“Girls love a DJ,” said DJ Pauly D of the Jersey Shore on the series’ fifth episode. “So once they see me behind the wheels of steel over there, doing my thing… watch out.”

Pauly D is right. DJs are increasingly popular nowadays, especially for pioneering the genre of mash-ups. Mash-ups take samples from several different popular songs and overlay them on each other for a unique juxtaposition of familiar lyrics and sounds. They generally are very high energy and implore listeners to dance. Thus, mash-ups are usually found blaring from club stereos, college dorms, and the cars of Scituate High students.

“I like mash-ups because they sound a lot cooler than just one song because they’re just a bunch of different beats and lyrics that you wouldn’t expect would go well together but they do,” said senior Laura Haselman. And luckily for the consumer, many young and undiscovered DJs offer free downloads of their mash-ups on totally legitimate websites.

Gregg Gillis, more commonly known by his stage name Girl Talk, is absolutely the first name in modern mash-up culture. He has released five albums on the Illegal Art record label since 2002, notably Night Ripper, Feed the Animals, and All Day. He is known for letting listeners pay the price they want to pay for the album- and yes, this means you can get it for free. Though his samples are unauthorized and come from artists ranging from Beck, Lil Wayne, and Black Sabbath, he has never been sued for his mash-up creations. Listeners can download the entire one hour, 11 minute album All Day, as one seamless song or several individual song files at the Illegal Art website, http://www.illegal-art.net/allday.

Also popular for his refined mash-ups and well-crafted music videos, DJ Earworm is known for his annual “United States of Pop” mash-up. These mash-ups feature samples from each of the 25 top songs of the year according to Billboard magazine. For example,  2007’s features “Party Like a Rockstar”, “Hey There Delilah”, and “Umbrella”, while 2009’s “Blame it on the Pop” samples “Down”, “Blame It” and “The Climb”. The iconic “United States of Pop” songs and videos are available for free download from DJ Earworm’s website http://djearworm.com/. His song for 2011 is set to release in late December.

Relatively new to the world of online DJing is Jared Lucas, or Kap Slap, a Massachusetts native in his senior year at Lehigh University. Kap Slap has about 18,000 likes on Facebook where he advertises his mission, “To take the best parts of songs from artists like Deadmau5, Avicii, Swedish House Mafia and Skrillex, mix them up and sprinkle some top 40 vocals on top for the ladies.” Remixes such as “Chris Brown’s Temper” pair unlikely parts from “Yeah 3X”, “Who’s That Chick” and “Sweet Disposition” for a techno-dance experience. Kap Slap’s audience is primarily college students as he tours and throws parties at campuses nationwide. Lucas’s music is available at http://kapslap.com/.

Other popular online artists include Tiesto, 3LAU, DJ DiBella, and White Panda who all have unique mash-up styles but generally adhere to free, high-energy music innovations.

Mash-ups are finding their place in the music industry. With their fast tempos and upbeat energy, mash-ups provide the perfect soundtrack to today’s fast-paced world. High school and college students alike will enjoy the music, especially since it’s free.