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Songsmith, Microsoft’s musak-creation tool (heh, “tool”), though ridiculous and poorly advertised, does have one major plus: it allows the casual music listener (as opposed to musician) to truly appreciate the importance of music. Music, man: it’s really hard to make good! Maybe Johnny Marr’s job was just as hard as Morrissey’s! Now we know. Thank you, Songsmith. The guy who’s been posting videos of classic songs put through Songsmith has come out with three new ones destined to anger a cross section of 30-55 year-old white male fans: “White Wedding,” “Tom Sawyer,” and “Buddy Holly.” Don’t shoot the casual music fan messenger, but the last one, as a cover, actually isn’t terrible…
“Tom Sawyer” by Rush: you got Songsmithed!:
In middle school someone asked me what my favorite David Bowie song was and I said “White Wedding.” That has nothing to do with anything except that this is the Songsmith version of Billy Idol’s “White Wedding.” (Also, I lied: it was college.):
“Buddy Holly”: You can’t dance to it, and maybe it’s just the superiority of this video, but it isn’t the worst cover of a song in history:
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not going to make it my ringtone or anything.
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I don’t mean to get all musician-y – but these versions always take the vocal melodies and put them in a weird context. Like, this song was written in a major key, but many of the chords that songsmith spits out are minor chords (where major chords should be). It makes for very odd (though sometimes interesting) listening. And sometimes, they’re just plain wrong.
Also – where is this dude getting all these unaccompanied vocal tracks from?
The Buddy Holly version has a Richard Cheese vibe to it. Still haven’t heard any Songsmith versions of a song that “fits”.
triple ugh
Someone do Animal Collective. I can pretend I’m in the know because I bought it today. (Seriously, though, my record store sold out of all 12 copies)
this makes me want to whip out my SuicideSmith….. ugggggghhhhh.
Uh oh, missy elliott doesnt like the crappy songs…
geesh my gosh!
I actually didn’t think the folk version of White Wedding was that terrible in comparison to all of the other ones so far. It was certainly better than that horrible Buddy Holly. The backing chords didn’t fit with the melody at all.
Also, I suspect this guy is getting these vocal tracks somehow from Rock Band, seeing as just about all of the songs he’s used are on those games.
YouTube guy here. I’m a music producer so I’ve collected studio multitracks for a long time. But yeah, most of the “popular” stuff is from Rock Band, which has all the songs in more-or-less their original multitrack form.
I still have a lot of older stuff (Beatles, Stevie Wonder) I’d like to get to, but it’s more fun to troll butthurt Oasis and Radiohead fans.
As for “trying to make it sound good,” it will never sound “good,” or at least good by a Western measure of music. Songsmith has no concept of “the tonic” or “resoluation,” so any time a verse or chorus resolves to the root chord it is simply serendipity. “Roxanne” generally does this, and that’s why I think it’s by far the best I’ve done of these. Songsmith lets you modify its chords on a measure-by-measure basis, but the entire point of my project is not to interfere with the robot.
The bridge for songsmilth’s Buddy Holly is fantastic.
Obviously the guy creating these manipulates the settings in songsmith to create amusing results, which i don’t have a problem with. I have gotten a chuckle or 2 from the videos. But from the above mentioned commercial you can tell Songsmith can do all different styles of ‘music.’ So what i really want to see is what is the best that songsmith can create. If one was to set it to a compatible style and adjust the “jazzy” slider just the right way, how close could it get to producing something listenable?
I hate Songsmith.
But Songsmith loves you.
Speaking of Bowie, this version of Buddy Holly sounds straight off of Hunky Dory
Also someone should songsmith the Radiohead vocal stems for “Nude” and “Reckoner”
I would totally play the Tom Sawyer version in my car at full volume with the windows down.
Polka “Crazy Train” is pretty awesome:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFZvLprEIpw
Hotel California is pretty good, too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itsT9zgWRoM