SiriusXM recently added a huge number of extra channels (officially called “Xtra Channels”) to its app and online service, which I thought was an exciting development. They didn’t so much add new genres, as themes and blends of genres. There are now channels for your barbeque, for your tailgate party, for your workout, and for your cooldown. My suggestion of a murder ballad channel, or a channel of nothing but bluegrass songs about bluegrass, didn’t make the cut, but I knew it was a long shot.
Among the categories of new channels is one called “Music Mash,” containing various mash-ups of genres. These may be of greatest interest to me, because you can’t possibly combine enough seemingly unrelated genres in one channel to equal the randomness of some of my own playlists, which have been known to range from Red Allen’s Folkways recordings to Madonna’s Essene period. One channel blends current country and pop hits, another offers a ’60s and ’70s country and pop hits mash-up. There’s even a current pop/country/Alt/R&B mash-up.
All this genre-mixing and kneading (just before punching it down and repeating) has given me an idea: we need to come up with bluegrass songs that are mashed up with pop hits of various eras, and the result can be a genre all to itself, with its own channel and possibly an awards show.
As an example of what I’m talking about, here are some ideas for songs that are mash-ups of ’70s and ’80s pop hits with bluegrass standards:
Dancing in the Dark Hollow
Crocodile Rocky Top
Purple Rain Please Go Away
The Boys of Summer Wages
We Didn’t Start the Fire on the Mountain
Tainted Love Please Come Home
Don’t Bring Me Down in the Willow Garden
Pain in My Heart of Glass
I Will Survive The Flood
I’ve Never Been to Me and the Jukebox
Rocket Man in the Middle
Doin’ My Time After Time
Cold As Ice Covered Birches
The Old Swinging Bridge Over Troubled Water
Every Breath You Take Me in the Lifeboat
Dim Lights, Thick Smoke on the Water
How Will I Know What It Means to Be Lonesome
Straight Up This Hill and Down
Crazy Little Thing Called Love and Wealth
Old Slew Footloose
That Old Time Rock ’n’ Roll in My Sweet Baby’s Arms
These next three may bend the rules slightly, but I thought it was worth it:
When White Doves Cry
Papa Don’t Preach or Whip Little Bennie
Walkin’ In My Sleep Like an Egyptian
Mash away! This also needs to be a Jeopardy category.
