This week's Hip-Hop CDs reviewed

MINTY FRESH BEATS
JaydioheadMinty Fresh Beats ***

Max Tannone is the latest artist to find that mashing two well-known artists together can be a shortcut to the top of a long queue. The New York DJ behind Jaydiohead took a bunch of Jay-Z a capellas, put them on top of various Radiohead tracks, stuck them online and is now enjoying a bloggy 15 minutes of fame. Such shotgun marriages are nothing new (both Girl Talk and 2 Many DJs have done well from such creative coupling) and certainly not when it comes to involving Jigga, who has found himself sonically matched in this way with The Beatles, Pavement, Coldplay and Metallica. There are several occasions when Tannone's cross-breeding works well. His 99 Anthems, for instance, is meaty enough to really wow, while the rejigs on Dirt Off Your Androidworks well for both sides. But often it's all a little lame, and the juxtapositioning isn't strong enough to form a bridge between rapper and band. www.jaydiohead.com  JIM CARROLL

Download tracks: 99 Anthems, Dirt Off Your Android