The Death of a Thousand Cuts

Mash-ups are so-o-o-o-o 2002, I know—but you really need to hear the Hanzo Steel compilation, featuring radical remixes of music from the Kill Bill movies.

[I]nspired by Quentin Tarantino’s style of filmmaking, which combines elements of different genres (ie. spaghetti westerns, kung fu action films, 70’s blaxploitation cinema, etc.) into a new and exciting hybrid. The goal of the project was to ... essentially create an alternate soundtrack to the film.

It’s good, gimmicky fun, knowingly, boldly silly, but at the same time deeply funky. Beastie Boys sidekick Billions McMillions combines the Quincy Jones theme to Ironside with a bit of House Of Pain’s “Jump Around” and a loop of Big Boi and god knows what else into “Ironside Jumpoff,” the feel-good jam of the summer.

What’s funny is that this stuff would sit comfortably on the actual soundtrack—the same aesthetic is at play in Malcolm McLaren’s reworking of “She’s Not There,” by the Zombies—the McLaren track is called “About Her,” I think—which worked so beautifully in Part II.