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Grey Tuesday: creative genius cannot go unpunished

UPDATE: After seeing this huge list of sites posting the files, I suppose I should pitch in. Here is the Grey Album in .zip format and here in .tar.gz. I will take these down in 24 hours.

It's truly a grey tuesday... so grey that I've greyed my stylesheet (and it may stay that way).

I've just listened to the entire Grey Album by DJ Danger Mouse. It's absolutely amazing. It's a true testament to how innovative and creative certain artists can be without even recording an original note. If you have no idea what I'm talking about: DJ Danger Mouse, as a homage to both the Beatles and the rapper Jay-Z, has remixed the entirety of Jay-Z's recent album, The Black Album, exclusively using sounds from the Beatle's The White Album. The only thing remaining from Jay-Z's album is the vocals... everything else is built up from small samples of the White Album... in DJ Danger Mouse's words: "every kick, snare, and chord is taken from the Beatles White Album and is in their original recording somewhere."

Of course, genius like this cannot go unpunished by the major record labels. I'm sure they're pretty pissed off that they can't actually hire this kind of talent (although they do a good job with attorneys). EMI has issued a pretty amazingly agressive cease-and-desist letter. Downhillbattle has responded to this letter claiming fair use. Part of the movement to keep this work alive is a protest today where sites are putting the album up for download to make sure that it is not quashed by the commercial evil that is EMI.

I've got the album... I wish I had the vinyl. I'm reluctant to post these files on N.Q.B. If I know you personally (face-to-face or net), and you're having trouble getting these tracks, send me an email. If not, you should first try downloading it from a peer-to-peer network (see below) and then try either the link from downhillbattle (here) or one below from illegal art:

DOWNLOAD THE ALBUM

01 Public Service Announcement
02 What More Can I Say
03 Encore
04 December 4th
05 99 Problems
06 Dirt Off Your Shoulder
07 Moment of Clarity
08 Change Clothes
09 Allure
10 Justify My Thug
11 Interlude
12 My 1st Song

Help us save bandwidth by using the following options instead. All of these programs are free, trustworthy, easy to use, and they don't install any advertising or spyware on your computer.

Bittorrent lets all the people who want a file share some of the bandwidth required to distribute it. It's very reliable. Once you install it and click the link below, you'll have the album within a day.

  1. Download Bittorrent (it's easy): Windows, Mac, Linux
  2. Double-click on the installer. Mac people: drag the icon into your Applications folder.
  3. Click on this link (Mac people: Control Click and "Download Link to Disk" and then open the file)

You can also get it the old-fashioned way, on a p2p network. Just search for "Grey Album" or "Dangermouse". Advantage: there are several other full-album remixes of the Black Album; you can get those too.

Posted by joebeone at Febrero 24, 2004 08:37 AM