I particularly enjoyed the video on the Amen break in this week’s topic of Remixing. The first thing that stood out to me from this video was after listening to the amen break for the first time. My brother plays the drums and one time he tried to teach me a tempo which sounds pretty much exactly like the tempo in the Amen break. I thought it was fascinating to hear all the different songs that have interpreted and remixed the Amen break in their own music. To me, it seemed like these artists were using their creativity to do so. My the end of the video, I came to the conclusion that I agree with Nat Harrison and the judge he quotes, Alex Kozinski, that putting too much restriction on musical culture inhibits the ability to be creative. I thought that “The Grey Album” was extremely creative and I thought it was pretty brave of Danger Mouse to use The Beatles music since it is very protected. The music video showed that a lot of thought and creativity went into it. Lastly I agree with Lessig when she said that remixing “allows many people to create who otherwise would not”.
I completely agree with you when you say that the artists were using their creativity to reinterpret the Amen Break. I also agree with you that “remixing allows people to create who otherwise would not,” I am one of those people. I don’t remix, but I would not create art by most conventional means. Though I do have fun working with already “finished” works. The portion where I do disagree with you is when it comes to The Grey Album. While I will fervently argue that The Beatles and Jay-Z are some of the best artists in their perspective genres, I found what I listened to of The Grey Album to be little more that noise synced up with a common beat. I fully understand that what I’m stating is merely a matter of my humble opinion, but I found very little to be artistic about that.
When I was saying I think the Grey Album is creative, I was talking more specifically about the music video. I agree with you that the song itself isn’t that great. I’ve definitely heard better mashups of the Beatles and I wish more than just “oh yeah” was included in the song. The reason why I like the music video is because it mashes up both of the generations of music. The flashback to the mobs of girls screaming for The Beatles was a great way to start the video. I really like how the entire video is in black and white as well. The small details of the music video were great, like the Jay-Z’s lyrics on the screen behind The Beatles, and how Jay-Z shows up on the old school TVs in the control room. I felt like the two genres of music were blended together well.
I agree with you on your general ideas about copyright and remix. You mentioned that in the video the Amen breakit artists were using their creativity to remix and recreate. I think it is also another kind of innovation based on the conventional means and ideas. Not all complete creation of new ideas are excellent. To remix the traditional and new ideas may sometimes brings us something wonderful. So in modern society, remix has its appropriacy to exist. Like you said ‘putting too much restriction on musical culture inhibits the ability to be creative.’ so we should to some extent encourage the use of remix. As “Remix is the essential part of the RW culture”(Lessig.95), it is also a kind of creation.