The fight for diverse and conscious voices

http://mashupbreakdown.com/nhh
A neat tool for those of us who want to know how remix tracks are made - Mashup Breakdown(http://mashupbreakdown.com) - has been filled with the second-by-second illustration of the component pieces of The Kleptones' "Night at the Hiphopera." This 23-track reworking of the Queen album is laid out in gorgeous detail. You can just listen, you can watch the components light up as they play, or you can mouse over bits to see what they are without waiting for the music.

So far this is just one of four albums laid out in the tool. It's obviously a ton of work so it's not surprising more artists haven't done it yet, but I can hope it will catch on.

http://audioporncentral.com/2010/12/diane-birch-a-strange-kind-of-love-peter-murphy-cover-2.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeUbj_xpv7c
Diane Birch, whose Sisters of Mercy cover I extolled earlier, returns with a passionate and soulful cover of Peter Murphy's "A Strange Kind of Love". Researching the original led me to find the second video, which is... wow. Murphy live acoustic, backed by (among others) Trent Reznor. If I was very very rich, I would pay to have Birch and Murphy do this as a duet. By the way, Birch's EP is out and costs all of $5 on iTunes now so you really have no excuse.

http://www.frankmusik.com/
If you remember Peter Murphy then you may also remember the Vocoder and how one day Kraftwerk made it work and then suddenly it was everywhere. Now comes Frankmusik (Vincent Frank) with a very modern dance track built around a simple yet catchy vocoded hook. This is something of a departure from his earlier stuff, which is pretty standard electro-dance tunes. He's also sporting a very retro pseudo-James Dean look in the video. The song is a little repetitive but I prefer the new look/sound so here's hoping he does more in this vein.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Uz9C3m4QXc
Also related - another eerily beautiful cover. This by Niyaz (http://www.niyazmusic.com/ - warning, starts playing on load) is my absolute favorite Cure track, "Love Song". Niyaz comes out of a world music tradition and while she's faithful to Robert Smith's vocal style, it's layered over choral backgrounds and gentle beats from a wholly non-Cure style. Still, she does it excellent justice. If you'd like to hear more of her stuff I would recommend starting with this YouTube playlist (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91pMQfuZf04&feature=list_related&playnext=1&list=MLGxdCwVVULXcNrTRTIwEi7iIz8JVfVGzs) (h/t to MizA for that pointer)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjVNlG5cZyQ
I'm still not a big fan of P!nk (despite prop'ing her Grammy performance back in February) so I had missed this video and the song. It's once again a fairly standard pop tune, but listen to the lyrics. P!nk drops herself squarely in the punk with one very large "f you" to the mainstream. The video also contains some brilliant moments, including nods to Rosie the Riveter, ICP, and hair metal. Do not miss the kiss at 0:28, and I confess the reveal at 2:06 made me laugh out loud.
(h/t to intuition_ist this time)

Last time I said I would review the Bootie Blog Top 10 for February. Here's my review: it sucks. Skip it. Too much Gaga and Ke$ha who, as I said to MizA, bears approximately the same resemblance to good music as a K-Mart plastic tube with a lightbulb in it bears a resemblance to a real light saber. Even when they're nodding to The Kleptones they picked one of the worst bits of Uptime to link.

In replacement of which, I give you
http://www.kleptones.com/blog/2010/02/10/video-violence/
The first entry in The Kleptone's "Videotones project", an invitation to video mash-up artists to produce visual materials that go along with Uptime/Downtime. This piece by Instamatic renders out the "Welcome Back" mash that they built around Def Leppard's "Welcome To the Jungle".

http://djsteveboy.com/groovelectric.html
Also back in excellent form (finally) is DJ Steveboy with his latest stream titled "New Ground." He's moved up north to the SF Bay area and clearly the name is a tip of the hat to the new studio he has set up. The start is a bit slow, but it's got plenty of good funky stuff and the ending of the mix is some of his best work in a long time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3stsDXki__U&feature=fvw
OK, I'm probably the only one here who doesn't watch the Grammys. So you've probably all seen and heard this performance already. But I hadn't. If I ever said anything bad about P!nk I take it all back. This piece combines great vocals with excellent costuming and fabulous staging. Yes, it's true she's not doing all that difficult a silks bit. But who the hell cares - she's doing it herself, and singing at the same time. Smokin'. Also, I could point a finger about half a hundred performers who should study that costume for pointers. H/T to heinleinfan for the link.

http://audioporncentral.com/2010/02/simon-iddol-we-are-in-the-go-go-club.html
APC's Simon Iddol hasn't posted anything of his own in a while and I've missed his particular style. Here he's got Empire of the Sun's "We are the People" going up against Vybz Kartel's "Go-Go Club" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1YjnfU8xcc). Iddol has stripped out the reggae vocals of the latter but kept the dub clicks and bumps. It's a neat combination.

http://www.mashup-industries.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=38&Itemid=36
Mashup Industries changed its site organization and along the way linked to a video for this track, which Clivester did back in 2007. The vid is OK, but the track is... haunting. You'd think it was a Beatles mash, and it sort of is, but some of the real chills come from Erik B and Rakim's contributions, and strategically chosen samples from Duran Duran's "Come Undone" (http://www.tsrocks.com/d/duran_duran_texts/come_undone.html)