Favorite Free Album Of The Week: Jaydiohead

I received a couple tracks via email of a mash-up project mixing Jay-Z and Radiohead. I dug the music so much, a combination of one of my fav rappers with one of my fav bands, that I went online to find out more about the artist behind the tracks. To my surprise, there was a whole album worth of music available for free on the interwebs. The artist behind the music goes by Minty Fresh Beats and you can find the album here.

Mash-ups can be an iffy thing. When Napster first came out, I downloaded a whole bunch of tracks, which I thought were cool at the time, but upon further listen, sounded like crap. Then Danger Mouse came out and combined Jay-Z's Black Album with The Beatles White Album and raised the bar for mash-ups forever. The Jigga Man has certainly had more than his fair share of mash-up treatments and even released his own authorized mash-up album with Linkin Park.

Jaydiohead certainly holds its own. "Dirt Off Your Shoulder" mashed with "Paranoid Android"? Check. "Karma Police" with "No Hook"? Nailed it. And the most unusual: "Never Change" combined with the virtually unknown "Gagging Order," a Radiohead song featuring only Thom Yorke's vocals and an acoustic guitar, available only on a limited release Japanese EP. If you are into Hova, or even Radiohead, you have to check this out.

And also worth mentioning, I finally downloaded The Decemberists Always The Bridesmaid singles. The songs on these A/B-side singles didn't fit quite right on their new album coming out later this year, but The Decemeberists still thought were worth getting out there. And the music is sweet. Not earth-shattering material by any means, but enough to get the fans, including myself, excited for the new CD. However, in what could be nothing more than a coincidence that I am making up in my head, one of the B-sides is a track entitled "O New England." Hmmm, what other Portland-area musicians has been writing songs about that ol' Boston area? Could it be none other than local favorites, The Dimes? Why yes it could! You can download a whole bunch of demos featuring the people, places, and history of New England at The Dimes blog here. I don't want to suggest anything, but I have seen members of The Decemberists in the audience at Dimes concerts, so you can make your own conclusions. :)