As you've probably heard by now, Dangermouse's "Grey Album" is a cut'n'shut of Jay-Z and The Beatles that's exposed the panicky, muddled thinking of the music business about sampling and downloading.
Originally planned for a tiny release, Dangermouse's hybrid of "The Black Album" and "The White Album" was stamped on by The Beatles' label, EMI. The censorship, however, proved to be disastrous. Leaked to the internet, "The Grey Album" has been downloaded hundreds of thousands of times and become one of the most discussed albums of 2004.
There's no arguing about the cultural impact of "The Grey Album". And it's hard to knock the audacity of Dangermouse, both for taking on The Beatles megalith and imposing such rigorous parameters on his work: every single sound here is drawn from the two source albums. As a piece of conceptual art, it's admirable.
As a piece of music, though, "The Grey Album" is more problematic. Dangermouse is a decent producer, as his Lex album with Jemini proved last year. But he can't seem to decide whether he wants to make a straightforward hip-hop remix of Jay-Z's tunes, quirky sampladelia like DJ Steinski or Coldcut, or an avant-garde project in the vein of plunderphonic composers John Oswald and Negativland. A lot of the time, he falls awkwardly between the three camps.
Dangermouse's biggest difficulty, perhaps, is his reliance on Jay-Z's raps. Hov's magnificent rhyming style means that he always bounces off and interacts with his backing tracks. Ripping him out of context highlights his melodic invention, which Dangermouse rarely complements in a satisfactory way. Occasionally, he gets in the right areas. The version of "Encore", driven along by guitar loops from "Glass Onion", is striking and unfussy, and "Change Clothes"/"Piggies" isn't bad, replacing the Neptunes' featherlight track with glassy, empathetic harpsichord.
More often, the good ideas are obliterated by Dangermouse's penchant for over-complexity. It's as if he's so dazzled by the riches at his disposal that he can't bear to leave anything out. "The Grey Album" may have made his name, but you suspect rappers of Jay-Z's quality would be wary of hiring him as a producer, for fear of their tracks being cluttered and gimmicky.
And while "The Grey Album" might have alerted the world to the musical riches available free online, there are much better things to spend a day downloading. "The Black Album", say. Or even "The White Album", if you can find it. Smart move, EMI.
