This is either the best mash-up anybody ever mashed-up, or the worst. But it sounds great on my Section 8 earbuds.

It started innocently enough. “Hey, wouldn’t it be cool to combine ‘California Love’ with ‘L.A. Woman’?” But you know how this mash-up thing goes. By the time I stumbled, bleary-eyed and nauseous from too much Rockstar, away from my computer desk, everything from “Whip It” to “I Can’t Stop Loving You” to “Waka Waka” had been put through my musical meatgrinder.

As I listened to the “she wrote upon it” line from “Return to Sender” interweaving with the “I don’t want your” line from “Photograph” over the drumbeat for “I Want To Rock N Roll All Nite,” the guitar riff from “Spanish Castle Magic,” and the keyboard riff from “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” I didn’t know if my ears were experiencing a transcendent revelation or an unlistenable turd.

But I do know that it sounded crisp, deep, and powerful through my Section 8 High Performance In-Ear Buds. Don’t let the nominal similarity to the federal subsidized housing program fool you: these are no low-rent earbuds. The only thing I have to figure out now is which artist’s mug I want plastered on the outside. I wonder how many of these soft rubber tips I can fit into each ear…

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