Reckoner Lockdown (Kanye vs. Radiohead) - DJ Earworm

If there are two artists more separated by genre and style that need to be stirred together more than Kanye West and Radiohead, then the world is a much better place than I thought. DJ Earworm, who makes me wonder if he got his name from Animorphs, has gone ahead and done just that. Recently both Kanye West and Radiohead have released "stems" of songs, meant to be used in home grown remixes. Each stem has a certain instrument or part of the song on it, allowing you to cut and paste, chop and screw, and alter the song in just about any way you want. Radiohead even had a contest for "Reckoner" remixes, but the top few were rather disappointing and uninspired.

Earworm evidently took a page from The Dude and said "fuck it", effectively creating a musical Frankenstein. Thankfully, this creation is a bit easier on the senses, a bit less monstrous than the OG Frankenstein.

Earworm's vision for this mashup plays out well through all 5 minutes of the track. It starts out with some strings, leading into Kanye's first verse, under which Reckoner's two guitar parts fade in. Love Lockdown's rhythm gets a makeover, increasing the pace and smoothing it out a bit, while Reckoner's various parts are lowered in key to match Love Lockdown. Replacing the chord progression behind Love Lockdown with Reckoner's shifts Kanye's vocal melody to a sadder tone, but more importantly it makes it sound fresh again. Another cool thing about this song is that it more openly displays some of the lesser-known, harder-to-hear parts from Reckoner, like the organ and acoustic guitar.

One problem with Reckoner Lockdown is that somehow, even though it's only 30 seconds longer than Love Lockdown, it manages to make it way more repetitive. It's okay though, 'cause there is a lot to grab onto other than the vocals. While Earworm has definitely created a fantastic song in Reckoner Lockdown, and I can see it becoming huge, especially in clubs if it can find its way, I can't say that he's done anything excessively original with the tracks. Each part is exactly where you expect it to be, and after the first listen, there's not much that will take you by surprise. While predictable and even a bit repetitive, I've listened to this song at least 25 times today, so obviously it's not hampering the song too much.

5/7