"I intended for it to be for friends and for people who knew my stuff. I figured it would get passed around, and it would be this little
underground thing, but it kind of took off on its own"
1
After eight consecutive summers of creating Hip-Hop history, Brooklyn rapper Jay-Z decided to call it history. Jay, better known as Shawn Carter to his mother, took pen to pad for the first time as he constructed The Black Album. Meant to be his last and final album, TBA combines Jay-Z divine flow with a myriad of different producers, ranging from the vogue and chic, The Neptunes, to legendary Hip-Hop pioneer and rock producer Rick Rubin. He intended the album to be loosely based on his life before his first album hit the streets. What he did not intend was to stir up one of the most virulent debates in music.
Jay-Z must have known that this would be his most scrutinized album, as he wrote the lyrics to the tracks instead of his normal process of chilling with the beat and then spitting his flows. When he released an a capella version of the cd, he was unaware of how it would be used. Since the release of this version of The Black Album, several DJ's have tried their best to create new music to go with Jay's words. The Red Album contained dub, ragga and dancehall beats to compliment Jay-Z's flow. The DoubleBlack album combined Jay's lyrical sweetness with the distorted aggression of Metallica's own The Black Album. Yet neither of these remixes received anywhere near the press and intrigue of DJ Danger Mouse's offering, The Grey Album.
Combining samples taken solely from The Beatles' The White Album, Danger Mouse fused the music of The Beatles with Jay's vocals, creating a combination of rap, rock and techno. Having heard the "forbidden" disc several times, all I can say is god bless the software that Danger Mouse used to create this near masterpiece.
Danger Mouse got his first inkling to start such an endeavor when he heard of the a capella cd, however, D-Mouse did not want to use any of his own beats for a remix album. In an interview with AllHipHop.com, Danger Mouse said that "I was sitting here listening to the Beatles and it just hit me all of a sudden, I was listening to the White Album and ... it just kind of hit me all at once."2 Within two grueling weeks of hard work, Danger Mouse had gone through The White Album and taken a sample of every drum hit, guitar chord and bass pluck. Every sound on The Grey Album, besides Jigga's voice, obviously, came from The White Album in some way shape or form. On many of the tracks, Danger Mouse stuck to just one song to sample from. Legal hype and digital mastery aside, one thing remains to be answered "Is it any good???"
- Public Service Announcement:
Originally track 10 on The Black Album, Danger Mouse fittingly places this song first on The Grey Album as it is a good introduction to Hova. Slices from Long Long Long are used to form the jangly guitar and straight-forward beat underneath Jay-Z's vocals. D-Mouse's work is on point, making it seem like Jay's spitting over the beat Danger Mouse manufactured. Not bangin', but just plain good.
- What More Can I Say:
I admit, I love Kanye West. I love every piece of music that escapes from his head, but Danger Mouse gives him a run for his brand new Roc-A-Fella bling. This time taking samples from the somber, yet incredibly beautiful, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Mouse juxtaposes heavy, rough bass hits with a melodic, staccato piano line.
- Encore:
I can listen to this song for days. Gone is the mediocre beat and in its place is a driving beat, highlighted by cries of Oh Yeah, taken from Savoy Truffle. That is, until 1:21 mark of the song when the beat switches to a lick that sounds like Danger Mouse did no work and just placed some of The Beatles' music underneath Jay's words. The music is actually snippets of Glass Onion. Danger mouse also shows off his production skills on this one as he drops the beat out at different times in the first segment, enforcing the sound and flow of Jay's rhymes.
- December 4th:
This track had to take time to grow on me. I still skip it on occasion. It's not Danger Mouse's fault that Just Blaze's production on the original was immaculate. More jangly guitar highlights this track, this time it's taken from Mother Nature's Son. To me, it seems that Danger Mouse didn't do enough to differentiate Jay's raps and his mother's spoken memories of Jay's youth. However, Jay-Z's fading voice as he repeats "If you can't respect that /// your whole perspective is whack /// maybe you'll love me when I fade to black" is an obvious, but nice touch to this song.
- 99 Problems:
DJ Danger Mouse had several reservations about this track. He knew right away what Beatles track he would use to provide the beat to this remix. Originally a noise-fest mastered by Rick Rubin, D-Mouse pulls from the semi-scandalous Helter Skelter to craft the beats. While the hectic beat he devised bummed me out a bit, I've come to grips with the fact that Rubin's original sound fit the song so much, it was ok for Danger Mouse to do something similar. Distorted guitar and bass push 99 Problems along, along with some strange ratchety noise, which only adds to the frantic sound Danger Mouse created.
- Dirt Off Your Shoulder:
One of my favorite tracks off of the original mix, Danger Mouse chops up John Lennon's ode to his mother, Julia. And when I say chopped up, I mean it. The intro is a short 10 second sample, then what follows sounds more like techno or drum and bass than Hip-Hop, let alone the song he sampled from. Chopped, staccato guitars, thumping, quickly repeating bass as well as shuffling snare hits provide the undercurrent to this former club hit. While not as pounding and bassy as Timbaland's original, Danger Mouse still creates a fat groove which Jay-Z's words can easily flow over. It's perhaps the best song on The Grey Album and always makes me turn the volume up.
- Moment of Clarity:
Just as I love Kanye, I must admit my love for Mr. Mathers as well. While Eminem is just coming into his own as a producer, what Danger Mouse does on this track is utterly delightful. He grabbed a distorted guitar chord, fuzzed it out even more and placed it over a rolling bass line. As with many other songs on this album, the groove is created mostly from the bass drums and the guitar sample. This is another track where it seems like Hov is spitting over the music Danger Mouse created. His beats fit the song incredibly well. According to the good Vandewal, Danger Mouse uses a sample of Happiness is a Warm Gun to create the beat for this song.
- Change Clothes:
And go away! I could not stand The Neptunes's production on the original. I understand that it was the lead single but I still found it too poppy and silly for my tastes, it might have been Pharrell's horrible falsetto, but I digress. Gone is the annoying cymbal/triangle/cow bell nosise and in its place is what sounds like a Hurdy Gurdy. This bouncy sound pushes the track along, as the drums don't lock onto the groove like they do with other tracks on the album. Danger Mouse took samples for this track from Piggies.
- Allure:
This was another song on the original mix I found myself skipping a lot. Dear Prudence receives the Danger Mouse ginsu treatment for this track, providing a solid groove devoid of Neptunian influences. However, this track still fails to stand out as something special.
- Justify My Thug:
Justify this remix! As we return to L'album noir, or grey as the case may be, we find that Rocky Raccoon fell into the chipper/shredder again, even if you might not be able to tell. After listening to such great remixes of Dirt Off My Shoulder and Moment of Clarity, this track just seems to be filler. Repetitive guitar chords and fuzzed bass drums provide the meat of this track, as they do for most of the album. Nothing too special here, these aren't the droids you're looking for, move along.
- Lucifer (I think):
I think this is a remix of Lucifer. It's hard to tell when all the vocals are backwards! This track is great because of the haunted feel created by the bass and the sporadic, non-linear drum line. It seems like it was made for more of a suspense/horror soundtrack than an actual album. Or maybe it was his ode to Paul being dead? Paul's health aside, Danger Mouse pulls from Revolution 9 to create his chilling sound.
- My First Song:
Danger Mouse, what the fuck did you do? My First Song was my favorite track off of Jigga's swan song, and I don't know what Danger Mouse did, but I can tell you he didn't do it right. Jay-Z's flow on this track is unlike any other I've heard before. I guess this uniqueness made it hard for Danger Mouse to provide something good for a beat. Seemingly random drum hits combined with a ghostly vocal line run underneath Jay's rhymes, which sound incredibly out of place and off beat. I can hardly listen to this track, which is a tragic shame considering some of the magic that Danger Mouse had worked elsewhere on this album.
The one thing that surprised me about the Grey Album is how clear Jay's vocals were. Not that I couldn't understand them in the original mix, they seemed to stand out more on Danger Mouse's mix. The Mouse recorded over 200+ hours of work over 2 and a half weeks to create this CD. Beyond the copyright issues embodied within it, The Grey Album is still a good album that stands out in more ways than one. I recommend firing up your not-so-legal file sharing programs and having a stab at this highly bootlegged album, as that's the only way you can get a copy.
"I’m just worried whether Jay-Z will like it, or whether
Paul and
Ringo will like it. If they say that they hate it, and that I messed up their music, I think I’ll put my tail between my legs and go."
3
Sources
1: Jay-Z, Beatles album: An unauthorized Web hit - http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/internet/02/25/music.greyalbum.ap/
2: Danger Mouse Interview -http://www.allhiphop.com/features/?ID=741
http://www.allhiphop.com/features/?ID=748
Grey Album Producer Danger Mouse Explains How He Did It - http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1485693/20040311/story.jhtml
3: The New Yorker : The Talk of the Town - The Mouse That Mixed - http://newyorker.com/talk/content/?040209ta_talk_greenman\
Jay-Z, the Beatles meet in 'Grey' area, Renee Graham - http://www.boston.com/news/globe/living/articles/2004/02/10/jay_z_the_beatles_meet_in_grey_area/
Danger Mouse :: The Grey Album :: DJDangerMouse.com, Dan Mennella - http://www.rapreviews.com/archive/2004_03_greyalbum.html
All quotations are spoken by DJ Danger Mouse, and taken from where the numbers say they come from. I don't have a copy of The White Album (blasphemy, I know) So I had to take other people's word on where the samples come from, this is also why some samples are missing. If I messed up anywhere, please don't hesitate to let me know.
Thanks go to
Spork_Avenger and those dude I partied with
last night for the poop on the Lucifer sample.