Hip to be the Sandman

A couple of weeks ago, a friend posted this fantastic genre-clashing mashup on social media:

It's by prolific mashup artist Bill McClintock, and it's an excellent example of how this genre has so much room for humor and creativity. A traditional A + B mashup, it combines the vocals from Metallica's "Enter Sandman" with the instrumentals from "Hip to be Square" by Huey Lewis and the News. McClintock titled the new track "Hip to be the Sandman" by James Hetfield and the News, mashing up both the titles and the artists.

The News's instrumental have not been altered at all - the introduction of the mashup is identical to that of their original track, without key or tempo adjustment. At 0:14, slightly before we expect to hear Huey Lewis's familiar "I used to be a renegade," we encounter the surprising growl of James Hetfield, demanding for us to "Say your prayers, little one!" Whoa.

In its original context, that line was preceded an entire minute of that famous guitar riff:

"Enter Sandman"'s emphasis on the tritone, distorted electric guitars, and insistent drumming prepared us for Hetfield's gravely voice and nightmarish lyrics. When placed over the News's bouncy, post-new wave pop bassline, horn section, and organ, however, this vocal line becomes comically out of place. The "heavy thoughts" and the "beast under your bed" cease to be frightening when they are seen in the bright lights of their new timbral context.

The vocals are harmonically recontextualized, as well. Hetfield's voice has been sped up slightly, to match Huey Lewis's tempo, but neither recording has been transposed, as both happen to already have a tonal center of E. However, McClintock did alter a single pitch from "Enter Sandman" to make it fit better in its new harmonic context: Hetfied's voice comes in on a G in the original track, which fits over the E5 (open fifth/power chord) in the guitar. "Hip to be Square," however, is in the major mode. So McClintock changed the G to a G-sharp, to avoid clashing thirds.

"Enter Sandman" - vocals and chords

"It's Hip to be the Sandman" - vocals and chords

My favorite mashups tend to involve harmonic recontextualization (with or without slight pitch adjustments); it never ceases to amaze me just how much a harmonic underpinning influences the sound of a melody line, and how substantially different that melody can sound when it's been reharmonized. Despite my years' of study, it always feels a little bit like magic.

The fact that neither of these songs has been transposed, and that both are close to their original tempo, add to the greatness of this particular track: mashups where this is the case tend to sound more "natural," like they were mean to fit together, which is generally appreciated by listeners. (N. B. There are also heavily edited mashups that work well and are praised highly, but these tend to have a different aesthetic.) Another innate similarity that a colleague pointed out to me is the vocal timbres of Lewis and Hetfield. I referred to Hetfield's voice as "gravely," but that adjective could easily be used to describe Lewis's voice, as well. It seems plausible that Huey Lewis could cover a Metallica song, or at least, sing one at a karaoke bar, to good effect, and vice-versa. I've said before that mashups have the potential to reveal hidden similarities between tracks that appear completely unrelated on their surfaces, and perhaps this is yet another example of that.