mash-ups i get confused. Its hard to follow along with what he is trying to say. I feel it was uneccesary for him to use all those big words because it didnt draw my attention into what he was trying to say, instead he made it so i didnt want to read it. Altough i did get some information out of it. I think the use of mash-ups, and being able to do it without recording labels getting on your back about it would be nice. The Mash-ups gives people a chance to listen to two different types of music all in one. The combination of both would bring in a whole new genre of music. I understand the controversy of doing a mash-up, and thats the issue of breaking the copywirte law. Artists or anyone at that matter cant take the work of the person that created it without their consent. Danger mouse created a mash-up, illegally, of the Jay-Z's The Black Album and The Beatles' The white album and turned it into his own. With this article i think that Gunderson is trying to let people know about how a mash-up can be illegal. Many people use peer-to-peer sharing networks so they can share music files, and i dont think that's ever gonna change. He uses information from recording labels and how they feel about illegal sharing. Another topic is the fact that they cna be disrespectful. "One could look askance at mash-ups, viewing them as puerile, disrespectful mucking about with other people's property.." I can see how one might think that. People are taking someone elses music and claiming it as their own and doing whatever with it. But i think that if someone is being creative with their talent to mix up songs then its not as bad as just saying you wrote a song when you really didnt. To me thats claiming something that isnt yours. With mash-ups Danger Mouse takes two different songs and puts them in a unigue way that makes them his original piece. He isnt saying the two songs are his, he's just claiming he put the two together to come up with that mash-up. I dont think the they should be illegal because they arent breaking any rules really.