This Slayer versus Prince mashup will bring joy to humankind

The internet's favourite mash-up maestro has weaved his sonic magic once again. This time, bootleg guru Bill McClintock has welded Prince's classic Let's Go Crazy to Slayer's Black Magic, and the result is magnificent. It's a party anthem for the ages. A tonic for a shattered world. And a demonic disco delight. 

Also making seamless contributions to the mash-up are Eddie Van Halen, who contributes a brief flurry of notes from Van Halen's I’m the One, and Jimmy Page, who inserts a longer section of the solo from Led Zeppelin's Whole Lotta Love. 

Frequent visitors to this site will be familiar with the marvellous McClintock, who has a long history of conjuring up magic from the unlikeliest of source material. Like the time he combined Aerosmith and Aretha Franklin. And the time he combined Metallica and Leo Sayer. And the time he bolted Van Halen to Hank Williams. And the time he introduced James Hetfield to Huey Lewis and made beautiful. And... you get the idea. The man's clearly a genius. 

"Trying to find two compatible songs takes a really long time," McClintock told Mouthing Off in 2020. "You would think that the more you do, the easier it gets. However, I think that it has gotten more difficult – my standards are higher. For example, if a song is 95% compatible, but there is this one thing I don’t like. There’s no way to edit around it, it wouldn’t sound right if I tried changing it, so I have to go to some other combination.

"That part of it is so frustrating, it's incredibly frustrating. You want to have the match and get into the editing right away, because that’s where its really fun, when you start to put it together and hear what it sounds like – that’s awesome. 

"It’s like you're going fishing, you sit there all day, day after day you get nothing. But then once you’ve found that match, and they sound so good together, it makes it worth it, to the point where I want to keep doing it."

Long may he keep fishing. 

Fraser Lewry

Online Editor at Louder/Classic Rock magazine since 2014. 38 years in music industry, online for 25. Also bylines for: Metal Hammer, Prog Magazine, The Word Magazine, The Guardian, The New Statesman, Saga, Music365. Former Head of Music at Xfm Radio, A&R at Fiction Records, early blogger, ex-roadie, published author. Once appeared in a Cure video dressed as a cowboy, and thinks any situation can be improved by the introduction of cats. Favourite Serbian trumpeter: Dejan Petrović.