It’s not that strange these days to look back only four or five years and still feel a creeping sense of nostalgia previously reserved for things decades in the past. Dangermouse does this for me like nothing Johnny Carson does for your Dad.

Remember 2004? When mashups didn’t saturate every nook and cranny of the internet and the ideas behind the songs actually created new meaning? Dangermouse’s landmark mashup album The Grey Album – mixing The Beatles white album and Jay Z’s Black album – was really the beginning of the end for mashups in a way. These days everyone with a pirated copy of ableton live will throw together any indie hits they please and get away with it.

By contributing to the massive popularization of the mashup genre, Dangermouse pulled a fast one on us all by staying away from the monster he helped create. Interestingly enough, the grey album is up for donwload on Illegal Art’s website which shows ties with probably the most popular mashup dj ever, GirlTalk. Now he’s one half of Gnarls Barkley and producing albums by MF DOOM, Gorrillaz and Beck.

Think of this post and these songs as a Dangermouse retrospective so far. Minus Beck just because I’m not on that boat.

Gnarls Barkley – Surprise (zshare)

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Zero 7 feat. MF DOOM – Somersault [Danger Mouse Remix] (zshare)

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Jay Z vs. The Beatles – Public Service Announcement [Dangermouse Remix] (zshare)

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