Sometimes mashups are dreadful. Sometimes they're executed badly but work because the silliness of the end result trumps the haphazard construction. And sometimes, just sometimes, a mashup will offer up a glimpse of a parallel musical universe.
Case in point: a Reddit user by the name of TheTaskmaster has skilfully welded an instrumental version of AC/DC's very-much-underrated 1993 single Big Gun to the isolated vocal from Bryan Adams' 1984 smash Run To You, and the result suggests that either artist's career could have successfully proceeded in an entirely different direction.
AC/DC as radio-friendly pop rockers? Bryan Adams as a schoolboy-uniformed purveyor of hard-edged boogie? The mashup, titled Run To Gun, suggests that either option was possible. Perhaps the only surprise is that producer Mutt Lange – who worked with both acts on their most successful albums – didn't think of it first.
thetaskmaster_run_to_gun_acdc_bryan_adams from r/mashups
A close examination of TheTaskmaster's YouTube account reveals that he's responsible for much more sonic sorcery, including a sanity-questioning 58 (that's FIFTY EIGHT) mashups of Metallica and Megadeth songs.
He's also alchemised Celine Dion's The Power Of Love and Guns N' Roses Civil War to create The Power Of Civil War, a mashup of such epic proportions we're surprised Peter Jackson hasn't turned it into a six-part movie.
"Two buddies called me up one time from the bar and sang the "Cause I'm your lady" part to me explaining to me on the phone that it'd be with the Civil War music and I totally got it," says TheTaskmaster. "I showed up for a visit the next day with the song blasting out my car windows!"
The Celine N' Roses video is below.
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