Gray Album is a mashup album by Danger Mouse, released in 2004. It mixes a cappella rapper Jay-Z Black Album version with a sample from The Beatles' LP The Beatles , commonly known as "The White Album". The Gray Album gained fame when EMI tried to halt its distribution despite project approval from Jay-Z and two surviving Beatles, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr.
Video The Grey Album
History
Danger Mouse created The Gray Album as a trial project aimed at a limited release of 3,000 copies in February 2004. While Danger Mouse never asked permission to use the Beatles material, Jay-Z's acappella recording, though copyrighted, released commercially for the purpose of encouraging mashups and remixes. A rumor around the album resulted in wider Internet distribution and media attention garnering glowing reviews in the Feb. 9, 2004 edition of The New Yorker . Gray Album was named the best album of 2004 by Entertainment Weekly and was ranked # 10 in PIS and Jop, The Village Voice's poll > yearly. [1]
Brian Burton (Danger Mouse) was quoted as saying:
Many people think I picked up some Beatles and, you know, threw some Jay-Z over it or mixed it or circled it, but it was really deconstruction. This is not an easy thing to do. I'm obsessed with the whole project, that's all I'm trying to do, see if I can do this. Once I get into it, I do not think of anything but to solve it. I am stuck on both because I think it will be more challenging and more fun and more statements for what you can do with samples only. This is an art form. It's music. You can do different things, it does not have to be just what some people call stealing. It could be more than that.
Burton also commented long on the creation of The Gray Album in the 2007 Danish documentary Bad Copy of Copies: A documentary about the current state of copyright and culture .
Additional artwork was given for the next pirated version of the album by Justin Hampton after its initial release.
Maps The Grey Album
Legal reactions
The hype surrounding The Gray Album drew the attention of the Beatles copyright holder, EMI, who ordered Danger Mouse and the retailer who brought the album to stop its distribution. The music industry activist group Downhill Battle responded by coordinating Gray Tuesday, an electronic civil disobedience event held on February 24, 2004. The participating website posted a copy of The Gray Album for free download for 24 hours in protest at the Effort EMI to prevent the distribution of mashups on the grounds that sampling is fair use and that compulsory licensing should be given in the same manner as if an artist performs or records a cover version of a song. Hundreds of websites publish events with 170 hosting albums for download. More than 100,000 copies were downloaded on that day only. The legal effect of the protest was minimal; a number of participants received a stop and stop letter from EMI, but no allegations were made in connection with the event.
Reception and inheritance
Danger Mouse was quoted as saying: "It's not supposed to happen... I just sent some songs (and) now online stores sell them and people download them all over the place." Burton denied being a provocateur agent, saying it was "not my intention to violate copyright law." It was my intention to create an art project. "
Cultural critic Sam Howard-Spink observes that "The Gray Album and Gray Tuesday's Story offers a rich case study for the examination of contemporary cultural issues in the context of the copyright war" remix culture and the age of digital networks. "
Jonathan Zittrain, professor of Internet law at Harvard Law School, commented on that
As a matter of pure legal doctrine, Tuesday's protest Gray broke the law, the end of the story. But copyright laws are written with certain industry forms in mind. The development of information technology gives amateur artists and homerecording artists a powerful tool for building and sharing interesting, transformative, and socially valuable art drawn from popular culture pieces. There is no place to put an important cultural change into the current legal regime.
On November 16, 2010, Jay-Z offered his thoughts on the album during an interview on NPR. "I think it's a very powerful album, I support all forms of creativity, and it's a genius idea - to do it, and it triggers so many others like it... I'm honored to be in - you know, quotes , the same song as The Beatles. "
On 11 February 2011, Paul McCartney while commenting on the Beatles' influence and black music gave this assessment as part of a BBC documentary entitled Beatles and Black Music, produced by Vivienne Perry and Ele Beattie.
It's really cool when hip-hop starts, you'll hear references in the lyrics, you're always honored. This is exactly what we did in the beginning - introducing soul black music to a white mass audience. It came full circle. This is, well, cool. When you hear a riff similar to your own, your first feeling is "rip-off." After you forget it, you think, "Look at that, somebody noticed the riff."
McCartney said EMI's reaction: "I do not mind when something like that happens with The Gray Album." But the record company thinks, they put up a commotion, but I'm like, 'Calm friend, this is an award.' "
Track list
All the songs sampled are by The Beatles, unless they are mentioned.
Gray Video
In autumn 2004 Swiss directing team Ramon & amp; Pedro (Laurent Fauchere and Antoine Tinguely) made "The Gray Video" to promote the single "Encore". The black and white video combines clips from The Beatles movie A Hard Day's Night with footage from Jay-Z concerts and new recordings and computer-generated images to create scenes involving John Lennon breakdance and Ringo Starr scratching. Since the original Beatles recording is in the movie and additional recording comes as digital video, image quality differences are seen throughout.
The video begins with The Beatles performing in front of the camera and live viewers. Ringo Starr starts drumming into segments 1:00 to 1:08 "Glass Onion". John Lennon began to sing while George Harrison and Paul McCartney nodded their heads to a knock. After a while, the monitor at the director's booth began to blink, showing Jay-Z's tapped "Encore" scene, and chorus lyrics began to appear behind the group. Starr's drum kit became a set of turntables and mixers and he started scratching while John kept on singing "Oh, yes!" as a sample of "Glass Onion". As "Encore" moves into the second stanza, the rhythm turns into a sample of "Savoy Truffle". A double body of John Lennon starts breakdance, which causes headspin. McCartney and Harrison were replaced by two dancers. The Lennon double backflips off the screen, taking off his wigs. Ringo runs and the light fades to black.
The video was not commercially available, but became popular on the Internet. Due to legal issues surrounding the use of copyrighted material, they are featured with disclaimers created for non-commercial and experimental purposes only.
Remastered version
In November 2012, recording engineer John Stewart produced a remastered version, Remastered Album , after deciding that something was wrong with the original sound, and releasing it for free download.
More Black Album remix
Gray Album is one of many album remix album The Black Album . Producers Kno (from Cunninlynguis) and Kev Brown have released their own color-themed remix album, titled The White Al-bu-lum and The Brown Album . Pete Rock re-mixed Jay-Z's vocals with a tap from their own PeteStrumentals album to be released on Good Foot Records. The Internet Distribution Album The Gray spurred a series of DJs and amateur mashup artists to mix the acappella version of Black Album with various other artists, including Weezer, [2] Madlib, [3] Pavement,
Note
References
External links
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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