Redlemon

I wanted my own little thread to feed and keep healthy, so here we go. In this thread, I'll be periodically sharing recordings that I find interesting. Not necessarily musical or artistic, but I hope always interesting.

My main interest is in reappropriation, whether it be as simple as a cover version, or as layered as collage. I hope that the material I post here will be new to 90% of you (if you are a BoingBoing reader, that percentage may drop some, as someone there seems to share my musical interests).

I will strive to post downloadable mp3s as often as possible, with some streaming audio where necessary. The downloads will be legal, as they will come from the artists' webpages; however, not all samples within the songs have been cleared, so there may be some fair use issues.

Enjoy and learn!

__________________
I can't read your signature. Sorry.

Redlemon

Question: What could possibly have less soul than a MIDI track?
Answer: A MIDI track with an electronic dictionary reciting the song lyrics.

Yes, it's Dictionaraoke! As their website says, "Definition: Audio clips from online dictionaries sing the hits of yesterday and today. The fun of karaoke meets the word power of the dictionary." This is a production of a group of collage artists that call themselves Snuggles. Why Snuggles? I'll return to that in a later lesson.

The first example is "All Star" by Smash Mouth, by Pimpdaddysupreme. The lyrics are fast, which requires the individual words to overlap through much of the song. Also, it contains some examples of word division; the word "Gold" is sung as 3 syllables in the original, and required Pimpdaddysupreme to select words or word portions from the online dictionary to say "Go, Ol, Ld".

For the traditionalist, the second example is "I Got You Babe" by Sonny & Cher, by Stark Effect. Here we see both of the dictionaries (Merriam-Webster and Encarta) being used to create a duet. There are also some nice examples of word stretching.

Finally, just for SiN and SecretMethod70, we have "Closer" by Nine Inch Nails, by animals within animals. (NSFW)

If none of the original songs are particularly to your liking, go to the Dictionaraoke main page for another 97 tracks, everything from a-Ha to the Zombies. There's certain to be a song you love being dragged through the mud.

__________________
I can't read your signature. Sorry.

Glory's Sun

I seriously laughed my ass off to that NIN whatever you want to call it

5757

That NIN song if funny!

I don't understand the purpose of these electronic things. Are they made so that you may learn the lyrics?

__________________
Hey! Wait! I've got a new complaint, Forever in debt to ((your)) priceless advice. - Nirvana

Coppertop

So very, very wrong.

Redlemon

No real purpose except for the joy of making them, I guess. As I said, Snuggles is a group of collage artists, and they create their pieces by cutting and pasting audio samples together. We'll have more collage later, probably lesson 3 or 4.

__________________
I can't read your signature. Sorry.

Poppinjay

That brought a smile to my face.

It was go ol old.

__________________
I think the Apocalypse is happening all around us. We go on eating desserts and watching TV. I know I do. I wish we were more capable of sustained passion and sustained resistance. We should be screaming and what we do is gossip. -Lydia Millet

FngKestrel

Holy shit, that is hilarious.

ratbastid

I (like Cory Doctorow and, I now find, redlemon) do love a good mashup.

Charlatan

Ratbastid... haven't you seen the thread on here somewhere where jwoody and redlemon rapsodize about their addiction to the mashup?

It's got some very good links...

__________________
"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke

trickyy

these aren't mashups, really. pretty cool though.

DJ Food's Raiding the 20th Century would make for a good extra credit assignment...

vermin

While I wouldn't want to sit through those again, it was interesting to hear.

__________________
If puns were sausages, this would be the wurst.

n0nsensical

Very Benny Benassi-Satisfaction-like. You never know, someone might have a big club hit with one of these one day.

jwoody

Congratulations on the birth of your new thread, Redlemon.

I look forward to hearing what's been coming in your ears.

__________________
.

fightnight

Very interesting stuff. I'll be checking back on this thread for sure!!!

SecretMethod70

Oh man, that version of Closer was hilarious Those people should be committed for thinking that up

__________________
Le temps détruit tout

"Musicians are the carriers and communicators of spirit in the most immediate sense." - Kurt Elling

Suave

Haha this is fantastic.

__________________
"Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions." - Albert Einstein

"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something." - Plato

Tophat665

F*cking Brilliant. I love the Cameo - Word Up. Listening to Puttin on the Ritz right now. Love how they mixed in Peter Boyle.

__________________
Light a man a fire, and he will be warm while it burns.
Set a man on fire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life.

Redlemon

Great, I'm glad to hear someone is checking out the site for more stuff. Anyone else pick up additional tracks?

__________________
I can't read your signature. Sorry.

roachboy

http://www.ubu.com/sound/dj_food.html


the raiding the 20th century track....enjoy

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Poppinjay

I want to be sedated

Fuck and Run - actually has kaoroke music, not midi

__________________
I think the Apocalypse is happening all around us. We go on eating desserts and watching TV. I know I do. I wish we were more capable of sustained passion and sustained resistance. We should be screaming and what we do is gossip. -Lydia Millet

Martian

Wow, that's so disturbing. Soulless doesn't even begin to describe it.

I haven't even checked the site yet. That version of Closer.. there's nothing creepier than digitized dictionary voices reciting "I want to f*ck you like an animal".

__________________
I wake up in the morning more tired than before I slept
I get through cryin' and I'm sadder than before I wept
I get through thinkin' now, and the thoughts have left my head
I get through speakin' and I can't remember, not a word that I said

- Ben Harper, Show Me A Little Shame

Redlemon

Yeah, some of them cheat. IIRC, the version of "My Heart Will Go On" is such a bad karoke version that there's still some vocals in the mix. I was going to mention that, but figured that it would get in the way.

Thanks everyone for playing along! I think I'll have a new lesson for tomorrow.

__________________
I can't read your signature. Sorry.

trickyy

yeah roachboy, i should have linked to that, thanks
it's a great listen
and the site is pretty cool too

Anxst

That's just scary. The version of Last Caress is cool, but I'd like to here the dictionary chanting "Die Die Die, my darling!" as well.

Nice find, Redlemon! I'll be checking out what the hell that was often.

__________________
Don't mind me. I'm just releasing the insanity pressure from my headvalves.

Redlemon

Question: You know how donuts have holes in them, right?
Answer: Yes....
Question: And you can take those holes and sell them as Munchkins?
Answer: Um, yes...
Question: So what happens to the profanity in a song that is edited for radio play?

Some guy or group that goes by the name ni9e explored this question, and the result was the Explicit Content Only version of "Straight Outta Compton" by N.W.A., edited down into versions that contain only the profanity. For example, listen to the 42-second long version of Fuck Tha Police.

Checking the back information on this, ni9e also experimented with using the full length of the song, with silence replacing the non-profane parts (see Straight Outta Compton for the only example), but decided that the shorter versions were more effective.

Here's a link to the webpage for the full Explicit Content Only album, along with their calculation of the Explicit Content Ratio for each song (the highest was Fuck Tha Police with an amazing 12.1% ECR). Don't bother downloading the songs with 0.0% ECR; those tracks are 0 seconds long. Or, if you are pressed for time, try every track played at the same time.

It cracks me up when my iPod tosses a Tourette's blast of profanity in the middle of my song set.


(Sorry that this lesson is just a quickie. (I don't know, this has never happened to me before ) I had a longer one planned, but I have too much work today to put it together. Maybe next week...)

__________________
I can't read your signature. Sorry.

Martian

That is endlessly amusing. Had I an iPod, a few of these tracks would be on it purely for entertainment value.

__________________
I wake up in the morning more tired than before I slept
I get through cryin' and I'm sadder than before I wept
I get through thinkin' now, and the thoughts have left my head
I get through speakin' and I can't remember, not a word that I said

- Ben Harper, Show Me A Little Shame

Redlemon

Well, I guess that lesson went over like a lead balloon. I'll try to do better next time.

Please feel free to leave negative feedback in this thread, it'll help me to prepare the next lesson.

__________________
I can't read your signature. Sorry.

vanblah

Redlemon,

You'd probably get a kick out Jonathan and Darlene Edwards:

http://corinthianrecords.com/intv.htm

Unfortunately, I can't find any clips of their stuff on the web. But I do have two of their albums. It's amazingly well done. It's easy to sing and play badly if you don't know how to ... but it's an entirely different thing to make it "sound" like you are bad when in fact you are an accomplished musician.

Charlatan

Redlemon... that ni9e stuff was awesome... I love me some doughnut holes and now I love me some Explicit Content Only versions of songs...

__________________
"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke

trickyy

i can prove that more people liked it
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?t=87501

Redlemon

I just checked some of the samples from the Amazon pages. Wow, that is some horrible work that they've done. My mouse hovered over the Add to Cart button, but ultimately, that's a bit much $ for a quick joke. And my wife would kill me if I played it in the house.
(...whew, at least I didn't respond to that thread, that would have been completely embarrassing...)

__________________
I can't read your signature. Sorry.

Anxst

Now that I read it, it wasn't a bad lesson, redlemon. It just didn't have the 'conversation starter' power that dictionaraoke had.

Keep it comin!

__________________
Don't mind me. I'm just releasing the insanity pressure from my headvalves.

roachboy

http://www.ubu.com/outsiders/365/index.html

this is nearly overwhelming: one (very) curious track for each day of a year.
prime material for mashing up.
you can start anywhere and go anywhere and find yourself--well-speechless.
you could start here for example:

http://mediamogul.seas.upenn.edu/pen...ssage-1996.mp3


ubu is the shit, in the parlance of our times.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

trickyy

my favorite 365 days track is "i'm a mormon"
http://mediamogul.seas.upenn.edu/pen...ormon-1980.mp3
it's so cheery.

can you recommend any of stuff from the rest of the site? i went through the outsider section of ubu (interesting for more than just music) when they started hosting the dj food mix. beyond that, all i've downloaded was some alvin lucier. there are gigs upon gigs of other stuff, but i haven't gotten around to checking it out. (someday i'd like to give the prelinger archive some more attention, too.)

roachboy

from ubu...yikes...there is anoverhwleming amount of stuff, yes.

my band has a page: clairaudient. the track is older (about a year) but i stil kinda like it. http://www.ubu.com/sound/clair.html

when i started cruising around the site, i was interested in sound poetry (still am): jaap blonk, henri chopin, bob cobbing...you get crossreferenced to recordings by the dad folk who set this tradition into motion--hugo ball, tristan tzara.....and especially kurt schwitters
there are alot more folk on the site who do sound poetry, but the names escape me (it is early in the morning)...you can check out a huge range from the sound poetry today links.

on a parallel tip: brion gysin, willam s burroughs

the john cage and sun ra record is great and really hard to find now--you can download it......the cornelius cardew page has some great stuff (eg a performacne of treatise, paragraph 1 of the great learning) and some of teh maoist "revolutionary" songs he did near the end of his life--i think they are kinda sweet, but not everyone agrees.

there is some musique concrete (basically a variant of early tape music---more or less) pierre schaeffer....a generation later, goign in a different directionw ith a parallel approach---tod dockstaeder

david moss is cool--a great percussionist and loopy vocal arranger...

another huge area within ubu is about fluxus. my friend (who runs the site) takes fluxus in a broad sense, and so includes stuff from la monte young (both in the regular mp3 archive and in the aspen magazine section) through most of the usual suspects (main june paik, charlotte moorman, macunias, henry flynt) to tony conrad---it might be easiest just to search fluxus and loose a day or two checking it out.

plunderphonics: john oswald, the tape beatles. you can get a bunch more stuff from/about these folk at www.detritus.net too.

o, and the gertrude stein page is just great. no-one reads her stuff like she does. i am a fool for it. can't help myself.

it is a huge huge resource. i spent maybe ten minutes on this scrolling through the mp3 archive index page and i know that i am not mentioning stuff that i think at least interesting. but cruise around on the planet ubu--it is an almost unbelievable resource.

oh, and this: http://www.ubu.com/sound/taylor.html

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

trickyy

thanks for all the recommendations, i'm putting together a big Flashget queue

i thought i'd add to this thread...here are a bunch of unusual mp3s for your listening pleasure. i liked the mind control collection and sideshow recordings, but there are more i have to download. i included the full list so you know what to expect.
http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2005/1...ions.html#more

xepherys

Holy crap!

http://mediamogul.seas.upenn.edu/pen...e-run-1996.mp3

That's my high school. Well, it was until 1995. That's frickin' awesome!


Errr, for clarification that came from http://www.ubu.com/outsiders/365/01-1.html

The UBU 365-day MP3 extravaganza...

flamingdog

Oh yes. I think I'm going to download the lot. This is perfect mix-tape stuff.

That version of All-Star is way better than the original, mind.

tobasco

i like this remix/mashup