I've decided not to write about DJ Earworm's "United States of Pop" this year, but instead to write about a (mashup? medley?) that he released this month called "Time of Our Lives: Songs from EVERY YEAR (1970-2020)."
I hesitate to confidently call this either a mashup or a medley, because it has aspects of both. DJ Earworm has chosen one song from each year (except for 1985, which inexplicably gets two songs), isolated an instrumental passage, and stitched them together into a chronological medley. It's interesting that he chose instrumental passages only; this makes it easier to construct from an intelligibility standpoint, as he doesn't have to worry about continuity of lyrics (which he does particularly well in his mashups that include vocals from many different songs, like "United States of Pop"). But I also think that could potentially make it more difficult for listeners to recognize the songs that are being played. Earworm has selected the songs quite carefully, being sure to include a recognizable riff or hook in each two-measure excerpt.
In order to string all of these songs together, some have been transposed and/or adjusted for tempo. The medley is at 97 BPM, so Rod Stewart's "Maggie May" (1971) has been sped up, for instance, and "Layla" by Derek and the Dominoes (1972) has been slowed down. The overall tonal center is D, so, for example, "I'll Be There" by the Jackson 5 (1970) has been transposed down a minor third. All the songs featured from 1970-1999 have D as the tonal center, and the mode shifts back and forth from parallel major to minor. "Games Without Frontiers" by Peter Gabriel (1980) is in major, and "The Stroke" by Billy Squier (1981) is in minor, but the tonic remains the same. However, the song from the year 2000 ("Oops!... I Did it Again" by Britney Spears) makes a more significant tonal shift. Instead of retaining D as tonic, this song retains the D major pitch collection, and instead, shifts tonic to the relative B minor. From 2000-2020, whenever songs in the minor mode are included, they are in the relative minor, rather than the parallel.
Each song gets only two measures of 4/4 time to state its presence, though the two measures often include a pickup, sometimes for as many as three beats (although 2019 and 2020 both get four measures each, to help draw the track to a more gradual close), and there is usually a fairly short vertical overlap between each song and the one that succeeds it. A notable exception is "Loser" by Beck (1994), which is actually played for five whole measures - it comes in early (the riff starts on a downbeat, so this isn't a pickup) on the second measure of 1993 ("Mr. Wendal" by Arrested Development), and can be heard through the entirety of 1995 ("Ants Marching" by Dave Matthews Band) as well. This moment is the closest the track gets to being a true mashup (I think if hard-pressed, I would call it a medley-remix).
I really enjoyed listening to this track, and I think it gives listeners a chance to hear how the "feel" of music has changed in the past fifty years in a quick, neat package.
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