The Grey Album

The Grey Album, from Danger Mouse, is a unique blend of old and new: a collection of songs from Jay-Z’s latest (and final) effort, The Black Album, put to new beats created entirely from The Beatle’s White Album. I’ve been listening to this record for a couple of weeks now, but felt compelled to write about it today after reading that it was receiving a lot of understandable heat. Danger Mouse was not given permission by Jay-Z or the Beatles to make the record, and as a result, was served with cease-and-desist letters from EMI last week.

I usually don’t post about music because, as those that know me are well aware, I’m a music nut and if I were to write about all of my musical interests I would be forced to drop out of law school. Literally. Couple that with the fact that I essentially ‘gave up’ on hip-hop a few years ago (admit it, most of it is incredibly boring and repetitive any more, though there are some exceptions) and it’s a wonder that I posted at all. Notwithstanding the fact that hip-hop (at least as an honest story-telling medium) fell from grace years ago (though sales charts and the Grammys would have you believe differently), this is the first record of its kind and I felt that it deserved some mention here. You can find this album in its entirety (192kbps, 44.1kHz, true stereo), here, here and here, among many other places across the net.

While I’m talking about music in this post, I have to make mention of two records that I’ve been listening to constantly: The Flaming Lips’ Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (2002 top ten) and The Shins’ Chutes Too Narrow (2003 top ten). Get them. Love them.  🙂