From time to time I get curious about what kind of remixes and mashups of my favorite alternative bands are out there on the world wide web. Unfortunately, 90% or more are overly mixed, boosted up dub-step experiments that instead of complimenting the original song they end up ruining it. Luckily for me I do from time to time find real gems that bring to life again old songs that I love.

In this case I have the hardcore/metal guys from Parkway Drive "collaborating" with Taylor Swift! I admit that somehow I have never heard of Taylor Swift's music so I opened up pretty unbiased towards the mash up and ended up replaying it up for many times in a row. Later on, I did check Taylor Swift's song but it felt like she was covering it. This mash up uses a slowed down tempo of the instrumental of " It's Hard to Speak Without a Tongue",by Parkway Drive and pulls down the original song from it's pop high-in-the clouds position to more of a rock-pop state. The chorus is where all the energy is concentrated and I can only wish to hear this at a club where hundreds of people will jump up and down in unison grinning at each other.

I do admire creative people who are not afraid to experiment and actually mash up/ remix songs who appear to have nothing or little in common. I wanted to know how one decides to mix pop with metal and sent a message to the person who mashed up this track. He was kind enough to share his views with me when it comes to music. According to him music is great because of its wide variety of genres. It is perfectly normal for you to prefer one genre over another but that does not make your choice of music any better than the others. The borders of music genres are meant to be crossed not fortified with high walls. "All music is entirely interchangeable" to put it in his words. He wanted to mash up songs which you would not normally hear together. He definitely surprised me with his choice of songs as well as he did it in an excellent way. If you too enjoy this mash up you can check his youtube channel for more.

posted by Alex
April 2013