The Gray Album

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The Gray Album
Studio album by Danger Mouse

Publication
(s)

2004

Format (s)

MP3 / CD-R / vinyl

Genre (s)

Mashup / hip-hop

Title (number)

12

running time

44:36

production

Danger Mouse

The Gray Album is a 2004 Danger Mouse mash-up album that mixes the a cappella versions of the songs from Jay-Z's The Black album with the instrumental versions of the songs from the White Album by the Beatles . The album became known when EMI wanted to stop its distribution.

history

publication

The acapellas from Jay-Z's The Black album were sold separately as a so-called Jay-Z Construction Set after the album was released to enable remixes and mash-ups. Jay-Z was still the rights owner of the songs, but tolerated the further distribution. EMI , the rights holder of the Beatles songs, prohibited any unauthorized use of the tracks. In 2004, after a production time of two weeks, 3000 copies of the album were distributed to a few, selected stores and quickly achieved some fame, so that EMI was forced to act and first Danger Mouse and then the stores that offered the album, sent an injunction .

This made the album even better known and within a few days it spread in large quantities on the Internet. The traditional press also took up the topic and reported on it. An extremely positive review appeared in the February 9, 2004 issue of the New Yorker . Entertainment Weekly called it “the best album of 2004” and Rolling Stone “an awesome hip-hop album that is strangely ahead of its time "And the Boston Globe " the most creatively compelling album of the year ".

Gray Tuesday

In response to EMI's injunction, Downhill Battle , a not-for-profit organization committed to restructuring the music industry , called February 24, 2004 Gray Tuesday . As an act of “electronic civil disobedience ”, the album was offered for download for one day on the gray-colored Internet pages that took part in the campaign, thus protesting against EMI's attempt to prevent its distribution. It was demanded that the sampling of a song should be subject to the US copyright doctrine of fair use and should be equated with a cover .

Almost 170 websites took part in the campaign and offered the album for download. Over 150 of these sites received injunctions from EMI, but no fines were imposed. On that day alone, The Gray Album was downloaded over 100,000 times. Since then, the album is still available on countless websites and is distributed via P2P networks.

Track list

The individual songs are named after a song on The Black Album , but in a different order than on the original. It is indicated in each case which songs from the White Album are sampled in it.

  1. Public Service Announcement - 2:45
    • uses long, long, long
  2. What More Can I Say - 4:25
  3. Encore - 2:40
  4. December 4th - 3:34
  5. 99 Problems - 4:06
  6. Dirt Off Your Shoulder - 3:59
  7. Moment of Clarity - 4:00
    • uses Happiness Is a Warm Gun
  8. Change Clothes - 4:04
  9. Allure - 4:06
  10. Justify My Thug - 4:12
    • uses Rocky Raccoon
  11. Lucifer 9 (Interlude) - 2:01
  12. My 1st Song - 4:44

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Sebastian Reier: A mouse gnaws at the EMI ; ZEIT online from January 10, 2006 ; Accessed December 6, 2007
  2. ↑ a b greytuesday.org ( Memento of the original from January 3, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ; Accessed December 6, 2007 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.greytuesday.org
  3. ^ Ren ee Graham: Jay-Z, the Beatles meet in 'Gray' area ; Boston Globe February 10, 2004 ; Accessed December 6, 2007
  4. ^ Bill Become: Defiant Downloads Rise From Underground ; New York Times, February 25, 2004 ; Accessed December 6, 2007

Web links