Is my thirty-seventh mashup intended as pure and innocent Xennial nostalgia over early-'90s television ads and their catchy rock'n'roll parody jingles? Or is it subversive, satirical commentary on consumerist sentiments blatantly aimed at impressionable children? You be the judge!

Now excuse me while I play with my Mattel™ toys, eat some Little Caesars™ pizza, and drink some Coca-Cola™ Classic, Diet Coke™, and SPRITE™!

List of songs™ used in this mashup™:

Keiichi Suzuki and Hirokazu Tanaka - Franky (from "EarthBound")
Unknown Artists - Coca-Cola and Mattel's "Toy Money" Jingle (Parody of "Money (That's What I Want)" by Barrett Strong)
Unknown Artists - Little Caesars' "Pizza Pizza" Jingle (Parody of "Wooly Bully" by Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs)

Very special thanks to Ellie Spectacular, whose utterly sublime mashup "Hot Woman" (an unlikely-but-effective marriage of Roy Orbison's "Oh, Pretty Woman" and the Hot Pockets™ jingle) inspired me to create this piece.

Worldbuilder Mashups

New Age Retro Toy Money (Keiichi Suzuki and Hirokazu Tanaka vs. Various Jingle Writers)

Every classic rock fan knows that 38 is a special number, so I wanted to pull out all the stops for my thirty-eighth mashup and let my creative juices flow like never before. In this seventeen-and-a-half-minute-long compilation, expect the unexpected! Songs you may or may not know! Songs you'll probably like! Songs you probably won't! A dizzying array of emotions! Musical genre combinations you'd never hear in real life! There's only one rule: anything goes.

The centerpiece of this mashup is a serious-sounding, piano-driven instrumental composition I've heard in numerous documentary films and trailers over the years. I wish I knew what it was called so I could list the correct title and artist in the credits below.

Here's a full list of the songs I used here:

Unknown Artist - Unknown Title (production/library music heard in many documentaries and movie trailers)
The Offspring - The Kids Aren't Alright
Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee - Despacito
Lisa Loeb and Nine Stories - Stay (I Missed You)
Snap! - Rhythm Is a Dancer
Donald Glover and Danny Pudi - La Biblioteca (from "Community")
Chaka Demus and Pliers - Murder She Wrote
Timbaland and OneRepublic - Apologize
Avril Lavigne - Keep Holding On
Simply Red - Holding Back the Years
Kansas - Hold On
Wilson Phillips - Hold On
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers - I Won't Back Down
Sam Smith - Stay with Me
Linkin Park - In the End
Gwen Stefani featuring Akon - The Sweet Escape
Avril Lavigne - Complicated
They Might Be Giants - Fingertips
Faith Hill - Breathe
The Cranberries - Zombie
R.E.M. - Orange Crush
Guster - Fa Fa (Never Be the Same Again)
Ariana Grande - One Last Time

Documentarhythm (Luis Fonsi, the Offspring, Avril Lavigne, Linkin Park, Sam Smith, and More!)

My forty-first mashup is meant to be humorous and completely off the wall, while still providing a supply of different songs that sound good together. I got the idea for this mashup while working on my previous one, which incorporated the theme from a TV show I remember fondly from my childhood: the late 1980s animated series "COPS". Around that same time, a different show called "COPS" debuted, although it was a crime documentary reality series. The two programs only had two things in common: their titles, and the fact that their opening music was awesome.

After I produced a few serious, music-driven mashups, I thought I'd return to my silly, Internet meme-laden, Neil Cicierega-style roots. The connections between the music pieces in the third act may be unconventional, but they make perfect sense if you think about it. The COPS cartoon's opening music has the same chord progression as "Hit the Road Jack", a song in which Ray Charles sings "What you say?" That line is also spoken in the infamously poorly translated video game "Zero Wing", in which the main antagonist is an alien cyborg named Cats. And the Gregory Brothers once created a particularly memorable Auto-Tuned remix of a cat-loving woman's eHarmony video.

Here's a full list of the songs and sound clips I used here:

Shuki Levy and Haim Saban - COPS Theme
News Breakfast - Rick Astley Interview
Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up
Robot Chicken - TV Static Sound
Mint Mobile Commercial - "That's Not Right"
Inner Circle - Bad Boys (Theme from That Other Show Called COPS)
The Gregory Brothers - Can't Hug Every Cat
Yoegirt - "That's Even Worse"
The Laziest Men on Mars - Invasion of the Gabber Robots
Ray Charles - Hit the Road Jack
The Simpsons - Various Voice Clips

COPS: The Lost Episodes (Cartoon Mashup with Rick Astley, Inner Circle, and More!)

As a card-carrying Xennial, I can only vaguely remember the '80s. But it sure had some great advertising jingles in my opinion, especially when they mimicked the popular songs of the day. My forty-seventh mashup is a sweet and sticky mixture of two jingles for competing candy brands, Caramello and Whatchamacallit. It only lasts about thirty seconds, but is designed to loop infinitely. I made this as a sneak preview of a later mashup, which is much longer and a full-scale salute to '80s rock and pop.

The Chocolate War (Caramello vs. Whatchamacallit: Dueling Jingles)

It's Episode 26 of this podcast!
In this episode, Dan discussed the 26th minutes of Spookies and Ghosthouse. Please, listen and enjoy.

A Spookie Minute Spent In A Ghosthouse 26: A Minute By Minute Podcast

Werewolves! Look Out!
In Episode 26, Dan discusses the 26th minutes of Howling 2 and Howling: New Moon Rising.
Please, listen and enjoy.

Howling 2 & 7 Too 26: A Minute By Minute Podcast

Hi there!

Ladies and gentlemen, may I present... mashup number FIFTY!

It's been fun producing so many bizarre, eclectic, and hopefully memorable musical compilations, and I'm particularly proud of how this one came out. It's my longest one by far, at a little over 26 minutes, and its title is a parody of the name of the award-winning Broadway musical "Hadestown".

I used a mixture of chart-topping hits, lesser-known songs from movies and TV shows, and even a few pieces of post-1980s video game music which have that New Wave spirit. (Who would have thought a Disney-themed version of "Tetris" for the Nintendo 64 would contain some of the funkiest music known to humankind?)

If this extravaganza makes you say "woo-hoo" like Big Pig's Sherine Abeyratne, then I've done my job. ;)

Here's a full list of the songs I used here:

Hitoshi Sakimoto - Opening and Ending (from "Hourai High School Adventures")
Betty Boo - Where Are You Baby (from "Career Opportunities")
Richard Marx - Right Here Waiting
Prince and the Revolution - When Doves Cry
Wang Chung - Everybody Have Fun Tonight
George Clinton - You're Thinkin' Right (from "The Tracey Ullman Show")
Big Pig - Breakaway (from "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure")
The Fixx - One Thing Leads to Another
Peter Gabriel - Big Time
Huey Lewis and the News - Slammin'
Huey Lewis and the News - Hip to Be Square
Power Tool - Two Heads Are Better than One (from "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure")
Masato Koda - Donald Duck's Theme (from "Magical Tetris Challenge")
R.E.M. - Pop Song '89
David Bowie - Let's Dance
Dire Straits - Walk of Life
New Order - Blue Monday
Dead or Alive - You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)
Jerry Martin - Yea Yai Yo (also known as "Rock Radio 3" from "The Sims")
Bone Symphony - One Foot in Front of the Other (from "Revenge of the Nerds")
Unknown Artists - Whatchamacallit Jingle
Yello - Oh Yeah (from "Ferris Bueller's Day Off")
Tsugutoshi Goto - Night of the Fauvists
Lionel Richie - Dancing on the Ceiling
New Order - Bizarre Love Triangle

Eightiestown (Prince, Wang Chung, The Fixx, Peter Gabriel, David Bowie, New Order, and More!)

As many of you may know, I come from a video game music background, and I'm especially fond of classic role-playing game soundtracks. One of my favorite composers and chief musical influences is Hitoshi Sakimoto, who contributed the orchestral scores to such classic RPGs as "Final Fantasy Tactics" and "Ogre Battle".

One of Mr. Sakimoto's lesser-known games, which was only released in Japan, is called "Hourai Gakuen no Bouken" (roughly translated as "Hourai High School Adventures"). Although I don't speak a lot of Japanese and I've never played that game, I absolutely adore its soundtrack, especially the piece "Opening and Ending". On a whim, I decided to use it as the opening and ending (natch) of my fiftieth mashup, "Eightiestown", and overlay it with excerpts from various pop and rock hits of the 1980s.

Because Eightiestown's looping finale is one of my favorite parts of the 26-minute-long mashup, I figured I would release it as a stand-alone file. How many of its source songs do you recognize?

Here's a full list of the songs I used here:

Hitoshi Sakimoto - Opening and Ending (from "Hourai High School Adventures")
Bone Symphony - One Foot in Front of the Other (from "Revenge of the Nerds")
Betty Boo - Where Are You Baby (from "Career Opportunities")
Richard Marx - Right Here Waiting
Lionel Richie - Dancing on the Ceiling
New Order - Bizarre Love Triangle
Wang Chung - Everybody Have Fun Tonight
The Fixx - One Thing Leads to Another

Eightiestown Finale (Bone Symphony, Betty Boo, Richard Marx, Lionel Richie, and More!)

One of my introductions to the role-playing video game genre was "Ultima: Exodus" for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). Although it had a lot of interesting ideas, they honestly could have been implemented a lot better. It was very much an early attempt at a console RPG, and had numerous kinks that needed to be worked out, but one of its best points was its music. The game's developers somehow managed to hire the then-popular jazz fusion and progressive rock musician Tsugutoshi Goto to compose the chiptune soundtrack.

Upon the game's release, Goto also released a stand-alone album called "Ultima Mix" which contained versions of each piece from the soundtrack performed with a rock band. Two selections from this album were reimagined as lyrical songs, including Lord British's theme, "Hitomi no Knife" (roughly translated as "Your Eyes Are Like Knives"), which featured the singer Noriko Hidaka. In my fifty-first mashup, both versions of this song are played on top of each other, creating an unusual meld of chiptune and live music.

Japanese-British Relations (Remix of Tsugutoshi Goto and Noriko Hidaka's "Hitomi no Knife")

Take the Journey Back on this weeks Energy Express (21.10.21).

This week - your 'heart-warming' answers to the 'Killer Question', songs that 'Should Have Been A Hit', another one hit wonder gets inducted into 'The One & Only Hall Of Fame', I celebrate the 50th Birthday of Dannii Minogue - with my Dannii Megamix Mash-Up Medley and head to the 90's for this weeks 'Throwback Thursday'. Also, the 'Energy Playlist' is packed with music from Backstreet Boys, N'SYNC, Stacey Q, Lonnie Gordon, Adele, Spice Girls, Sinitta, Divina De Campo and sooo much more!

Go on.....FEEL THE ENERGY!!!!!

Bazz's Energy Express: Journey Back (21/10/21)

Listen LIVE to the Energy Express, EVERY Thursday at 6pm, on Phoenix FM 96.7 
Email: energyexpress@outlook.com

A podcast dedicated to Short-Lived TV shows. Episode by episode discussion of shows that never got enough love. And, eventually, we'll cover Supertrain.

I'm an amateur composer, arranger, and music producer from the USA. I specialize in mashups and retro video game soundtracks.

If you can't wait for Neil Cicierega's next "Mouth" album, give my mashups a try and hopefully you'll like them almost as much as you like his.

New tracks tagged #1980s