Call Barack Obama Maybe

This week's cleverly spliced video features Barack Obama singing Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe." The song took off earlier this year, where it stole the #1 spot for nine consecutive weeks. While there are enough spoofs on this song for an entire blog post and more, I just had to feature this one for this month's campaign music theme. I'll let you come to your own conclusions on the intended message. To me it's just plain funny.

And in case you're as obsessed with the song as the rest of the country, here's Carly Rae Jepsen's version.

Will the Real Mitt Romney Please Stand Up

In keeping with this month’s politically themed posts, I wanted to share some presidential video spoofs. Some clever people have taken the time to splice together words that Romney or Obama have actually said and fit them into a popular song. “Will the Real Mitt Romney Please Stand Up,” is one I particularly enjoyed. It’s a spoof on Eminem’s song “The Real Slim Shady,” and the message is that it’s hard to figure out who Romney actually is because he has made so many conflicting statements. While the creator has clearly put his own spin on Romney's words, it's entertaining nonetheless.

And just in case you want to see how the spoof matches the real song, I've included the original Eminem video as well.

Psy - Gangnam Style

Psy in "Gangnam Style"

What a surprise I found when I opened Spotify yesterday and saw that “Gangnam Style” was the #1 song in Top Lists. After weeks of Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe” and Fun.’s “Some Nights” dominating the top spots, “Gangnam Style” suddenly appeared at #1 without, to my knowledge, even making an appearance at any of the other top 100 spots.

Released in July, the song made Korean pop an international splash. One of my co-workers sent me “Gangnam Style” a few weeks ago and I had intended to feature it as a song of the week showing that a song can be catchy even if you can’t understand the lyrics. But apparently when rapper Psy’s video made it to the Video Music Awards in early September the rest of America proved this point for me by bumping the video’s hits on YouTube to over 350 million.

I’m not sure if it’s the invisible horse dance, a dubstep-esque breakdown in the middle, or a melody that makes me want to sing even though I don’t know the words, but “Gangnam Style” is worth listening to, language barrier and all.

Skrillex - Bangarang

Skrillex

In keeping with this week’s dubstep theme, I chose a song from one of the most well-known dubstep artists. Skrillex made it into the lime light this year with five Grammy nominations and took home the titles of Best Dance Recording and Best Dance/Electronica Album. This song is the title track from his most recent album Bangarang. You can see why Skrillex swept the dance categories because his music makes you want to move. 

Eva Cassidy - Fields of Gold

Buffalo Pass in Steamboat Springs - Sept 2012
Photo Credit: Brian Ferguson/Steamboat Pilot

Steamboat Springs is bright gold with all of the aspen trees turning colors. Cold nights and little wind have preserved these colors for more than a week. But every day more and more leaves cover the trails and paths and soon the trees will be naked for winter.

To accompany the beautiful fall colors I chose an equally beautiful song that also brings the fall season to mind.

Eva Cassidy - "Fields of Gold"

Not only do the lyrics “fields of gold” describe the colors of changing leaves, but the music itself contributes to the overall autumn feeling. The slow tempo and mournful lyrics give the song a reflective tone. So often the changing of the seasons acts as a metaphor for changes in our lives. Fall and spring seem to be times of reflection and re-evaluation for many, and this song certainly embodies that feeling. 

Song of the Week

Fridays on the Strings blog are going to take on a new sound. Tune in each Friday for the Song of the Week. It might be the #1 hit of the week, a funny spoof, the latest classical composition, a classic throwback, or anything else that catches my eye.   

Here’s one to start us off.

Rebecca Black – “Friday”

This song came out in February of 2011 and to everyone’s surprise was one of those instant hits. It was surprising because if you search for the song, you’ll come up with reviewers calling it “the worst song ever,” “just terrible,” “and hilariously dreadful.” But the song’s awful reviews didn’t stop it from getting 30 million hits during its release month, putting the 13-year-old girl ahead of teen star Justin Bieber on the charts.

While it’s been dubbed the song “people love to hate,” I trend toward the love side. Despite the fact that the song has over 800,000 dislikes on YouTube, it’s impossible to ignore that it follows all the rules when it comes to making a #1 pop hit: it will get stuck in your head and you’ll find yourself looking around to make sure no one noticed that you were singing it to yourself. When I worked at Steamboat in the winter of 2011, my crew habitually watched the video every Friday as we rode up the gondola to work. Since it put all of us in a happy Friday spirit, I thought it would be the perfect way to launch the new Friday Song of the Week blog series. Happy Friday, Friday!