One of the highlights of Lollapalooza this year was Perry's, a newly prominent stage for dance and electronic music that drew overflowing, enthusiastic crowds even at odd hours of the day. I spent a good deal of time at that stage, and the act that stood out most was the Chicago mash-up factory The Hood Internet, a duo that plies the Internet with a steady stream of free remixes and mixtapes (their latest mix, Volume 4, is posted here).
On paper, their act reads like a shtick designed for maximum web traffic: Pair a huge hit, usually by a popular rap or R&B artist, with an incongruous indie-rock song, sit back and watch the blogs light up. But The Hood Internet have a sense of composition other mash-up artists don't, and they avoid cheap novelty in favor of unexpectedly mellifluous pairings, like this mash-up of an R. Kelly hit with a Broken Social Scene deep cut:
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