The Grey Album

The Grey Album was a controversial album by DJ Danger Mouse released in 2004 (see 2004 in music). It uses an a cappella version of rapper Jay-Z's Black Album and couples it with a multitude of samples and mixes of the Beatles' White Album.

Related Topics:
DJ Danger Mouse - 2004 - 2004 in music - A cappella - Jay-Z - Black Album - Samples - Mixes - The Beatles - White Album

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The album, which DJ Danger Mouse released privately, created a massive amount of controversy as EMI, the White Albums copyright holder, never granted DM permission to use the Beatles' material. (Jay-Z's material, on the other hand, was freely released in a cappella form for the express purpose of remixes such as The Grey Album.) The controversial album managed to provoke massive Internet-based anti-music label protest dubbed Grey Tuesday, due to a growing opinion that sampling is fair use and that a statutory license should be provided in the same manner as if a given song had been covered.

Related Topics:
EMI - Internet - Grey Tuesday - Fair use - Statutory license

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In spite of (or perhaps because of) the legal and ethical controversy created, the album quickly became extremely popular and well-distributed over the Internet, and even received a very positive write-up in the February 9, 2004 issue of The New Yorker. It was named the Best of 2004 in the category music by Entertainment Weekly. The Internet release of The Grey Album spurred a series of copycat DJs to mix the a cappella version of the Black Album with a variety of other artists, including Weezer (Mike's The Black and Blue Album), Pavement (DJ N-Wee's The Slack Album), Prince (K12 of 12-N-Dirty Productions The Purple Album) and Metallica (Cheap Cologne's Double Black Album).

Related Topics:
February 9 - 2004 - The New Yorker - Entertainment Weekly - Weezer - Pavement - Prince - Metallica

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In the fall of 2004 an experimental music video for the song 'Encore', titled The Grey Video, surfaced on the Internet but was promptly removed. It can however still be found via file-sharing applications. It featured digitally altered footage of The Beatles as well as Jay-Z performing in concert. In one particular sequence a body double was used for John Lennon and featured him break dancing to the music.

Related Topics:
2004 - The Grey Video - File-sharing - The Beatles - Jay-Z - Body double - John Lennon - Break dancing

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The cover artwork for the album was done by Justin Hampton.

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