The concept of the mash-up was created by Humphrey Littleton on "I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue" in a game called "One Song to the Tune of Another". Since then it has been taken to the hearts of, mostly amateur, DJ's the world over and in particular Germany and the Internets. The traditional technique is to take something that the "cool kids" would dance to and combine it with something the "cool kids" wouldn't dance to and then try and give it a clever or funny name - so for example we could take Phil Collins and "mash him up with" Jay-Z (or one of that crowd) giving us Easily 99 Problematic Lovers or something, to my knowledge that one doesn't exist yet but if anyone does decide to make it then send it and the royalties my way!
Mash-ups are generally not released commercially and that's for two reasons firstly the vast majority are rubbish and don't actually aid the original songs and secondly the original songs are used without permission and hence there would be a huge tangle of lawyers (dependent on the number of songs and samples used) fighting over what little profits might be made. Whilst watching lawyers fight is vastly entertaining its probably not worth the trouble in this situation!
It seems that the world of the mash-up lacks originality and the same songs re-occur time and again. Staples include: Missy Elliot - Get Your Freak On; Jay-Z - 99 Problems; The Prodigy - Smack My Bitch Up; AC/DC - Back in Black; The Chemical Brothers - Galvanize; Survivor - Eye of the Tiger; and any given Snoop, Michael Jackson, Dr Dre or Queen song! Presumably with this information you could make the Best Mash-Up Ever which would be something like "99 Thrilling Freaks Smack the Galvanized Queen in the Black Eye for Snooping"... oh wait I forgot about Dre!
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