Below is the review for...
VARIOUS ARTISTS The Best Mashups in the World Ever Are from San Francisco
(No Label) **1/2
The novelty of bastardizing one fully formed, popular song with an aborted form of another--i.e., the mash-up--sometimes wears a little thin. Just because you can stick some Kylie in our New Order, or whatever, doesn't necessarily mean the results retain their pop-culture cachet the 10th time you chew them over. Bad mash-ups are threatening to turn the spoiled flavor of electroclash. Of course there are exceptions--The Grey Album's now-classic "99 Problems" hybrid underscores Jay-Z's hard-knuckled rap with manic Beatles rock. But at this point it's getting tougher to find songs that truly push past the kitsch.
Even though the expiration date on much of The Best Mashups in the World Ever Are from San Francisco feels five minutes ago halfway into the disc, there are, if nothing deeper, a couple dance-floor goodies to be had here--mostly because they hit the nostalgia button hard. Bay Area mash-up
DJ Tripp's "Maniacs Emerge" pits Flashdance against Fischerspooner, while Jay-R's Kelis-Car crash "Milkshake It Up" gives the Harlem hiphop queen new-wave reign. And remix master Matt Hite delivers a stinging double bitch-slap on "Fuck My Bitch Up." But there's also a lotta filler; Lil' Kim's perversions are prime candidates for a cheap chop-and-paste job--but with "Brick House"? Though planting the Scissor Sisters inside George Michael's "Faith" takes subtle strikes at the similarities between both, you wish the thrills lasted longer. Party Ben's "Another One Bites da Funk" at least complicates the textures a bit via Daft Punk. Overall, though, The Best Mashups feels too little too late for its hyperbolic title, but for mindless hip candy, you could do worse than, say, Ice Cube banging the Clash. JENNIFER MAERZ
