Last month, composer and music theorist Nolan Stolz made me aware of this mashup by DJ Cummerbund:
The track starts out with the familiar jagged intro to Rush's "YYZ." (The introduction to "YYZ," named for the call letters of the Toronto airport, is a rhythmic rendition of those three letters in Morse code.)
But along with the entrance of the electric guitar, comes a surprising female voice: Kelis. She begins to rap about how her milkshake brings all the boys to the yard, in her characteristic sing-songy style.
But instead of the quadruple meter that we're familiar with:
Kelis's vocals have been noticeably altered so that she is singing in unison with Rush!
It sounds just about as weird as you'd expect. Her emphasis is on the wrong syllables, and the rhythm is jarring and unnatural for a rapper. This isn't one of those mashups that's impressive because of the wonderful fit between the vocals and the instrumentals, and it certainly doesn't sound like a mainstream pop song. But that isn't DJ Cummerbund's goal here. He is counting on listeners recognizing both source songs, noticing the terrible fit, and laughing because he did it anyway. The funniest part is when he fits Kelis's lyrics, "My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard and it's better than yours," into the quick line of thirty-second notes by the guitar right after the intro. He has to audibly speed up each word to make them all fit. It's totally ridiculous, but extremely creative, and I think I love it!