Underneath These Sketches of Beautiful Tuesdays
Backstory
I have an unhealthy relationship with music. I have a compulsive desire to put on my earphones whenever it's not actively distracting me from whatever I'm doing, and I've been indulging this desire since high school. Also since high school, I've been writing songs about whatever I was feeling at the time (about as accurate as a high schooler's understanding of life can be), and theorizing melodies around them (same with Dream World). The problem with that is - now you have a song in your mind, and no way to materialize it in the real world.
I've spent countless hours trying to transcribe notes from my head in FL Studio. Most of the time, I'd lose track of the melody as I bash random notes trying to mimic it digitally. Sometimes the melody actually transfers to a set of notes, which sound a lot like my self-made earworms, but then it's an isolated set of notes. Now I have to engineer several more melodies out of thin air, that are "in tune" with the initial melody and with one another. As someone who has zero musical literacy and can't be arsed to study for it, this blows.
Eiffel Towers
Color Theory's USB Flash Drive Discography is a gold mine of physical exclusive tracks, from an artist whose lyrics greatly contributed to my personal growth. One of these physical exclusive tracks is Eiffel Tower (Instrumental).
Back before limiters existed and instrumentals were mastered separately, you could actually get clean vocals by subtracting an instrumental from an original mix (assuming that everything is lossless). I did just that, then put the result through the AI vocal remover called moises.ai, and was left with a clean vocal track - and an idea - how would these vocals sound on top of another instrumental?
I tried it with one of the tracks from the Mages album - I don't remember which one. Then another. Then I decided to go through the rest of the album and do the same for all tracks where the lyrical structure could be matched to the instrumental, and the vocal track didn't have to be slowed too much.
The result, in hindsight, is terrible - 7 tracks of the same vocal track laid on top of various instrumentals: Eiffel Towers. But on the bright side, I really liked the mashed-up cover. Brian was kind enough to share it with his mailing list subscribers, using the term that I coined - "a musical shitpost". It was essentially that.
Over the next year or so, I would have fun mashing up Eiffel Tower vocals with newer Color Theory releases. The one I liked the most was Sinister Version, where the dark instrumental (and its original lyrics) go completely against the new vocals.
Stranger Darkroom
Just around the time Dying Stars was released, I got a new earworm in the form of Brian's older track, Stranger on the Street. The lyrics perfectly captured the phenomenon of brief infatuation with someone you don't really know - as long as you disregard the second verse, where it's established that it's not at all that, and it's actually about a break up. My post, my rules, my interpretation.
One of the reasons I only ever worked with Eiffel Tower vocals was that it's the only set of clean vocals of Brian's older tracks that I have. Nevertheless, I decided to take my chances with the AI vocal remover. As luck would have it, this was also around the time that moises.ai released the new separation mode - "Vocals, Instrumental (HI-FI)". I couldn't find a better description on their website, so I just assumed it was an enhanced version of their usual vocal removing model. And yes sir it was - I got a completely clean vocal track of Stranger on the Street. After a brief overview of Dying Stars instrumentals that would match the lyrical structure, I was settled on The Darkroom, and before long, I finished Stranger on the Street (The Darkroom Version).
I considered using a different instrumental that would allow me to ditch the second verse, but eventually did not commit to the idea.
In an e-mail, Brian would imply that "the vocals on the mash-up are not in tune". It was discouraging at first - the mash-up sounded fine to me - but then I decided to embrace the shitpostery.
Oh how my ears bled
September Spoke in Red was my next earworm - this one more due to its overall sound rather than the lyrical meaning. Seeing that mashing up Stranger on the Street helped me get over the song, I decided to try the same treatment here.
September Spoke in Red sounds like a serious and sad song, so in the spirit of shitpostery, I seeked out a cheerful and upbeat instrumental - enter Infections. Long story short, September Spoke in Red (Infectious Version). The new art - the first one not to mention the back from Something Beautiful - is also very funny to me.
The AI vocal remover really struggled with that one - it assumed that the brass at the beginning of the track was a vocal part, and since this brass often intersected with vocal tracks, it couldn't be removed through trimming, and there's a lot of it in the final mash-up.
It's unprofessional and distasteful - perhaps even obnoxious. It's fascinating how I can happily dance to such sad lyrics. Does it add value to the musical landscape - no. Does it make my day brighter to listen to it - absolutely. Does it have place next to other funny musical edits on YouTube, like Two Trucks but it's the worst thing ever? Judging by the success of my Color Theory's Album Discography, but only when he says "come" - unlikely.
I'm now inspired to continue shitposting mash-ups of different songs until I end up with something that resembles a playlist. We'll see where that goes - you can follow me on SoundCloud to see the progress (if any).