When two brilliant and talented musicians get together to collaborate the resultant albums can be utterly magical, a match made in musical heaven. We the lucky music listening public are lucky to be bestowed with a joyful new combination of sounds that are exciting and wonderful and bring out the best of both artists. That's the intention anyway.
Most of the time they suck. Think about the musical car wreck that was Metallica and Lou Reed's 'Lulu' album. Marvin & Diana's vomit inducing Motown monstrosity. And shudder at the sheer horror that is Tom Jones and Jools Holland's boogie woogie opus.
Whilst collaborations work for a single song it's rare to sustain it over an entire album. COLLISION COURSE grew out of a session planned for the MTV Mash Up series. Jay-Z chose angsty metallers Linkin Park as his musical partners.
The six tracks are mash ups of some of the best known tracks of both artists and at only 22 minutes it's an EP rather than a full album.
It's a collaboration that really works. Key has been that rather than just remix the tracks though, both artists went back into the studio for four days to re-record all their parts to make them fit properly. Jay's anthem 99 Problems which gets a thrashier treatment and morphs with Linkin Park's 'One Step Closer' and 'Points of Authority'. 'Dirt Off Your Shoulder / Lying From You' and 'Numb / Encore' are the perfect hybrid of both tracks, fusing Jay's and Chester's vocals with heavy beats and guitars. The only slightly duff track is 'Izzo / In The End' which feels a little throwaway, but still fun. Five out of six is a pretty good hit rate though.
99 PROBLEMS
NUMB/ENCORE
DIRT OFF YOUR SHOULDER
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