Raising the Dead: Snoop Dogg et al vs. Johnny Cash

I’m not one of those people who thinks popular music is “sacred,” the way Hindus don’t want anyone screwing around with their cows. By all means, screw around with whatever music you want. I eat a lot more vegetable korma than I do cow, but as far as I’m concerned, Beatles music is totally appropriate for rendering into ground protein on Danger Mouse’s killing floor, and at my bitchiest, I’ll say you’ve made a vast improvement. You don’t get much less “rock-and-roll” than by enshrining music in a Hall of Fame, like some precious fancydancer who lives with his mother and fawns over his collection of antique spoons. On the other hand, I’ve listened to a hell of a lot of Johnny Cash over the years, and I’m pretty sure that it’s never once crossed my mind that the traditionally spare productions of Cash’s discography would be even better if they were punctuated by disco sirens and dance floor backbeats.