Wayne Marshall, Vijay Iyer and M.I.A., “Galangs,” 2010.

I get crabby about mashups. You laid a rap vocal over Beach House? OK. That’s what djs do. Maybe it’s good. Maybe it’s great. But if there is something unique about “the mashup,” it is a reckoning with the song and all the tricky bits that must plausibly interlock to make, not a blend, but a complete and different song. “Stroke of Genius” is two songs made one, keys and changes and words and moods lined up. This is unusually hard to do, and people rarely get it right. Blends are a billion years old and fun and let’s keep them coming. Let’s also use vinyl when we can — blends gravitate towards similarity now because computerz make it so easy and encourage a default methodology that produces a default aesthetic. Straining and struggling makes you think it out while you work it out.

Wayne killed it with this one. I am happy to say the word “musical.” I also love “no musics.” But this is the musics.