For a long time, Richard X remained an anonymous producer who was largely single-handedly responsible for the short-lived mash-up craze: combining the vocals and beats of two well-known songs into one new song. Since this happened without the permission of the artists, X released his work as a bootleg. He stepped out of anonymity when he used his mash-up trick extremely successfully on the Sugababes
… single Freak Like Me, where he combined Gary Numan's Are Friends Electric and Freak Like Me by Adina Howard. He did much the same for Liberty X (Being Nobody). Both songs can be found on Richard X's - fully legal - debut album X-Factor vol. 1. Richard X makes electropop strongly influenced by the eighties and samples his entire record collection (including Spandau Ballet, The Human League) for this purpose. This gives his music a kitschy and campy character, which is nice, but it also quickly gets a bit corny. Fortunately, X gets help from a large number of guest vocalists such as Kelis, Tiga and Jarvis Cocker (Pulp) who manage to limit the noncommittal nature somewhat. (IV)more
