This is half-pie.

OK, so after swearing off buying new CDs, what do you do for music?

Download it of course. But not boring old music, that’s just so Napster and ‘90s. Go for some mash-up action instead. Pick the bones of the bloated and rotting corpse of pop music; sort through the earthquake rubble of post-modernity.

How can it be wrong to download this stuff? After all, you can’t be reducing sales of the originals, right? These are effectively new works that the “creators” have made available for download. Cory Doctorow says so, and he’s always right, right? Maybe.

Anyway, this stuff is hours of fun. And here’s some recent suggestions available on the web for the diligent surfer:

• Radiohead vs. De La Soul, amongst others. Downloaded this and quite like it – the standout for me is the De La Soul track. (Search for this one on your favourite Bittorrent tracker aggregator site.)
• Queen vs. 50 Cent. In the process of downloading this. Very amusing. And I’m liking it, something that separately the two artists don’t do for me.
• intergalactic pop music rescue squad resurrecting crap old songs “with NYC tunes”. Curious about this one. (Later: it’s a Beastie Boys mashup – e.g., Beasties vs. Macarena...)
• the treasure trove at Mashculture – all in Dutch, but who cares – just right click and save as the site title says: Franz Ferdinand vs. The Knack; Massive Attack vs. Marvin Gaye (Unfinished Sympathy and What’s Goin’ On – absolutely brilliant); Pink Floyd vs. Smashing Pumpkins (surprisingly apt); it goes on and on.

That will keep you going until you fall off the CD-boycott wagon.