It surprises even me how often mashups work musically.  I’m pretty sure this is a result of popular music following a few very basic chord progressions:  1, 4, 5, 4;  1, 6, 4, 5; etc…

Because I’m the type of person who randomly applies science to my art projects I’ve been toying with the idea of creating a huge spreadsheethat charts the chord progressions of all othe current pop songs, classic tunes, and my personal favorites. Then I should be able to sort the list and have like with like:giving myself a short list of songs to consider?

Only problem is this might be more work than just listening carefully and letting that sort happen in your brain…