
So I Made A Mashup, And Then… - craigkerstiens
http://stevestreza.com/2012/09/08/so-i-made-a-mashup/
======
ladon86
About 10 years ago I did a spoof version of a 50 Cent song and posted it on
one forum - it took off in a really big way with people sharing it on forums
and via email (this was before YouTube or Facebook), and ended up getting
heavy radio play all over Europe and Australia. I signed a management and
publishing deal and ended up producing music professionally for a few years
before I decided to go to college for computer science.

The power of creating something resonant and putting it on the internet is
huge, and it's still totally possible today.

I believe that consumer startups in the early stages are no different. You
need to find a way of presenting yourself that resonates emotionally with your
desired audience, to the extent that they want to share that feeling with
others.

Congrats on the viral success! It's a really fun experience.

~~~
mbateman
I have to ask, what was the song? Can we have a link?

~~~
amirhhz
It was indeed 'In Da Pub' by 50 Pence aka ladon86. Here's a video with lyrics
in the desc to help with the British-isms:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pioFIcQw2zM>

~~~
enqk
And GEMA actually blocks it, pretending its the original 50-cents track..

------
zacharycohn
Nice job! I'm one of the people behind the LMFAO parody "We're NASA And We
Know It" (<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFvNhsWMU0c>) and the LaughPong
channel (www.youtube.com/laughpong). It's awesome to see stuff you create like
this explode - congrats!

Just a few notes about how Youtube works: Chances are, you got a lot more
views in the first 24 hours than you think you did. Youtube viewcounts update
live until 302 to 308, and then they freeze for a few hours.

It'll update after 6 to 8 hours, but it still lags significantly behind real
views. It only updates views every 8 hours or so after that, and it takes a
few days for the displayed viewcount to catch up to the actual viewcount
(We've had instances of videos with more thousands more likes than views...
which is entertaining. :p)

One way you can sometimes get a more accurate view is by searching for your
video. For some reason, the viewcount on the Youtube Search Results page is
NOT linked to the viewcount displayed on the individual video page. It also
lags behind, but it appears to update faster.

~~~
jcr
I mostly wanted to take the chance to say thank you for the "We're NASA And We
Know It" video. It was fantastic, and just thinking about it still makes me
chuckle.

I'm also curious why google is hiding actual viewcount? I can't think of a
viable reason, but I was wondering if you had any insight, or even baseless
speculation?

~~~
citricsquid
Here's a video that explains it all:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIkhgagvrjI>

tl:dr; caching, data syncing, abuse.

------
steve8918
Very cool! The mashup is really catchy and the author did a great job mixing
LMFAO and Psy.

The first mashup I remember listening to was the Eminem/Britney Spears mashup
(<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j98zaF5592c>). It was particularly funny
because Eminem had recently dissed Britney Spears, but the ironic thing is
that this mashup sounded better than the originals of both songs.

The only question I have is how do these mashup-er's isolate the vocals and
instrumentals so clearly? Are the vocal and instrumental tracks available for
most songs these days, so that fans can create mashups?

~~~
antonp
There are some neat tricks you can do with the 2 stereo signals. Linear
combinatios of L/R channels is the easiest, but doesn't work well with modern
mixes where bass/snare/voice is centered and other instruments are rarely ever
hard-panned (you can get really cool results on some older albums like Rubber
Soul - there's a lot of hard panning going on there)

There are of cuorse more advanced techniques for isolation of centered tracks
and vocals in particular see
<http://virtualdub.org/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=102> and
[http://dsp.stackexchange.com/questions/1499/how-to-
extract-v...](http://dsp.stackexchange.com/questions/1499/how-to-extract-
vocal-part-from-stereo-audio-signal)

~~~
huxley
If you find the right mix of David Bowie's Space Oddity (one with hard
panning), playing one channel makes it sound like THE worst garageband Bowie
cover ever.

The high hat is high on the mix, you can barely hear the orchestra, and only
one of Bowie's audio tracks is on it, so it is really discordant.

It makes my skin crawl, but I love it.

------
kjhughes
How very cool of LMFAO and PSY to celebrate rather than quash his creation.

~~~
stevestreza
I was stunned. I never expected that to happen. It was a great honor.

(It was also a little ironic, as there's a copyright dispute on the video
coming from LMFAO's label.)

------
pella
"Gangnam Style, Dissected: The Subversive Message Within South Korea's Music
Video Sensation"

[http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/08/gan...](http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/08/gangnam-
style-dissected-the-subversive-message-within-south-koreas-music-video-
sensation/261462/)

"5 Must-See ‘Gangnam Style’ Response Videos"

[http://blogs.wsj.com/scene/2012/08/22/5-must-see-gangnam-
sty...](http://blogs.wsj.com/scene/2012/08/22/5-must-see-gangnam-style-
response-videos/)

"KnowYourMeme: Gangnam Style"

<http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/gangnam-style>

~~~
pella
\+ <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4424920>

------
johnbacon
Wow, great job! For me, it's the video that hooked me. I see the OP and
comments focusing around the audio mashup, which is really good. But, the
video is what gives the mashup viral legs.

Without the high quality and polished video, there is no LMFAO tweet. There's
no buzzfeed. There is no radio airplay. Without the video, the song is
confined to SoundCloud and small audiences.

The probable virality of Steve's song increased exponentially because of the
video. The video is what is being linked to, around the web. From forums, to
feeds, to tweets, to DJs.

So to Steve, I say thank you for the video. The effort you made in making a
front end to your song made me watch it again and again. The polish of your
video gave me the desire and confidence to share it with my friends. The video
is the reason I downloaded your MP3 and M4A versions, and will be enjoying
this song for a long time. (thanks for that).

In conclusion: because the backend (audio mashup) is well engineered, it has
the potential to scale. Without the frontend (video), the backend goes
unnoticed by the masses, save for a few backend junkies. The magic happens
because the high quality frontend (video) gives the engineered-to-scale
backend (audio mashup) a linkable, shareable, visual interface.

Great job! Great lesson! Hope you do more!

------
gjulianm
I have to be sincere: I don't like at all modern electronic pop music like
LMFAO or PSY. I think that most of these songs rely too much on easy rythms
and electronic resources to supply what they can't do with other musical
resources.

But, God, you have made such a great work. Both the music and the video. I
really love how you're able to combine different songs to create another one
and not just throwing random parts of songs together. Great work,
congratulations.

By the way, listening to this I remembered Andy Rehfeldt work, who re-records
songs changing completely the style. For example, the famous Call Me Maybe in
metal version [1] or Metallica playing smooth jazz [2].

[1] <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWJ9YaTmoyg> [2]
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBmM79YadYM>

------
janerik
And again: "Unfortunately, this UMG-music-content is not available in Germany
because GEMA has not granted the respective music publishing rights."

Good to have a proxy around.

~~~
stevestreza
I went through YouTube's copyright dispute process, and said it was a fair use
derivative work. YouTube's response is apparently to ask the copyright owner
if they feel it's fair use. Which, of course, they didn't.

Ironically, it was LMFAO's label that had the problem, and yet LMFAO posted
the song to their Facebook and Twitter profiles. C'est la vie.

~~~
weinzierl
The original PSY Gangnam style video is blocked in Germany, so I don't think
your dispute will have any effect. Can you make it available for download? I
would really like to see (and hear) it.

~~~
weinzierl
I saw you made the audio available for download. Good stuff, thanks a lot, I
enjoyed it.

------
noirman
"Try something that scares the hell out of you. It just might turn into
something wonderful."

Wise words, indeed.

~~~
tep
The scary part _wasn't_ necessary to experience something wonderful.

I am producing electronic music myself. These days, where the internet is
mainstream I don't dare posting anything online.

About 9 years ago, things were different. I was a 15 year old kid and enjoyed
producing trance music. My setup was extremely primitive and my music in a
way, too.

But I managed to make those tracks sound quite euphoric.

Then (that's how I actually learnt HTML & CSS) I set up my own webpage and put
that stuff out there. (later, that project turne into a little net-lable where
4 people were posting their music for free and we started doing remixes for
one another)

To my surprise, quite some people were downloading my songs. Some even burnt
them onto CDs and listened to them in their cars. (Back then, internet-
browsing and recordable discs weren't exactly cheap. So in a way, they were
paying for my music!)

The "highlight" was when a DJ from a big Ukrainian radio station played the
tracks in his show & on one of his gigs. Some of the listeners posted positive
feedback on that station's website.

Perhaps, programming turned me a little paranoid, but today I am quite scared
of what could potentially be done with every bit of information you put
online. It is true that wonderful things can happen, but (unknown) dangers
aren't to be underestimated.

------
prodigal_erik
I'm one of those people who never quite figured out what Twitter is for, so
it's surprising to realize that this probably wouldn't have risen to the
original artists' attention via the channels we had before. And now I'm hoping
Streza might see the crowd get into this at jwz's club some saturday.

------
dgant
"And the most astonishing thing to me? The mashup itself is catchy, but it's
far from being technically great."

It's a musical MVP!

------
alan_cx
Im a 40yo grumpy middle aged man, who still clings on to some very old music.
I have to say, I like what you've done there.

~~~
andersbreivik
I love listening to music from the 60s. The 1760s, that is.

(joke stolen from GTA, but it's true)

------
bradddd
A great candid story of his experience going viral. Could be a little more
concise, but still congrats to the guy for stepping up to the plate and
crushing it out of the park. So what if it wasn't a technical masterpiece. If
he was only intending for this to be a learning experience, I think he should
be totally satisfied.

~~~
stevestreza
Absolutely satisfied with the response. Learned a lot from this, next time
around the technicals should be much tighter (I hope).

~~~
cwp
No! Well, sure, there's nothing wrong with technical excellence. But the thing
to do is try to understand why this mashup succeed and do more of _that_.

I know very little about music, but I think the editorial choices are what
matter most in a mashup. It was almost like the other artists were debating
the merits of this new song. As long as you hit the "technically good enough"
threshold, the fact that you've got PSY dancing to "Pretty Fly for a White
Guy" is going to matter a lot more.

~~~
stevestreza
For me, the key parts of its success to emulate are:

\- capitalizing on a meme at the peak of its popularity

\- combining popular (LMFAO) with nostalgic (Offspring/Bloodhound Gang)

\- catchy beat

\- using the songs to differentiate the story (Offspring singing about the guy
that thinks he has style, while showing the yellow-suited dancer)

\- healthy mix of original song and mash-ins (keep the verse to one song
intact, but layer the chorus)

------
rsiqueira
Unfortunately the video mashup has been removed. Youtube message is: "Like A
Bad Guy Party..." - This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim
by YG Entertainment Inc.

Fortunately the audio is still available for download:
[https://s3.amazonaws.com/gangnam-style-
mashup/Like_A_Bad_Whi...](https://s3.amazonaws.com/gangnam-style-
mashup/Like_A_Bad_White_Guy_Party_Gangnam_Style-Steve_Streza.mp3)

It is a remix mashup of the songs: Gangnam Style by PSY (featuring HyunA),
Party Rock Anthem by LMFAO, Like a G6 by Far East Movement (ft. Dev and The
Catracs), Pretty Fly (For a White Guy) by The Offspring and Bad Touch by the
Bloodhound Gang.

~~~
rsiqueira
Fortunately someone made a copy of the video mashup and it can be seen here
now: [http://www.videobash.com/video_show/like-a-bad-white-guy-
par...](http://www.videobash.com/video_show/like-a-bad-white-guy-party-
gangnam-style-378423)

------
daniellockard
I don't know what it is but the font on this site looks really bad in my
browser.

~~~
ivank
Yet another reason I block everyone's webfonts.

(Designers on OS X: ClearType does not render fonts the same way.)

~~~
stevestreza
Is there an easy way to detect when type is rendered with ClearText?

~~~
ehsanu1
This article explains and provides an implementation to do that:
[http://www.useragentman.com/blog/2009/11/29/how-to-detect-
fo...](http://www.useragentman.com/blog/2009/11/29/how-to-detect-font-
smoothing-using-javascript/)

------
funkdobiest
Great job on the mixes. Next step is to try to exactly recreate the song
without using samples, or try live mixing using hardware controllers and soft
players.

------
kernel_sanders
Yikes, I feel like the last person to hear about PSY and Gangnam Style - great
song! 126mil views (original), wow.

Edit: the mashup ruled. More plz

~~~
stevestreza
Thank you. :)

------
logn
Thanks for sharing. That's awesome! I was dreading hearing that they made you
take the vid down. Nice.

The only technical glitch I minded was at 1:10. Psy's on screen just long
enough to open his mouth without any words playing. But I'm a musician and
this is a nit. But if you re-edit this ever just thought I'd add this.

~~~
stevestreza
Yeah, I'd thought about maybe doing a re-cut. But it's kind of late now. I
couldn't replace the existing video, so it'd have to be separate, and nobody
would find it. Oh well. Lesson learned for next time!

------
aDemoUzer
good job on the mashup, even I like it. Wish you could hear it through my
ears, it sounds really good.

~~~
stevestreza
Thank you! :)

------
fruchtose
There have been an awful lot of PSY mashups in the last two weeks. If you want
to hear more, here is a playlist of some of the most notable mashups, as
upvoted by the Reddit /r/mashups community: <http://muxamp.com/848>

------
AnthonyJoseph
I had to open up a new tab, to come back to hackernews because I didnt want
the song to stop.

------
jonah
I saw this one recently - pretty good.

"DJ Earworm Mashup - United State of Pop 2011 (World Go Boom)":
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ail7D_k0s9w>

~~~
DavidAdams
I'm glad somebody mentioned this, because World Go Boom was the first thing I
thought of when we started a discussion about mashups. DJ Earworm is a master
of the art.

------
dskang
I love stories like this. Great work, and I hope you keep on making more
music!

------
keidian
And currently at least, you also hit #1 story on the front page of HN. Not too
bad at all for an experiement hehe :)

------
bvdbijl
This is really awesome and well made, nice job and congratulations on the
success, you deserve it!

------
livestyle
For the love of Pete enable mobile viewing!

------
mightytightywty
No And Then!!!! (dude where's my car)

------
diego
_"Try something that scares the hell out of you. It just might turn into
something wonderful."_

I'd loved the mashup. However, if spending a weekend making a mashup scares
the hell out of you, you must be living a very sheltered life. Here are some
things that scare the hell out of me (and I have no intention of trying):

\- Climbing Everest

\- Wingsuit base jumping

\- Armed combat

I'll leave it at that, you get the point.

Edit: and you are too scared to offer a counterpoint, so you anonymously
downvote instead :)

~~~
AznHisoka
Not sure why you've being downvoted, you actually have a good point!

~~~
ralmeida
I couldn't disagree more with parent's opinion: I don't consider 'scariness'
to be transitive in this context (see related comment of soldier being afraid
of spiders) and the tone seems arrogant and "look at me, I'm an overachiever"
to me.

HOWEVER, one's agreeing or disagreeing SHOULD NOT determine a vote (so,
doesn't matter if he has a 'good point' or not). The people who have the karma
to downvote (I don't) should swallow it up if they strongly disagree with the
comment, but can't justify why the opinion can't be said.

TL;DR; one shouldn't downvote because of opinion, no matter how nocive or
negative one might find it.

~~~
BrandonM
This makes for a pretty easy downvote:

 _Edit: and you are too scared to offer a counterpoint, so you anonymously
downvote instead :)_

~~~
ralmeida
True, but he wouldn't have edited this in if he had not been downvoted first.
But I do agree that the bullying and the sarcasm were unecessary and somewhat
justified the downvotes.

