Various Artists - Bill McClintock Mash-Ups, Volume 6: 2024-2025

I first discovered the mash-ups created by Bill McClintock on YouTube in 2023. I posted four albums of his creations that year. Then, in 2024, he made enough new ones for me to post a fifth album. Here it is a year later in 2025, and I've found enough songs for a sixth volume.

I'm going to repeat what I posted in my write-up for "Volume 5," because this is more of the exact same thing:

If you heard and liked any of the earlier volumes, you should definitely like this. For those who don't know what I'm talking about, there are a lot of people who have made mash-ups, combining the recordings of two songs to hopefully create something new and interesting. But in my opinion, McClintock is the master of this technique, and his soaring YouTube views are evidence of that.

I've mentioned in the past that McClintock has pretty much single-handedly created a new genre of music, "soul metal," by combining soul songs with heavy metal songs. The resulting mash-ups are fascinating. In my opinion, many of them could be big hits in some bizarro alternate universe. I'm not even much of a heavy metal fan, but I don't think you have to be to enjoy these.

---

There's only a couple of things I want to add to that. One is that it's very hard to give adequate song titles and artist names for each track, and it's getting harder all the time. That's because, generally speaking, he mashes two songs together. But more and more, he's drawing on other songs as well as adding them into his edits. So often these credits are oversimplifications. Check out his YouTube and look at each song for more detailed and accurate information. In some cases, he's really gone wild, using many source songs. The last track is an example of that, drawing from 12 songs! 

The other thing I want to mention is that at the same time I'm posting this, I'm reposting the five earlier volumes. The music is the same for those, but I upgraded the cover art. Thanks to improving AI technology, I was able to improve the clarity and detail. I also changed the main color of the first two volumes, to better create a rainbow effect if you look at all the covers together.

If McClintock keeps posting new material at the same rate of the past couple of years, I hope to have a Volume 7 to post some time in 2026.    

This album is an hour and eight minutes long. 

01 Somebody's Snowblind [Somebody's Watching Me vs. Snowblind] (Rockwell vs. Black Sabbath)
02 Let the Bodies Get Off [Get Off vs. Bodies] (Foxy vs. Drowning Pool)
03 Fire in the Abyss [Fire vs. Seasons in the Abyss] (Jimi Hendrix vs. Slayer)
04 You Make Me Feel like Stayin' a Rocket Queen [Rocket Queen vs. Stayin' Alive vs. You Make Me Feel like Dancing] (Guns N' Roses vs. Bee Gees vs. Leo Sayer)
05 Best Unsainted Day of My Life [Best Day of My Life vs. Unsainted] (American Authors vs. Slipknot)
06 Sleigh Bitch [Sleigh Ride vs. Crazy Bitch] (Carpenters vs. Buckcherry)
07 Sabbath Toxic Sabbath [Toxic vs. Sabbath Bloody Sabbath] (Britney Spears vs. Black Sabbath)
08 Whip My Lonely, Dark Heart [Owner of a Lonely Heart vs. Let It Whip] (Yes vs. Dazz Band)
09 Motor City Woman [I'll Be Around vs. Jet City Woman] (Spinners vs. Queensryche)
10 Come as the Cat [Year of the Cat vs. Come as You Are] (Al Stewart vs. Nirvana)
11 Twist of Freak [Le Freak vs. Twist of Cain] (Chic vs. Danzig)
12 Hit the Bottoms, Jack [Bottoms Up vs. Hit the Road, Jack] (Van Halen vs. Ray Charles)
13 Hotter than a Highway to Hell with the Devil [To Hell With the Devil vs. Highway to Hell] (Stryper vs. AC-DC)
14 I'll Be a Disciple for You [I'll Be There for You vs. Disciple] (Rembrandts vs. Slayer)
15 Killing in the Name of a Terrible Holy Lie [Killing in the Name vs. Terrible Lie] (Rage Against the Machine vs. Nine Inch Nails vs. Various Artists) 

pixeldrain.com/u/UnHfYRqZ

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/ereZQHYCbJBtZhw/file 

The cover is basically the exact same as the previous ones in this series, with only a bit of the text and the background color changing. That's a photo of McClintock in the center. 

Various Artists - Bill McClintock Mash-Ups, Volume 5: 2023-2024

I'm more convinced that ever that Bill McClintock is a twisted genius. Back in February 2023, I posted four albums containing mash-ups created by McClintock and posted on YouTube. Since then, I've been waiting for him to post enough new songs for a fifth volume. Here were finally are.

If you heard and liked any of the first four volumes, you should definitely like this. For those who don't know what I'm talking about, there are a lot of people who have made mash-ups, combining the recordings of two songs to hopefully create something new and interesting. But in my opinion, McClintock is the master of this technique, and his soaring YouTube views are evidence of that.

I've mentioned in the past that McClintock has pretty much single-handedly created a new genre of music, "soul metal," by combining soul songs with heavy metal songs. The resulting mash-ups are fascinating. In my opinion, many of them could be big hits in some bizarro alternate universe. I'm not even much of a heavy metal fan, but I don't think you have to be to enjoy these.

This album is an hour and four minutes long.

Note that, as with the other albums in this series, the track list is rather unusual. The song titles are the titles created by McClintock that often jokingly combined the titles of the source material. Then in brackets are the names of the original songs, with "vs." in between them. Then for the artist names in paranetheses, I've put both artists who created the source songs, with "vs." between those names as well.

01 Wake Me Up Before You Go Go to the Grave [Wake Me Up Before You Go Go vs. Children of the Grave] (Wlam vs. Black Sabbath)
02 More Forgiven Today than Yesterday [The Unforgiven vs. More Today than Yesterday] (Spiral Starecase vs. Metallica)
03 Shake Your Dude Thing [Shake Your Groove Thing vs. Dude Looks like a Lady] (Peaches & Herb vs. Aerosmith)
04 She's Got the Sentinel [She's Got the Look vs. The Sentinel] (Judas Priest vs. Roxette)
05 Could You Be a Freak on a Leash [Could You Be Loved vs. Freak on a Leash] (Bob Marley vs. Korn)
06 I Was Made for Boogie Wonderland [I Was Made for Lovin' You vs. Boogie Wonderland] (Kiss vs. Earth, Wind & Fire)
07 Let's Get Bleeding [The Bleeding vs. Let's Get It On] (Five Finger Death Punch & Marvin Gaye)
08 Freeze Frame City [Freeze Frame vs. Detroit Rock City] (J. Geils Band vs. Kiss)
09 Superfools [Supernaut vs. Chain of Fools] (Aretha Franklin vs. Black Sabbath)
10 Take the Soul Power Back [Take the Power Back vs. Soul Power] (James Brown vs. Against the Machine)
11 Dirty Deeds Around the Christmas Tree [Dirty Deeds Done Dirty Cheap vs. Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree] (AC-DC vs. Brenda Lee)
12 Still Coming Undone [Coming Undone vs. Feel it Still] (Korn vs. Portugal. The Man)
13 Unchained Love Machine [Unchained vs. Love Machine] (Van Halen vs. Miracles)
14 Squareboys from Hell [Square Biz vs. Cowboys from Hell] (Teena Marie vs. Pantera)
15 Celebrate Both Worlds [Good Times vs. Best of Both Worlds] (Van Halen vs. Kool & the Gang)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/xa8EUwfA

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/C4vBdsV9QOmLPNs/file 

The cover is basically the exact same as the previous four in this series, with only a bit of the text and the background color changing. That's because I was lucky to find any photos of McClintock at all. 

Various Artists - Bill McClintock Mash-Ups, Volume 4: 2021-2022

This is the fourth of my volumes of Bill McClintock mash-ups.

This is just more of what's on the previous volumes, so if you like those, you'll like this too. If anything, McClintock has been getting more skilled with his mash-ups as he keeps going.

Just to review in case you've missed those previous volumes, this isn't music performed by McClintock. Instead, he takes two, or sometimes three, songs, and mashes them together. The first song is a good example, where there are parts of both "Rock Steady" by Aretha Franklin and "Sweet Emotion" by Aerosmith in roughly equal measure, but mashed together to create something new.

As I mentioned before, he often likes to mash something from a heavy metal or hard rock group with something totally different, but that's not always the case. One extreme musical clash is the mash-up of the new wave hit "Eye of the Tiger" by Survivor with a Merle Haggard country song, "Goodbye Comes Hard for Me." How is it possible those fit together?! I don't know, but somehow they do.

This album is an hour and four minutes long.

UPDATE: Many months after I first posted this, I realized that I'd used the same background color, yellow, for the album cover here and with Volume 3. So I changed the color to yellow. Everything else is exactly the same.

01 Rock Emotion [Rock Steady vs. Sweet Emotion] (Aretha Franklin vs. Aerosmith)
02 Funktonite [Kryptonite vs. Do it Any Way You Wanna] (3 Discos Down vs/ People's Choice)
03 Your Jumpin' Heart [Your Cheatin' Heart vs. Jump] (Hank Williams Jr. vs. Van Halen)
04 She's a Trooper [Maniac vs. The Trooper] (Michael Sembello vs. Iron Maiden)
05 Ten Seconds to Run [Ten Seconds to Love vs. Nowhere to Run] (Motley Crue vs. Martha and the Vandellas)
06 You Make Me Feel Sad but True [You Make Me Feel like Dancing vs. Sad but True] (Leo Sayer vs. Metallica)
07 Holy Mary Jane [Mary Jane vs. Holy Diver] (Rick James vs. Dio)
08 Strokin' More than a Feeling [Strokin' vs. More than a Feeling] (Clarence Carter vs. Boston)
09 Eye of the Haggard [Eye of the Tiger vs. Goodbye Comes Hard for Me] (Survivor vs. Merle Haggard)
10 Hey Baby, Am I Black or White [Hey Baby vs. Black or White] (Ted Nugent vs. Michael Jackson)
11 Electric Sex Machine [Electric Eye vs. Sex Machine] (James Priest vs. James Brown)
12 Mutiny at the Go-Go [Going to a Go-Go vs/ Mutiny on the World] (Smokey Robinson & the Miracles vs. the Armored Saint)
13 Land Down One-der [Land Down Under vs. One] (Men at Work vs. Metallica)
14 Look Again [Do It Again vs. Looks That Kill] (Steely Dan vs. Motley Crue)
15 Master of the Neutron Dance of Destruction [Neutron Dance vs. Symphony of Destruction] (Pointer Sisters vs. Megadeth)
16 Super Rock Hard [Super Freak vs. Rock Hard, Ride Free] (Rick James vs. Judas Priest)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/6sCnhXYf

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/1UNcssRwxnazfqC/file 

As with the previous volumes, the cover uses a logo from Bill McClintock's YouTube page, plus a photo of him I added in the middle of it. I used a different background color to help differentiate it from the previous volume.

Various Artists - Bill McClintock Mash-Ups, Volume 3: 2019-2021

Here's the third volume of mash-ups by the twisted mind of Bill McClintock. 

If you don't know who McClintock is, or what this is about, I suggest you check out the comments from the first volume in this series. But, in short, this isn't music played or sung by him. Instead, he makes mash-ups by combining two or sometimes three songs together by famous artists. He's the best mash-up creator I've come across, by far, at least so far. He has a particular penchant for mashing together hard rock or heavy metal songs with pop or soul music to create what sometimes sounds like a brand new genre, which has been called "soul metal" or "disco metal." You really should give it a listen. If nothing else, it's very unusual and interesting.

As with the other volumes in this series, the naming of the songs and the artists is a bit complicated. First comes to combined name of the mash-up, then the names of the songs that were mashed together in brackets. Then the names of the artists for each of the original songs. The mash-up names were made by McClintock, although I occasionally made some tweaks.

This album is an hour and three minutes long.

01 Still of the Boogie [Still of the Night vs. Keep on Truckin'] (Whitesnake vs. Eddie Kendricks)
02 I Can't Get Closer for That [I Can't Go for That vs. Closer] (Hall & Oates vs. Nine Inch Nails)
03 War Puppets Rise to Heaven [War Pigs vs. Rise. vs. Master of Puppets] (Black Sabbath vs, Herb Alpert vs. Metallica)
04 I Got Girls [I Feel Good] [Girls, Girls, Girls vs. I Got You [I Feel Good]] (James Brown vs. Motley Crue)
05 You Make September Fun [You Make Loving Fun vs. September] (Fleetwood Mac vs. Earth, Wind & Fire)
06 Dance Memories [Dance, Dance, Dance vs. Dead Memories] (Chic vs. Slipknot)
07 Chop Around the Suey [Chop Suey vs. All Around the World] (System of a Down vs. Justin Bieber)
08 Flying Hot Stuff [Flying High Again & Hot Stuff] (Ozzy Osbourne & Donna Summer)
09 Closer to Fire the Fame [Closer vs. Fire. vs. Fame] (Nine Inch Nails vs. Ohio Players vs. David Bowie)
10 Stop, Listen, and Bust a Move [For What It's Worth vs. Bust a Move] (Buffalo Springfield vs. Young MC)
11 Bad Mother [Bad Girls vs. Mother] (Donna Summer vs. Danzig)
12 Superkill [Super Bad vs. Overkill] (James Brown vs. Motorhead)
13 Girls, Girls, Girls, and Your Mamma, Too [Girls, Girls, Girls vs. Word Up] (Motley Crue vs. Cameo)
14 Rime of the Good Times [Rime of the Ancient Mariner vs. Good Times] (Iron Maiden vs. Chic)
15 South of Christmas [South of Heaven vs. Last Christmas] (Slayer vs. Wham)
16 Chained Uptight [Unchained vs. Uptight] (Van Halen vs. Stevie Wonder)
17 Hip to Be the Sandman [Hip to Be Square vs. Enter Sandman] (Huey Lewis & the News vs. Metallica)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/XZ3JhywQ 

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/hhQc4CuSZvFvTSd/file

As with the two previous volumes, the cover uses a logo from Bill McClintock's YouTube page, plus a photo of him I added in the middle of it. I used a different background color to help differentiate it from the previous volume.

Various Artists - Bill McClintock Mash-ups, Volume 2: 2018-2019

Here we are with a second volume of Bill McClintock's mash-up crazy genius. This is just like Volume 1, and very similar to the coming Volumes 3 and 4. He typically mashes two, but sometimes three, famous songs together to create something new. In my opinion, these are superior edits to the typical mash-ups one can find here and there. If you haven't checked out Volume 1 yet, give this a listen. If nothing else, it's very different and interesting.

As I mentioned with Volume 1, McClintock is a fan of hard rock and heavy metal, and has a habit of combining those kinds of songs with soul, rock, or pop songs. You can see more examples of that on this volume than on Volume 1. Who, for instance, would ever think of combining a Wham pop hit with a thrash metal song by Slayer? But he did, and it somehow works! Better still, in my opinion, is his mashing together of "Chemical Warfare" by Slayer with "Walking on Sunshine" by Katrina and the Waves to make "Chemical Warfare (Don't It Feel Good)." The first time I heard that, I couldn't stop laughing. He also makes videos for all of his mash-ups with just as much expert editing and attention to detail. For an even better laugh, check out the video to that song.

But while some of these songs are funny due to the absurdity of the juxtapositions of different styles, in many cases they also work musically, with the mash-ups often as good as the originals in their own ways. You really need to listen to this to understand.

As with the other volumes in this series, the naming of the songs and the artists is a bit complicated. First comes to combined name of the mash-up, then the names of the songs that were mashed together in brackets. Then the names of the artists for each of the original songs. The mash-up names were made by McClintock, although I occasionally made some tweaks.

This album is an hour and five minutes long.

01 Beautiful Shining Star of Superstition [Beautiful Girls vs. Shining Star vs. Superstition] (Van Halen vs. Earth, Wind & Fire vs. Stevie Wonder)
02 Billie Jean's Got Another Thing Comin' [Billie Jean vs. You've Got Another Thing Comin'] (Michael Jackson vs. Judas Priest)
03 Gimme Shelter Baby [Gimme Shelter vs. Give it to Me Baby] (Rolling Stones vs. Rick James)
04 Rock the Space Freak [Rock the Casbah vs. Super Freak vs. Space Truckin'] (Clash vs. Rick James vs. Deep Purple)
05 Killed by Exodus [Killed by Death vs. Exodus] (Motorhead vs. Bob Marley)
06 Mean Machine [Mean Street vs. Dancing Machine] (Van Halen vs. Jackson 5)
07 Ain't Too Shy to Beg [Ain't Too Proud to Beg vs. Once Bitten. Twice Shy] (Temptations vs. Great White)
08 Shining Woman [Shining Star vs. American Woman] (Earth, Wind & Fire vs. the Guess Who)
09 Money for Shopping [Money for Nothing vs. Shop Around] (Dire Straits vs. Smokey Robinson & the Miracles)
10 Too Young to Strike a Pose [Too Young to Fall in Love vs. Vogue] (Motley Crue vs Madonna)
11 Tropicana Death Ensemble [War Ensemble vs. Club Tropicana] (Slayer vs. Wham)
12 All I Want for Christmas Is the Beautiful People [All I Want for Christmas Is You vs. The Beautiful People] (Mariah Carey vs. Mariah Manson)
13 Finally Faster [Finally & Faster] (Cece Peniston & Within Temptation)
14 I Wish It Would Burn [I Wish It Would Rain & Burn] (Temptations vs. Deep Purple)
15 Bang Your Head, It's a Celebration [Celebration vs. Bang Your Head] (Kool & the Gang vs. Quiet Riot)
16 Chemical Warfare [Don't It Feel Good] [Chemical Warfare vs. Walking on Sunshine] (Slayer vs. Katrina & the Waves)
17 Fire into the Jungle [Run through the Jungle vs. Into the Void vs. Fire] (Creedence Clearwater Revival vs. Black Sabbath vs. the Ohio Players)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/GSakQZ2K 

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/ik8AztrWGOJ7N8P/file

As with Volume 1, the cover uses a logo from Bill McClintock's YouTube page, plus a photo of him in the middle. I used a different background color to help differentiate it from the previous volume.

Various Artists - Bill McClintock Mash-ups - Volume 1: 2017-2018

As the Monty Python comedy group used to say, "And now, it's time for something completely different." Here's something way off the beaten path of what I usually post here. I'll bet most people will either love it or hate it. Personally, I think it's brilliant.

I haven't paid much attention to the whole genre of people making mash-ups. Occasionally, I come across them, but I generally haven't been impressed. But I stumbled on a Bill McClintock mash-up while reading a social media forum that has nothing to do with music. The song was the first one here, "You Should Be Smoking." I was so impressed that I went and looked for more. I soon decided that Bill McClintock is some kind of freakin' mash-up genius. What he does is miles better than the usual, and turns mash-ups into an art form.

McClintock's specialty is taking two very different songs and merging them so well that I many cases a person who hadn't heard the originals would think the mash-up was a classic hit. He's really into heavy metal, and I'm not. But he frequently makes heavy metal songs palatable to me, and even very enjoyable by mashing them with something very different, often soul music. As a result, some commenters have claimed he's invented a new genre, "soul metal." Personally, I prefer the term "disco metal," because that better conveys the strange meshing of sounds that he somehow gets to work. (Note though that only a minority of his mash-ups included here involve heavy metal songs, though there are lots of hard rock ones.)

In my opinion, the key to his success is attention to detail. I can only imagine there's hours of painstaking work behind each mash-up he does, because he must spend hours figuring out how seemingly totally different songs actually share many musical commonalities. Then he carefully places even little bits, like snippets of backing vocals or brief musical riffs. He also tends to patch in solos, usually guitar solos, from yet other songs, and makes them fit perfectly. He posts all his mash-ups at YouTube, and he's taken great care to mash-up the videos for each song as well. If you like these, it's totally worth it to check out the video aspects as well. Here's his YouTube page:

Bill McClintock - YouTube

I like most, but not all, of the mash-ups he's done. The ones I don't like are generally the ones involving heavy metal songs with what I call "Cookie Monster vocals" - lots of rough screaming and groaning. So that's another reason to check out his YouTube page, to catch the songs I didn't include here. I found enough songs I like for four volumes, all at about this length. I've posted the songs in rough chronological order of when he posted them.

Due to the unique nature of mash-ups, I had to come up with my own style for the song titles and artist names. First comes the song title McClintock gave his mash-up. (Although in a few cases I've altered them. For instance, he simply called the second song here "Beat It/Urgent" whereas I thought "Beat It Urgently" worked better.) Then, in brackets, I've listed the two songs that have been mashed together with a "vs" separating them. Finally, I've put the two artist names in parentheses, also separated by "vs." The first song title matches the first artist name and so on. Occasionally, three songs are mashed together, though there aren't any cases of that with this volume.

If you open your mind to it, I think you'll find this a really entertaining listen. Some songs are amusing, some are interesting, and some legitimately stand up as impressive songs of those own. There are cases where I prefer the mash-ups to the originals. Hopefully, this will allow you to appreciate some songs in a brand new way.

As an aside, I also appreciate what is NOT here. And that's any hip hop or rap song. I've noticed a lot of mash-ups involve that genre. I would think that's easier to do when the source material is just rapping without a melody. I also like that he's avoided doing any Beatles songs. I love the Beatles so much that I don't think I'd like most mash-ups involving them.

I'll be curious what you all think of this, and if you know of other mash-up artists that are on this level. If you've read this far and you're on the fence about downloading this, I strongly suggest you do.

This album is an hour and three minutes long.

01 You Should Be Smoking [You Should Be Dancing vs. Smoke on the Water] (Bee Gees vs Deep Purple)
02 Beat It Urgently [Beat It vs. Urgent] (Michael Jackson vs. Foreigner)
03 Fly like Kid Charlemagne [Fly like an Eagle vs. Kid Charlemagne] (Steve Miller vs. Steely Dan)
04 Billie Cocaine [Billie Jean vs. Cocaine] (Michael Jackson vs. Eric Clapton)
05 Break on Through [To the Funky Side] [Break on Through vs. Shakey Ground] (Doors vs. the Temptations)
06 I Heard It Round and Round the Grapevine [Round and Round vs. I Heard it Through the Grapevine] (Ratt vs. Marvin Gaye)
07 The Way the Bayou Makes Me Feel [The Way You Make Me Feel vs. Born on the Bayou] (Michael Jackson vs. Creedence Clearwater Revival)
08 I Wouldn't Want to Be like the Holy Diver [I Wouldn't Want to Be like You vs. Holy Diver] (Alan Parsons Project vs. Dio)
09 Living for the Paradise City [Living for the City vs. Paradise City] (Guns n Roses vs. Stevie Wonder)
10 I Can't Walk This Way Next to You [Walk This Way vs. I Can't Get Next to You] (Aerosmith vs. the Temptations)
11 Mother Was a Rolling Stone [Mother vs. Papa Was a Rolling Stone] (Danzig vs. the Temptations)
12 With a Rebel Yell, She Cried Get Up, Stand Up [Rebel Yell vs. Get Up, Stand Up] (Bob Marley vs Billy Idol)
13 Stayin' a Hollaback Girl [Stayin' Alive vs. Hollaback Girl] (Bee Gees vs. Gwen Stefani)
14 My World Is Empty without a Maneater [My World Is Empty without You vs. Maneater] (Hall & Oates vs. the Supremes)
15 Ice Cold Ground [Cold as Ice vs. Higher Ground] (Foreigner vs. Stevie Wonder)
16 We Are All Right Now [We Are Family vs. All Right Now] (Sister Sledge vs. Free)
17 Let's Dance, Let's Shout [Shake Your Body Down to the Ground vs. Stand Up and Shout] (Jackson 5 vs. Dio)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ujVL2SNf 

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/vfujCqbnG9hHvmM/file

I put these albums together a few weeks ago. But I was stumped as to what I could do for the album covers. In the end, I used the circular logo that McClintock uses for his YouTube page. I also found a photo of him, and put that in the middle.

Julian Lennon & John Lennon - Imagine (1971 & 2022) (SONG MASH-UP) A Mike Solof Guest Post)

I'm going to let Mike have the floor on this. But I want to quickly say that this mash-up Mike made of Julian Lennon singing "Imagine" with his father John Lennon sounds great. You should give it a listen (the download link is at the very bottom of this post), and help share it, because it really is something special. - Paul.

Now, take it away, Mike:

Michael Solof here again. A few days ago (in mid-April 2022), I was blown away by Julian Lennonʼs new release of the track "Imagine" by his dad. After reading the accompanying note from his Twitter post (see below), I knew I just had to see if I could create a version that I wish existed, and try to
make Julianʼs version even more special. With that in mind, I decided to turn it into a duet with his dad. 

No easy feat I must say. I started out by tracking down every version of John singing "Imagine" that I could find. During my search I found many home demos, studio outtakes, live cuts, and TV appearances. My main concern was to find a version where the vocals acoustically matched, as closely as possible, those of the Julianʼs performance. It would sound unnatural to use a big echoing reverb drenched John vocal when Julianʼs recording had a beautiful, dry and intimate vocal. I finally found one that was darn close… but the music was completely different and clashed with Julianʼs sparse and haunting solo acoustic version. A few years ago that would have been a hugely insurmountable problem, but now a days there are websites that use really cool tech to separate the vocals from the instruments. What's left is just crystal clear, beautiful sounding vocals!

Using those same sites, I then separated out all the different parts of both versions so I was left with 4 tracks:
1. Julianʼs Lead Vocals
2. Johnʼs Lead Vocals
3. Nunoʼs guitar track
4. Nunoʼs Background Harmony Vocals

I knew I had to use Julianʼs vocal track as my base, and that I would need to edit Johnʼs vocals to match those as closely as possible. My next problem was Johnʼs phrasings were very different from Julianʼs. It wasn't a simple matter of playing both tracks, as is, at the same time. That sounded horrible and I wanted to make this sound as much like father and son sitting down face to face in a small intimate candlelit studio setting… and singing a beautiful song together for the first time. Now I began the hours and hours I needed to accomplish this. I often had to break up Johnʼs phrases between words, and sometimes syllables, to match the timings and structure of Julianʼs song . Occasionally, when that didn't work, I would even change the speed of the recording of Johnʼs vocal to extend the length of certain phrases slightly, for a better fit. It still didn't sound right. My original attempt had them both singing the entire song together. But then I watched a lot of different duets on YouTube and felt that if I switched back and forth between the verses and the choruses, that would be cool. So I did a version like that… but even that was missing the spark of these two guys just singing together.

So I started again. And this time, I had them trading off lines (starting with Julian since it is his release after all) and then having them both sing together on the chorusʼs. That did it… that gave me tingles! 6 more hours of editing…matching up every word and every syllable of the choruses until I was finally done. But I was still missing one last piece.

I let some friends listen to my mix and one comment I got completely transformed the song. I canʼt believe I didn't think of it first. My mix had both vocals centered, but a friend suggested I pan Julianʼs vocals to the left and Johnʼs to the right. First I tried hard pans all the way to the left and right, but this sounded weird. I wanted them to sound like they were sitting side by side, not across the room from each other. So I switched to a softer pan of each vocal just a bit to the left and right. That was MAGIC!

After a lot of internal debate, I also decided to include at the end of the song the extra harmony vocals provided by Julianʼs friend and co-guitarist Nuno Bettencourt. It really makes for a much fuller and powerful ending. So now hereʼs my version of the duet I wish, more than anything, could have existed. Being a huge and lifelong John Lennon fan, I was always touched by the fact that Julian has spent much of his life following in his dadʼs massive footsteps, fighting against the many injustices occurring around the world. Itʼs just downright inspiring to me. Julian was moved enough by the current situation in Ukraine to record this song. I thought the least I could do was let John join in the protest too!
I think he would have liked that.

In a first for both of us, Peter at https://albumsiwishexisted2.blogspot.com and this site are posting Mike's superb effort on the same day, not only to get the song out to as many people as possible, but also to highlight the reason that Julian released it in the first place, which is to show support for Ukraine in their current struggle.

The War on Ukraine is an unimaginable tragedy... As a human, and as an artist, I felt compelled to respond in the most significant way I could. So today, for the first time ever, I publicly performed my Dad’s song, 'IMAGINE'. Why now, after all these years? I had always said that the only time I would ever consider singing ‘IMAGINE' would be if it was the ‘End of the World’…But also because his lyrics reflect our collective desire for peace worldwide. Because within this song, we’re transported to a space, where love and togetherness become our reality, if but for a moment in time…The song reflects the light at the end of the tunnel, that we are all hoping for...As a result of the ongoing murderous violence, millions of innocent families have been forced to leave the comfort of their homes, to seek asylum elsewhere. I’m calling on world leaders and everyone who believes in the sentiment of 'IMAGINE', to stand up for refugees everywhere! 

Please advocate and donate from the heart. #StandUpForUkraine @glbltczn @nunobettencourtofficial 

— Julian Lennon

 

Here's the mp3 of the duet mash-up:

https://spaces.hightail.com/receive/1qpBk1RWxx

Pink Floyd - Gyllene Cirkeln, Stockholm, Sweden, 9-10-1967 (WITH VOCALS!)

Here's something I'm very psyched to post. If you're a fan of early Pink Floyd music, you really need to give this a listen.

Syd Barrett was Pink Floyd's lead singer and main songwriter from the time the band formed around 1965 until he flamed out around the end of 1967. The band had a lot of critical and commercial success in 1967, but unfortunately there's no good concert recording of them from when Barrett led them, either officially released or on bootleg. "The Early Years" box set did include a complete show of about 50 minutes recorded at the Gyllene Cirkeln (Swedish for "Golden Circle") in Stockholm, Sweden. It's clearly the best Syd Barrett-era live recording in terms of the music. But there's virtually no vocals to be heard whatsoever! It basically sounds like an all-instrumental concert. 

In recent months, I've been doing a lot of audio tinkering with the programs Spleeter and X-Minus. It occurred to me I could strip the vocals from some versions of songs and add them to the Stockholm versions that were lacking vocals. Someone at a Pink Floyd forum named SydMorrison67 had already done this to one song from the concert, "See Emily Play." He did such a great job that I simply used his version. But I added the vocals for the others that needed vocals. I took the vocals from either the studio versions or the BBC versions, whichever I felt fit better.

Personally, I think the end result sounds really great! It's like finding a soundboard recording of the Barrett-era band after all these years. 

Some other changes were made too. There isn't much banter between songs, but what little there was was so quiet that it could barely be heard. I boosted the volume of that talking drastically, so you can clearly hear what's being said. Furthermore, after I finished editing the files, I handed them to my musical friend MZ. He did some things to improve the listening quality, such as filling out some under represented frequencies.

Now, as to why the recording on "The Early Years" lacked vocals in the first place, that's a bit of a mystery. Some speculate that the P.A. system at the show was badly mixed. But there are audience bootlegs of concerts from Rotterdam and Copenhagen from roughly the same time period (September and November 1967), and the vocals on those can barely be heard as well. Three shows is a pattern, not a fluke. Perhaps there was something systematically off with the band's sound set-up during those months. But another possibility is that lead vocalist Syd Barrett was singing very quietly and/or not near the microphone. By September 1967, his behavior had already gotten erratic, to the point that the band had to cancel a U.S. tour. Or it could be a combination of the two. Note that the backing vocals couldn't be heard well either.

I found this explanation on a music blog (radiodupree.blogspot.com):

"Anders Lind [the person who recorded the show] explained that there was no such thing as a PA system back in '67, and there was no one mixing the sound. The sound came from the amps on stage and the signal from the vocal microphones were sent to a couple of small vocal amps. The sound was a result of each musician handling their own amp, and during the show the vocal amps would probably not be adjusted at all. But the lack of vocals on the tape can also be a result of Syd's health and/or attitude at the time. Maybe he did not make the effort to sing out loud, by some reason."

One additional factor is that it turns out the Gyllene Cirkeln was actually a supper club! Which means that it was a restaurant with a stage, and you ate dinner during the show. That typically meant the audience was more the type of crowd who wanted to see Sammy Davis, Jr. or Englebert Humperdinck, not a psychedelic band! Furthermore, although Pink Floyd had just had a top ten hit in Sweden with "See Emily Play" the previous month (as well as it being a hit all over the world), they had the indignity of being the opening act that night for a mildly popular Swedish band called the Sleepstones. It sounds like Pink Floyd had a Spinal Tap moment that night.

I first made the cover art shown above. That uses a photo of the band lip-syncing their way through the British TV show "Top of the Pops" in mid-1967. But after I made that, I did some more research on the details of this concert and managed to find a black and white photo from the exact concert in question! So I've created an alternate cover for people who prefer accuracy over appearance, since the picture isn't as good.

As you can see from this actual, realm and strange photo, the venue was very small. Perhaps this helps explain the problem with the vocals on the recording. They might have been able to be heard to some degree without any amplification, so perhaps what the amps did didn't matter so much. 

Let me explain in more detail what I did with the vocals. For "Matilda Mother" and "Scream Thy Last Scream," it was as I described above, taking the vocals from one version and adding them to another. Everything seemed to be in pitch for all the songs, so that wasn't a problem. But I had to make lots of minor adjustments to make sure the timing matched up. "Pow R. Tok H." is basically an instrumental, but there are some vocal noises near the start. Some of these actually could be heard on the original recording, especially before the band loudly joins in. So I kept those but added in more to make sure it all could be heard. "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun" is the one case where some of the original vocals could be heard over the full band. But that was only intermittent through the song, like a radio station fading in and out. I kept those vocals, and added in more. The fact there was some vocals helped me align the additions.

"Arnold Layne" actually comes from another concert. As I mentioned above, there are bootlegs from Rotterdam and Copenhagen from the same late 1967 time period. Both of those shows have the same problem of the vocals not being heard, as well as poorer sound overall. They also have pretty much the same set lists. But "Arnold Layne" was played at the Copenhagen concert, and the instrumental sound was pretty decent. So I used the same trick and added vocals to that one too. Consider it kind of a bonus track at the end.

If you hear the vocals being out of sync with the instruments at any point, please let me know. I can probably fix it. And if you have any ideas of other music that could use this sort of treatment, please let me know too.

01 talk (Pink Floyd)
02 Reaction in G [Instrumental] (Pink Floyd)
03 talk (Pink Floyd)
04 Matilda Mother [Edit] (Pink Floyd)
05 Pow R. Toc H. [Edit] (Pink Floyd)
06 Scream Thy Last Scream [Edit] (Pink Floyd)
07 talk (Pink Floyd)
08 Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun [Edit] (Pink Floyd)
09 See Emily Play [Edit] (Pink Floyd)
10 talk (Pink Floyd)
11 Interstellar Overdrive [Instrumental] (Pink Floyd)
12 Arnold Layne [Edit] (Pink Floyd)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16696995/PNKFLYD1967_GyllneCirkelnStckhlmSwedn__9-10-1967_atse.zip.html

I explained what I did with the cover art up above as part of my explanation about the venue and such. The only thing I'd add is that I usually hate black and white album covers, so I tinted the alternate version to make it a little more interesting.

The Allman Brothers Band - One More Ride (Edited Song) (1970)

Here's something I'm pretty psyched about. I feel like I've created a "new classic Allman Brothers Band song from their heyday! Maybe not, but I'd be curious what you think.

I don't know anything about this song except that it was co-written in 1970 by band members Gregg Allman and Dickey Betts. It first appeared as an instrumental just under three minutes long on the 1988 box set "Dreams." Then an instrumental "remix" just under four minutes long appeared as a bonus track on a "super deluxe" edition of the "Idlewild South" album in 2015.

Yet there's another version of the song available only as a bootleg that's seven minutes long, and it has vocals by Gregg Allman, with perfectly good lyrics! So it's not really meant to be an instrumental after all. If you listen to the instrumental versions, there are long stretches where not much is happening, for instance no soloing. Clearly, those are the parts where the vocals were supposed to go.

Normally, I would just put the superior version with vocals on one of my stray tracks compilations. But unfortunately, the sound quality for that version sucks. It sounds really muddy and muffled. That's probably why that version is hard to find even on bootleg. So I decided to try to merge the two versions together.

First, I used a sound editing program to try to reduce the muddiness of the vocal version. I only had limited success, since I'm far from an expert in this kind of thing, and there's usually only so much even experts can do. But I think it helped some. Then I patched the vocal parts into the longer of the two instrumental versions. I had a hard time getting the timing just right, because there were slight changes in the speed of the song as it went along, in both versions, since they were recorded by fallible human beings many years before most recordings became computerized and the variability of drumming was lost in favor of metronome-like consistency (and soullessness). Still, after a lot of tinkering, I think I got pretty close on the timing.

I also had to put an instrumental version of the verse at the start of the song, because otherwise the vocals came in when the intro drumming bit was still going on, and it didn't sound good. I think this change works out fine, because there's a little guitar riff going on that keeps the instrumental version of the song interesting.

The end result doesn't sound perfect by any means, but hopefully it's close enough for horseshoes. One can clearly hear the change in sound quality each time the vocals come in. But I feel it's better to have it like that than have the whole song in poor sound quality.

By the way, the unreleased version is longer than the others in part because it has a drum solo in the middle that lasts for about two minutes. I don't think it's a big loss missing that, since most people aren't fans of drum solos (including myself). In fact, I think the song works a lot better here at four minutes long. It could and should have been played on the radio.

I've put the song on a stray tracks album for the band. Here's the link:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2019/09/the-allman-brothers-band-stormy-monday.html

I really like the vocal version of this song. I could totally imagine it being a regular concert staple for the band. I am baffled why the vocal version has been left officially unreleased until now. Surely the professionals could do a good job (better than mine!) improving the sound quality of that version, if there's a problem with it. But I think it's much more likely that there's no problem if one works from the master recordings, and it's the usual bootleg copy-of-a-copy-of-a-copy problem that created the poor sound. So I don't see any excuse.

As mentioned above, a "super deluxe" version of "Idlewild South" has been released in recent years and the vocal version wasn't included on that, A box set of Duane Allman's guitar playing, "Skydog," was also released in recent years, and it wasn't included on that either, even though it features a very nice Duane Allman guitar solo. So I think the odds are low that that version will ever be officially released.

It's very baffling that this song slipped through the cracks, especially since the Allman Brothers Band were not prolific songwriters. It's not like the lyrics are objectionable, or it sounds too much like some other song, or it's a poor performance, etc... And I don't think the song was ever played live, either with vocals or as an instrumental. But at least there's this.

I put this together while I was working on posting another album of Allman Brothers Band stray tracks soon. I imagine I'll include this edit on that once I have that ready, unless I get feedback that I screwed this up somehow.

The Byrds - Bound to Fall (1968) (MASH-UP)

Having tackled the "Stranger in a Stranger Land" Byrds mash-up in my last post, I figured why not try another one. There's one other Byrds song I know of that is just an instrumental badly in need of vocals, and that's "Bound to Fall," a bonus track off the 1968 "Notorious Byrd Brothers" album.

The song was written by Mike Brewer of Mastin and Brewer, a little known duo that sometimes opened up shows for the Byrds in 1966 but only released one single that didn't contain this song. (Brewer would later go on to bigger success in the duo Brewer and Shipley, and that group would finally record the song on a 1974 album.) However, the song is associated with Byrds bassist Chris Hillman, who has played it off and on during his long career, Aside from the instrumental Byrds version, which came out in 1997 and obviously wasn't originally meant to be released in that form, a Hillman version of the song wouldn't get released until 1972, when it was done for the "Manassas" album led by Stephen Stills. Hillman was a member of the Manassas band, and he sang the song on the album with his voice intertwined with Stills' voice.

It would be very difficult for me to combine the Byrds version with the Manassas version, because Manassas does it in a different arrangement. I couldn't find any versions of the song sung only by Hillman. However, I found a bootleg of Hillman singing the song in a duet with Kim O'Kelley at My Father's Place in Roslyn, New York, on March 1, 1978. It was possible to isolate the vocals because the song was performed acoustically and in front of a very small crowd, so the vocals were clear.

I think the mash-up worked out well, although I should warn that I'm new to this sort of thing and I'm sure there are others who can do it better. One problem is that Hillman and O'Kelley were performing the song without any sort of rhythm section, so sometimes they got a little bit ahead of the beat or behind it, when compared to the Byrds' version. I tried my best to fix that, but I can only do so much with my limited audio editing skills. It was also tough to sync up the pitch and tempo.

Maybe someone with more skills will see this effort and make a better version. As with my last mash-up, I've included the two versions I combined, so one has the raw materials to make one's own combination.

As it is, I'd much rather hear this version with Hillman's vocals than the instrumental version. I hope you feel the same.

https://www.upload.ee/files/15239501/TByrd_BndtoFallSongEdit.zip.html

Blackburn and Snow with the Byrds - Stranger in a Strange Land (1965) (MASH-UP)

Here's something a little different. I've been experimenting with what I can accomplish by editing various songs, and I think I've created an interesting mash-up. 

I've long been frustrated that the Byrds never properly recorded the David Crosby song "Stranger in a Strange Land." It's a bonus track on the 1965 "Turn! Turn! Turn!" album, but it's only a rough instrumental version. The folk duo Blackburn and Snow recorded the song in 1966, but it was put out by a small and mismanaged record label and was barely noticed. If Crosby has ever recorded vocals to the song in his long career, his version has never made it to the public.

So I decided to try to add the Blackburn and Snow vocals to the Byrds' instrumental version. I was able to isolate the vocals fairly well. I lowered the pitch of that by half a step to match the sound of the Byrds' version. I matched the vocals to the Byrds' instruments by following the chord changes. To my surprise, both versions were done at the exact same tempo, so that made the matching relatively easy to do.

The Byrds version is about 40 seconds longer than the Blackburn and Snow one, and it turns out most of that is at the start, with the Byrds repeating the same riff over and over again before going into any chord changes. After I combined the two versions, the vocals didn't come in until a full 30 seconds into the song, which sounded strange given that there wasn't much happening musically during that time. So I edited that intro down. I also faded the song out some at the end, since the Byrds version kept on going after the vocals had climaxed and were clearly done.

The result is a mash-up that I think works pretty well. It's not the Byrds singing the song, but it might be the closest to that we're ever going to get, since the Byrds archives seem to have been thoroughly explored by lots of archival releases by this point.

I've included just two songs in the zip file: the Byrds instrumental version of this song and the combined mash-up.

https://www.upload.ee/files/15239464/TByrd_StrangrinStrngeLnd_atse.zip.html

Here's some more info about the song, from Wikipedia:

"Stranger in a Strange Land" has been said to have been written by David Crosby of The Byrds, although it was credited to the fictitious "Samuel F. Omar." The title and lyrics are based on the Robert A. Heinlein science fiction novel that was widely popular among the San Francisco youth culture in the mid-1960s. It was released as a single in late December 1966.

Here's some more, from the Wikipedia article about the Byrds' 1965 "Turn! Turn! Turn!" album:

The recording of the album was not without its tensions, with several members of the band expressing feelings of resentment towards the close working relationship that was beginning to form between [Roger] McGuinn and producer Terry Melcher. Rhythm guitarist David Crosby was particularly vocal in his disapproval, since he felt that McGuinn and Melcher (along with the band's manager Jim Dickson) were conspiring to keep his songs off of the album. Crosby had brought the self-penned "Stranger In a Strange Land" (later released by Blackburn and Snow) and "The Flower Bomb Song", along with Dino Valenti's "I Don't Ever Want to Spoil Your Party" (later released by Quicksilver Messenger Service as "Dino's Song") to the recording sessions but all three songs were rejected and remained unreleased at the time.

In my opinion Crosby had a very good point, because this is an excellent song that would have sounded wonderful if done by the Byrds. "The Flower Bomb Song" has never been publicly released, but "Dino's Song" would have made a fine Byrds song as well, judging by the Quicksilver Messenger Service version of it.

Here's another tidbit about the Blackburn part of the duo:

Jeff Blackburn joined Moby Grape in the mid-seventies; with Bob Mosley he formed the Jeff Blackburn Band which with the addition of Neil Young and Johnny Craviotto became The Ducks, playing a series of impromptu bar gigs in Santa Cruz, California in 1977. During this time, Blackburn co-wrote "My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue)" with Young.

Also, there's an NPR article from 2011 that refers to the Blackburn and Snow version as a "lost masterpiece." It goes on to say about the recording:

If this record had come out in early 1966, when it was recorded, and when interest in Robert Heinlein's book was peaking among proto-hippies, it might well have been a hit. But, as sort of a symptom of the problem which would soon destroy Trident, [Frank] Werber sat on the record for a full year, killing its chances and Blackburn and Snow's career.