Monday, September 1, 2008

Mashups: "Wolf Like Rihanna" by ToToM

Someone put my number one song of 2006 and my number one song of 2007 - "Wolf Like Me" and "Umbrella" - together in a mashup. (Yes, they are officially number one. I make lists every year.)

And I do mean mashed em up. I am almost not convinced that this ToToM entity has audio software that allows him to do anything more sophisticated than literally play the songs over top of each other. It's mostly Rihanna's vocals ringing out over the guitars from TV on the Radio, and the dissonance between the overlapping tracks makes Rihanna sound ghostly and disconnected.

What's truly amazing, though, is what happens to Jay-Z's superfluous opening rap. It's a testament to the goodwill towards "Umbrella" that we all just kind of looked the other way for those forty seconds in the first place, and in the mash-up they come in over the opening feedback from "Wolf Like Me," as if ToToM is saying "You're not good enough for the riff, Hov." But then the bridge comes in, and the music drops. It's right where Rihanna's sweet "you can run into my arms" line should come in. Instead, the rap comes back in, slowed down, epic, the best moment in the mashup.

Maybe Girl Talk has changed the focus towards packing layers and layers of songs all into one, instead of finding two songs that have the same structure and dynamics and somehow complement each other, so you don't hear this kind of thing as much. But "Wolf Like Rihanna" is masterful.

Download: "Wolf Like Rihanna"

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