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Danger Mouse, The Grey Album, Bootleg [2004]
I pray I'm forgiven
For every bad decision I made
Every sister I played
Cause I'm still paranoid to this day
And it's nobody fault I made the decisions I made
This is the life I chose or rather the life that chose me
If you can't respect that, your whole perspective is wack
Maybe you'll love me when I fade to black.
-- Jay-Z, "December 4th"
*****
By now, everybody knows about The Grey Album. The thing is, not everyone has actually heard the record, since it was never--and will never be--officially released. Brian Burton, AKA Danger Mouse, had been kicking around the fringes of the music world for years before he put this thing together. In one fell swoop, it made his rep, leading to Danger Doom, Gnarls Barkley, and production work for the Gorillaz and the Rapture, among others.
The concept is simple: Combine Jay-Z's Black Album (2003) with the Beatles' White Album (1968). Brilliant. Well, I have a confession to make. Up until now, I was familiar with exactly one Jay-Z track, "99 Problems," and that's only because it's on the Mark Romanek DVD. Yeah, I realize that makes me the lamest of the lame, but my taste in hip-hop runs towards the indie/alternative stuff. That said, I know the Beatles. Who doesn't? So, I find it easiest to evaluate this recording from a pop-rock perspective.
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This brings us to Rick Rubin-produced slammer "99 Problems," pretty much the polar opposite of the track that precedes it. This jam still sounds more like Rubin than Danger, as the latter stitches Jay-Z's rap to the guitar line from "Helter Skelter" and some big-ass beats (according to the AMG, Rubin swiped those beats from Billy Squier). It's the logical successor to those Aerosmith/Run-DMC and Public Enemy/Anthrax rap-metal mash-ups of yore. If not for EMI's legal team, this could've been released as a single, too.
On track six, "Dirt Off Your Shoulder," Danger Mouse slices and dices "Julia" into such tiny slivers that I could barely recognize it.
I had an even harder time identifying the Beatles songs in the remaining tracks: "Moment of Clarity," "Change Clothes," "Allure," "Justify My Thug," "Interlude," and "My 1st Song."
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