Commentary

By now you’ve almost certainly heard Christian Bale’s psychotic freak-out at the poor DP who dared to tweak the lights during an emotional scene of the up-coming Terminator sequel. Over four minutes of profanity-laced threats and belittling put-downs, Bale’s tirade will undoubtedly top his performance as the stoic John Connor. It’s an Oscar worthy scene that makes for great entertainment. This fact was not lost on DJ RevoLucian who took the leaked verbal assault, set it to some club-thumping beats and created the year’s best new cut-up “reality song,” “Bale Out – RevoLucian’s Christian Bale Remix.”

DJ RevoLucian is not the first person to mix spoken word clips with music. Negativland is an experimental music and sound collage band which originated in the in the late 1970s and has released over a dozen albums of these types of cut-ups. The most famous of which features “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” (check it out here) backing an extended profane rant from famous disc jockey Casey Kasem during a frustrating rehearsal. Another group, The Evolution Control Committee, have released several records of cut-ups as well, including Plagiarhythm Nation, which contains “Rocked by Rape,” a wonderful musical re-edit of a Dan Rather news report and “The Fucking Moon,” an hysterical mash-up of the first transmissions from the Apollo moon landing.

Listen to “Rocked by Rape” by The Evolution Control Committee
Listen to “The Fucking Moon” by The Evolution Control Committee

You can bet that the number of cut-ups like “Bale Out” will only increase in the future. Indeed, the ability to capture and quickly disseminate outbursts like Bale’s via a growing number of microphones and cameras recording our every move and utterance, combined with the ubiquitous nature of the Internet, home recording, DJ-ing, and gossip outlets like TMZ are creating a whole new genre of music. So watch what you say, because you never know who’ll turn that tirade into a hit.

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