Check Out My Medleys

 

It's been over a month since Koen introduced The Medleys as one of our many series of compilations.  After Koen's first two volumes, Stinky served up a tasty variety of medleys.  At the time, I could only think of a couple of songs.  But after marinating on the idea for awhile (and with some help from Koen and Richard), I have this.  I wanted to include an excerpt from The Third Reich And Roll (which is essentially an LP with a medley on each side), but settled for an outtake from The Residents' Commercial Album.  

There was a lively discussion in the comments about the "Stars On 45" phenomenon, and today we have a few punk and New Wave versions of the fad.  Captain Sensible concocted "Damned On 45", Squeeze did "Squabs On 45", The Circle Jerks did "Jerks On 45", and The New Bomb Turks did "Dogs On 45" for a split single with The Devil Dogs. 

Long before samplers and audio mixing software made mashups possible, we all had fun singing the lyrics from one song to the melody of another.  The Flaming Lips recorded two of these.  They put the words from PiL's "Rise" to the music of "One Toke Over The Line", and they combined "Seven Nation Army" with the lyrics from The Butthole Surfers' "Moving To Florida". Another "live mashup" (probably not the best term for it) was performed by The Tater Totz. They're not exactly medleys, but they're entertaining.

It's not all punk rock -- there's bluegrass and hip hop!  And a classic from Timperly's maestro of medleys, Frank Sidebottom!  Even if you don't like rap, you may appreciate Khruangbin's instrumental medley of funk and soul classics that became famous again as hip hop samples.