Stop, Turn and Go For a Ride

As all the digital rights geeks know, today is Grey
Tuesday:

Danger Mouse created a remix of Jay-Z’s the Black Album
and the Beatles White Album, and called it the Grey Album (check this
cool album cover). Jay-Z’s record label, Roc-A-Fella, released an a
capella version of his Black Album specifically to encourage remixes like this
one. But despite praise from music fans and major media outlets like Rolling
Stone ("an ingenious hip-hop record that sounds oddly ahead of its time")
and the Boston Globe (which called it the "most creatively captivating"
album of the year), EMI has sent cease and desist letters demanding that stores
destroy their copies of the album and websites remove them from their site.
EMI claims copyright control of the Beatles 1968 White Album.

Today, sites everywhere are hosting the music for 24 hours in protest of the
music industry’s ridiculously antiquated approach to copyright. Lots of people
have written articulately about this:

• Downhill Battle
• A
  Whole Lot of Nothing
• Waxy.org
• BoingBoing
• Danger Mouse’s site
• Wired
  – ""I’m just worried … whether Paul and Ringo will like it. If
  they say that they hate it, and that I messed up their music, I think I’ll
  put my tail between my legs and go," Danger Mouse recently told The New
  Yorker."

But is it any good? As somebody who grew up on the Beatles, it’s kind of fascinating
to here their melodies used so originally. As I
mentioned a while back, I never felt like I could relate to rap. I still
feel that way, but this project has made it a little accessable. The mix of
Jay-Z’s ’99 Problems’ and the Beatles’ ‘Helter Skelter’ is a raging tirade,
capturing the edginess of the original track. ‘Rocky Racoon’ will never be the
same for me. I wouldn’t listen to music like this regularly, but I’m glad somebody’s
fighting for the right to do so.

Oh, by the way, here’s
the album (once it uploads).