There has been a bunch of stuff going around the web about “The Grey Album” – a hip-hop remix album, mixing together a vocal-only version of some Hip-hop record called “The Black Album” with The Beatles’ White Album. Basically, this guy mixed the two together, distributed it on his website, printed 3000 copies – and then promptly got slapped with a cease-and-desist order by EMI. There’s several interesting articles about it on the web, such as this one.

Anyway, it piqued my interest, and I managed to *ahem* listen to a copy. Herein follows my review:

It’s interesting. That’s the first thing. I’m not sure quite whether I like it in its own right, but I didn’t hate it. That, in itself, is a little surprising, since if I’d heard about something like this 5 or 10 years ago this kind of thing would be anathema to me – I would have thought it a fate worse than death itself. The Beatles are one of my favourite bands, and The White Album is one of my favourite Beatles albums. There have been many remixes over the years that I’ve completely hated, notably terrible ‘dance’ version of O Fortuna (from the opera Carmina Burana) and Sinnerman by Nina Simone. However, this Grey Album is quite different:

Some tracks are pretty good – the mixes between the vocals and the Beatles music has been done quite well. Overall, it’s clever, and I like clever.
Obviously, some are better than others – and some just don’t quite work, but some are quite good – particularly one called ’99 Problems’ that is mixed with Helter Skelter.

So, would I recommend listening to it? Well, if you’re like me and don’t really like most hip-hop, then: maybe, or maybe listen to it just once for the curiosity factor. If you’re a fan of hip-hop, then I’d say this is pretty good. But for most of us/you: just go and get the original Beatles White Album – it’s fantastic _{except for Revolution 9 – you might want to skip that one – it doesn’t at all qualify as music.}