Megan Rhodes

Who is DJ Danger Mouse?

DJ Danger Mouse is an Americanmusician that has also done lots ofsong writing and producing. Hehas collaborated with many peoplesuch as Sparkle Horse, Gorillazand Cee Lo Green to form GnarlsBarkley. His most famous piece ofwork was an album he created in2004 called The Grey Album. Hecombined songs from Jay- Z's TheBlack Album with The BeatlesWhite Album (that wasn't originallycalled The White Album butinherited this name through DJDanger Mouse so he could creategrey).

How is DJ Danger Mouse postmodern?

Charles Jencks has described postmoderism as "fundamentally the electic mixture of any

tradition with that of its immediate past: it is both the continuation of Modernism and its

transcendence". I think this theory can apply to the song 99 Problems found on the

album. The song was created when DJ Danger Mouse produced an album mixing Jay Z's

Black album with The Beatles White album. The Beatles album was released in 1968 but

Jay Z's album was released in 2003 but , many years after. This shows a clear range in

between the past and present. These are combined together to essentially form an

"electric mix" that is postmodern. The song could be seen as 'cool' because it uses

bricolage. It combines two completely different genres, from hip- hop/ rap of the 2000's or

60's pop/ rock. These two combinations shouldn't work but strangely go together well!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Lpxr3smvGcw

DJ Danger Mouse created an album with Sparkle Horse called Dark

Night of the Soul. The album featured singers such as James Mercer of

the Shins, Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips, Gruff Rhys of Super Furry

Animals, Julian Casablancas of the Strokes and Iggy Pop. They

created a website designed for the album. The website consists of

interactive images that look like they have been cut and pasted. These

images could represent DJ Danger Mouse's idea that everything is cut

up and put together- an idea that postmodernists have that everything

is a remix.

This album also got into some legal troubles. He was unable to release

the album because of copyright claims made by record label EMI.

Therefore him and Sparkle Horse decided to release an album case

including all artwork but with a blank CD. However, this CD was able to

be recorded onto, so DJ Danger Mouse 'hinted' that the album could be

downloaded from the internet onto the CD so they'd have their own

copy of the album. This album could be seen as a pastiche to the music

industry because it has sampled or copied songs too much that it has

become ridiculous and DJ Danger Mouse has shown how easy it can

be done. However, some could see it as a homage because he has

been inspired by the songs he has sampled so much they he wants to

change them as little as possible.