Rappers have been doing it for years now… taking parts of one song and adding it into another to make something better and catchy. Over the last few years, it’s evolved into an entire genre of music called Mashup (a.k.a. Bastard Pop). The main difference between Mashup and sampling, is that typically Mashup involves more than just a quick soundbyte, but instead, it adds large portions of the song or lyrics.
Wired News got permission from a group of artists to create a whole CD of Mashup songs and distribute them legally under the Creative Commons license. They put this CD into their magazine, and you can even download the songs on the web.
Another favorite mashup album of mine is The Gray Album by DJ Danger Mouse. It mixes the vocals from Jay-Z’s Black Album to sampled tunes from The Beatles’ White Album, and it sounds freakin sweet!
One more from DJ Danger Mouse: check out “DangerDoom: The Mouse and the Mask“, which is his collaboration with MF DOOM, an album inspired by Adult Swim, Cartoon Network’s popular late-night animation network. Here’s some more info about the album on ThePirateBay.
Additionally, check out American Edit by Dean Gray. You may be hard-pressed to find this album, but if you search through the links on that website or try a Google search, you should be able to find it.