Respect Authority

Be Shareful highlights a band/musician/hip hop superstar number one in the game/whatever and offers free downloads of some of their music. The MP3s will be available for one week so get them before the RIAA gets me.

In case any of you haven’t heard the uninspired, trend-whoring, auto-tuned should-but-won’t-be-career-enders Kanye West has been putting out lately, I’ll let you in on a little secret: the state of pop music today is fucking tired. Tired like “I woke up at 5 AM to powerlift, have been drinking beer since noon, and it’s now 10 at night and I’ve got an entire McDonald’s Extra Value Meal in my stomach” tired.

Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart — Eurythmics

Clearly, a power nap is not going to cut it here, so instead of actually doing something to progress past the monotony, let’s dig even deeper into the abyss of savagely beaten to death tunes and see just how much more blood we can wring out of the 80’s cornerstone that is Eurythmics’ “Sweet Dreams,” using the unnatural power of mashups.

If you’ve never heard “Sweet Dreams,” I’m just going to go ahead and assume that you’re deaf, because I think it might actually beat “Happy Birthday” on overall number of plays. Pop music has delivered a lot of great hooks over the years, but “Sweet Dreams’” dark, sequenced bass line might as well be fucking Captain Hook. It’s the musical equivalent to kudzu — the song was a monstrous hit in 1983, which launched Eurythmics to absurd heights of fame and its tendrils refuse to release their grip on our ears to this day, despite the lingering memory of Annie Lennox’s horrifying orange crew cut. It actually might still be #1 on the Billboard charts for all I know; I haven’t checked.

Now, “Sweet Dreams” was probably so overplayed about six months after its initial release that it really shouldn’t be novel again until… black tar heroin is legal? The sun burns out? I don’t know, how does “never” sound to you? And yet, even after Marilyn Manson worked his dark arts and made the song all freak-eyed and fake-tittied, it still couldn’t be stopped. If anything, his cover pumped new, demonic blood into the drained single and the monstrosity has lived on ever since.

Naturally, the mashup phenomenon has only resulted in the song’s infectious synth bass line getting cannibalized like the Lecter family’s yearly reunion banquets. The song may have lost some of its insane power due to the incredible supersaturation of it throughout the years, which has been particularly exacerbated by mashups, but that is not to say that it doesn’t still work incredibly well in said mashups. Here’s a few good ones if you’re not sick of the song yet, and considering my watch indicates that it is not yet the apocalypse, I think it’s safe to say you’re not.

Downloads

Dance Dreams by Divide & Kreate | Download
“Sweet Dreams’” well-worn electronic throb pumps some extra vitality into Lady Gaga’s dance jam in this mashup by Sweden’s immensely talented Divide & Kreate. Likewise, the popular vocal by the late-breaking hipster princess helps remind us just how goddamned catchy “Sweet Dreams” still is — as if we needed any help in that area. Play this one in the club and you might not even need cocaine to get the kids to dance.

Sweet Lobster by DJ Le Clown | Download
In this instant classic by DJ Le Clown, the “Sweet Dreams” bass line gets a much needed rest, letting the B52’s “Rock Lobster” provide a cool retro sound to this track, which is a nice reprieve from all the electro and hip hop heavy back beats so pervasive in mashups. Combining these two classic megahits highlights the strengths of both songs and creates a seriously enjoyable new megahit all its own. There’s something inherently naughty about the way this one sounds, almost as naughty as me using the incredibly stupid word “naughty,” if that’s possible.

Policy of Sweet Dreams by DJ Earworm | Download
DJ Earworm has a bit of an 80s fixation and always puts out incredible work, and here’s another killer, especially for any Depeche Mopes out there. Thankfully, Earworm reworks the “Sweet Dreams” bass line a bit, to avoid its repetition reaching ambiguous water boarding torture levels, by chopping it up with Depeche Mode’s “Policy of Truth” instrumentation. Additionally, the combination of Dave Gahan’s and Annie Lennox’s vocals produces a creepy, androgynous sort of duet, making this a great track to rock out with your sac tucked back.