Evening all.
Well it's been hard to resist uploading this one since it's inception about 2 weeks ago, but a promise is a promise is a guarantee with Andy. Yep - an exclusive it was made as and an exclusive it remained until now when it is available for all.
This one had a bit of background to it. It came about as a result of a pure fluke. I have a 12 CD multichanger in the car (my pride and joy!) and I generally go through the full 12 every week with the amount of driving I tend to do. Anyway, a few weeks back, I was struggling to think of CDs I really wanted to hear and was going through the CD cabinet that hasn't been opened in like 12 months or something. In there, I saw the fourth Prodigy album, "Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned". Now I was a huge Prodigy fan back in the day, and my collection of Prodigy singles is my pride and joy. Admittedly though, the last few years has seen them change their direction, which is great, but I was so not keen on the last few tracks coming out. Anyway, I bought the album eons ago, and I think I've listened to it maybe twice. Hmmm....time to give it another chance. Well, the singles from the album still do it for me, but I thought the rest of the album was ok but nothing amazing. But then track 11 kicked in. "The Way It Is". I'd forgotten all about it. From the first few bars, I recognised the Thriller bassline, twisted out of recognition. The angular beats and synth distorting the bassline out of recognition, before kicking back in. I was smitten straight away with the track, and pretty much there and then I thought, I gotta make a Michael Jackson mash with this.
An hour or two later after getting in, and with very little joy in finding a Thriller 'pella, I experimented with the Jacko 'pellas I did have (about 7 or 8). A drag and drop later, and Bad was cued up, virtually fitting like a dream straight away, with very little tempo change required.
But strange things happen and somehow this ended up sitting on the desktop for some time, and my enthusiasm waning, I moved on to experiment with other things (along with Killa Katie - see below).
But then 2 weeks or so later, after I'd put this to the back of my mind, Scott Johnson of the awesome Ramdom Thoughts podcast dropped me a line asking if I had time, to put together an exclusive for the show. I was honoured! Made me feel I was finally starting to get somewhere. But what track to make? Well, with a half finsished tune sitting there, I revisited it. I chopped up the vocal a little, and moved it around to try and vary it up, but something was missing.
In the meantime, I was pratting around looking for Thriller pictures on t'interweb to make the cover (a little prematurely, admittedly) - I can't tell you how many times I watched that Thriller video whilst working on this project, but I'll never get tired of it. Not getting much joy with decent pics, I decided to get on SLSK to see what I could find Thriller related. Well, what a treat. The original demo acapella of the Vincent Price rap from Thriller with the missing second verse!
Immediately, I was back on track with this - I was in love with the idea of getting this done properly and finished. The Vincent vocal begins with a cool little snippet of producer getting the show on the road, and intros from Michael and Vincent. Brill. Chop those up and drop them around the place a bit. The silky smooth, legendary voice of Vincent fitted so well over those jagged beats it was a no brainer. A few samples of the obligatory Michael "Wooos" and "Shamone" later, with some widdly sweeping phase on the vocals and some of the beats and there it was. I don't know what it is but I can't stop listening to this track.
Hell, I even came up with a decent title for it for once.
I sent it to Scott and he gave me such great feedback, featuring it on the excellent show #70 as an exclusive. It was so hard to not post this early though, that's how proud of it I am.
So for whacking a random CD I hadn't really thought of in to my car, I've come up with probably my 2nd fave track I've made (Killa Katie is still my fave....download it if you haven't already!) and I hope a danceloor filler/thriller
Big thanks to Scott, for making me pull my finger out and do this properly. And also, big thanks to John Sakamoto of The Star in Toronto for making my week by including Killa Katie in his anti-hit list top 10 - finally, the recognition I craved! check out the mini-review at
http://www.thestar.com/News/GTA/article/249256
Fingers crossed, a lot more material heading this way soon - keep 'em peeled
No Thrills Attached
The Prodigy vs. Michael Jackson vs. Vincent Price
(The Way It Is vs. Bad vs. Thriller)
Download page here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?9gvj0tmm1um
And if all else fails, get your thrills here:
http://www.zshare.net/audio/3412183b2f5bd9/
1 comment:
Glad to see you've posted this to your website Andy. You know my feelings towards this mash - love it mate, and thank you once again for the exclusive. If you ever want another exclusive on the show - you only have to let me know mate - no worries there. It's always a pleasure playing your work. Things can only get better for you - now that you are starting to get publicity else where on the net. One thing I would say - please don't worry about how long it takes you to put out a new mash. It's all about quality mate - not quantity.
Keep up the good work.
Bye for now.
Scott
http://ramdomthoughts.co.uk/
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