If you are citizen of an European Union member nation, you may not use this service unless you are at least 16 years old.
You already know Dokkio is an AI-powered assistant to organize & manage your digital files & messages. Very soon, Dokkio will support Outlook as well as One Drive. Check it out today!
Name: "Auto-Tune the News" series by The Gregory Brothers
Real News Video "Bed Intruder Song" remix by Gregory Brothers
"Backin Up Song"
"Pirates, Drugs, and Gay Marriage"
Purpose: Entertainment
Production value:
A band uses a program called "auto-tune", an audio processor that uses vocal and instrumental performances to analyze, detect, and modify pitch, as well as creating voice overs, mixing up the order of the music, and other means of creating and remixing music. They use this processor to record over a news story or event in the public, adding their own faces, voices, background music, and anything else they want to change. It is fairly simple to do with a computer and the "auto-tune" processor. They use cameras to film their added scenes in the videos as well as add in other sound effects with a microphone and computer, among other music producing software.
Summary / Description:
“Auto-Tune the News” is a series of musical videos that went viral in the fall of 2008. Its producers used news broadcasts, viral videos, and talking heads to create humorous music videos. The Gregory Brothers are the innovative masterminds behind these digitally enhanced videos, who began producing musical newscasts online after prompting their country and soul music with a 2008 summer tour in an un-air-conditioned van. Using a computer program on speeches or news clips by politicians, heads of state, and news anchors, they transformed monologues into songs. Well-known personalities became the lead singers, and the band added themselves in as backup singers. "Auto-Tune the News" has produced over 20 videos in a series of music videos.
History
“Auto-Tune the News” was created by a band called The Gregory Brothers. This group consists of three brothers from Radford, Virginia, who moved to Brooklyn, New York and formed a band in 2007 with Sarah Fullen, a Texas musician they met in Brooklyn. As small children, the three began making crazy mix-tapes in their home. The band is basically made up of mediocre singers, and using humor, creativity and C+ talent, they began making a series of political satires that went wildly viral calling it “Auto-Tune the News”. The concept was to produce comical videos by setting news to music and making the speakers look like they were singing. The band took several evening news clips and added R& B instrumental that was entertaining, as well as targeting major political, social and environmental issues like gay marriage, legalization of drugs, the planet’s ecosystem, pirates, and more. “Auto-Tune the News” portrays well-known politicians engaging in absurd musical interactions. The band turned speech into musical tones, and the news was digitally altered to entertain and amuse you.
Auto-tune was first used in the music business in 1998 by Cher in her song “Believe”. It was constructed from a machine called the vocoder that was used in World War II to disguise radio transmissions. The first Auto-Tune was created by Andy Hildebrand, an Exxon engineer, and later formulated by Antares Audio Technologies. It is actually a software program that alters the voices of singers and corrects off-key notes, allowing the artists to have a flawless vocal track. It slightly raises and lowers pitches, and it can take speeches and turn them into a melody of sung words without an actual singer. It creates a robotic like sound, causing the voice to leap from note to note. Other artists have used Auto-Tune like Kanye West, Britney Spears, and Faith Hill to achieve a perfect pitch, an electronic sound, or to even be used as another instrument. Some singers freely admit to using Auto-Tune in their work and others that clearly do, but there are some singers that never talk about it because some call it cheating, but most pop songs today have been auto-tuned. It would be like “photo shopping” a voice. It can turn an average singer into a prodigy.
In April 2009, it produced a music video called “Pirates, Drugs, Gay Marriage” that portrayed Ruth Marcus from the Washington Post discussing the gay marriage debate at a round table of talking heads including Newt Gingrich, a CNN news correspondent discussing the legalization of marijuana and other drugs, Sean Hannity commenting on Obama and pirates, Katie Couric reporting on Artic ice melting and global warming, and Hillary Clinton discussing pirates. It currently has 7.5 million viewers. This musical video is a typical example of the type of music videos that “Auto-Tune the News” produced in their first year.
In 2010, "Auto-Tune the News" made a departure from their comedic political videos to create the "Bed Intruder Song", which was their most popular music video that aired July 31st. This song has also been a huge seller on iTunes and emerged on the Billboard Hot 100 list. In the "Bed Intruder Song", the Gregory Brothers took a wildly, verbal news interview with Antoine Dodson, who is the outraged brother of an attempted rape victim in Huntsville, AL. Dodson spoke out on July 29th about the invasion of his apartment and the attempted assault on his sister, Kelly, and the news broadcast was posted on YouTube that day. Within two days, "Auto-Tune the News" released the music video, "Bed Intruder Song" on YouTube.
Dodson was wearing a red bandana when he was interviewed and has no idea he would become a musical phenomenon with his outrageous rhetoric. In his WAFF-48 News interview, Dodson elongated and accentuated his words in an almost musical rhythm as he ranted on about the perpetrator: "he's climbing in your windows, he's snatching your people up, trying to rape them, so ya'll need to hide your kids, hide your wife, and hide your husband, because they're raping everybody."
The "Bed Intruder" song is the most well-known song by the Gregory Brothers. "Bed Intruder" was named the most viewed video on YouTube in 2010. The group has also put together a number of other popular videos. "Pirates, Drugs, Gay Marriage", "Backin Up Song", "Obama Sings Kick Ass Song", and "Rents Too Damn High" are among some of the other top viewed videos in the series of "Auto-Tune the News".
Date discovered: April 2009
Peak popularity: August 2010 (after July release of "Bed Intruder")
Original Site: YouTube
Remixes / Parodies / Responses:
"Auto-Tune the News" has received tremendous response from online viewers. There most popular video, "Bed Intruder" song, has received over 92 million viewers. It was so popular that it was uploaded to iTunes as a longer studio version, which had an additional 21 million viewers. This song has been a huge seller on the iTunes marketplace.
These videos continue to focus on political material as many of the non-political videos have a new branding of "Songify This". The Gregory Brothers have recently updated older videos with this brand name, as well as created more videos under this brand. This has become a popular brand name associated with their video remixes. "Songify This" is now available on iPads, iPhones, and iTouches, as an application that randomizes and repeats sentences. This is a result of a partnership from the Gregory Brothers and Khush, an app development studio.
"Auto-Tune" is a common program used by many people. Since the development of "Auto-Tune the News" by the Gregory Brothers, others have tried to remake or create their own videos.
Appeal and Audience
The appeal of “Auto-Tune the News” can easily be seen in the humor that is created through these viral videos. According to Wired.com, “Auto-Tune the News” has “invented a new art form that is perfectly suited to our meme-crazed times”. “Auto-Tune the News” works on YouTube because its viewers are hungry for content, and Auto-Tune brings forth the perfect technology to satisfy its viewers. With growing technology and new creative, innovative ways of doing things, people are constantly finding new uses out of new and old technology, and using these things to create and add to new entertainment. Audiences will always be looking for something new and entertaining, and this group took an already existing piece of technology, and applied it to something people see everyday. There seems to be a large spectrum with different ends ranging from someone who hasn’t seen or heard these stories to someone who follows these everyday. “Auto-Tune the News” appeals to a wide variety of consumers who appreciate mocking humor, search for viral videos, love remixing and electronic techno dance music, and those looking for pure entertainment in the news.
With the “Bed Intruder Song” video, there is added exposure to the real story once The Gregory Brothers remix it and put it back out there. The original Bed Intruder news story, which was funny in and of itself, got even funnier when the remixed version was produced. This new way of remixing or spicing up videos feeds this growing culture that is looking for entertainment on the Internet or searching for an innovative way to consume the news. “Auto-Tune the News” series targeted political news stories, but with the “Bed Intruder Song” video, their audience widened. Online viewers now became more aware of other remixes done by this group, causing them to start watching more news, and looking for more music videos in the series. “Auto-Tune the News” opens your eyes to what is happening in the world, and what people can do with existing technology. The Gregory Brothers succeeded in creating a new invention and utilizing existing electronics and technology to create a new product.
Some of the videos have received criticism for their mocking of the black community and negative portrayal of the ghetto and social issues. Others like The Washington Post report that the Gregory Brothers have “uncannily mimicked the contours of Dodson's speech, and like many arias, the song captures a moment of intense emotional condensation.” The Post compares their compositions to an opera because of their extremely emotional content. “Auto-Tune the News” looses the audience’s sympathy in truly caring about what the artists are singing about with their satirical format. Tragedy becomes a joke, social issues are minimized, and personalities are mocked.
Social Vectors
“Auto-Tune the News” impacts society in many ways and moves around through different mediums to gain more exposure. Youtube, being as famous as it is, gives exposure to videos like these, and as more viewers see them, exposure strengthens. Someone could create a video about almost anything, and as long as it either catches peoples eye with something they can relate to or uses a catchy title like “Baby kittens die during Chinese tornado” or “Naked man sky dives without a parachute”. These are just made up examples of a few names that might catch someone’s eye and make them more prone to view the video. Youtube, among other viral video websites, blogs, and social network sites, give meaning and exposure to these stories. In A Networked Self, the authors explain the importance of Youtube in the political arena. The 2008 Presidential campaign, showed how important online videos are as a source of news information for online users. According to a Pew report, as much as 45% of American internet users, watched political information watching online videos during the campaign, and that number was as high as 60% for those that were actually seeking political information online. Online video watchers under the age of thirty make up 67% of online users. Importantly, twenty-five percent of online political users forward videos like “Auto-Tune the News” to their friends. Youtube provides a platform for these political and social issues to be presented unvarnished to the public.
Another issue that must be considered is the lack in seriousness these videos bring to the real stories. Whether or not someone has seen the actual story, these remixes not only educate someone on the news but take the seriousness out of the issue. Once you see Antoine Dodson in the “Bed Intruder” video, the issue of someone breaking in and raping a person becomes less serious. Compassion is lost for the “real story”. The same can be said for a lot of the political remixes. The Gregory Brothers have taken a serious political issue or debate and turned it into a joke. While on one hand this does create exposure for the issue, positive and negative, it also makes it less serious. Although the Dodson family has made a large profit off the "Bed Intruder" song, and even has plans to buy a new house and go back to school, there is a sort of bittersweet or misinterpretation of the video. The Dodson family is lucky nothing further happened that night with the intruder, as well as somewhat fortunate that this video has become so popular. One aspect the Gregory Brothers talk about when looking for videos to remix is the way the subject or victim portrays themselves or speaks, almost melody like. Some of the videos are not as musically sound as others, but the Gregory Brothers do a good job of finding something different or not planned to be funny, and turning it into a pop sensation.
Another issue with these videos that comes up a lot is class, race, and why we think these videos are funny. Many criticize that people are being racist when watching and laughing at the "Bed Intruder" song, but another one would argue that this is an example of class tourism. The same can be said for the "Bed Intruder" victim and any of the white political debates. When someone sees the "Bed Intruder" video, they immediately skip over the notion of rape, losing its seriousness, and laugh at the way Dodson portrays himself. This is not so much racism as it is just an example of this class. People do not see lower class or ghetto areas all the time, and these videos provide a news outlet in and of itself. People see stories they might not normally see. At the same time, Dodson is being very serious, but presents himself in a stereotypical class manner, and his words almost come out in song. This is why it is so easy to remix. With the political debates, the same can be said for a white politician set in their ways. It is humorous to see a die hard conservative or liberal politician preach about gay marriage or equal rights, remixed into a funny video. The debates are a bore to a lot of people, and it not only gains exposure to the issue, but humors it up a bit.
Our society is increasingly using growing technology and getting online. Even someone who doesn’t watch the news might find this type of humor impacting in some way, just as someone who is online everyday may use this video to post to their friends or blog about. Continued convergence and spreading of these viral videos continue to gain exposure and become contagious, to the extent where people are using these videos for advertising, generating revenue, research, social networks, blogs, and many other things. The Gregory Brothers and "Auto-Tune the News" has been featured on talk shows (Jimmy Kimmel Live!), entertainment news shows (Tosh.0), and other programs such as Comedy Central. Another impact that has to be addressed is the money or rights these people/issues get from these remixes. Not everyone wants their family on the news in a rape story, or their political debate made into a joke, but as mentioned before, this creates more exposure, good or bad, as well as proceeds for the victims or targets of these videos.
Resources:
Papacharissi, Zizi. A Networked Self: Identity, Community, and Culture on Social Network Sites. Pages 191-192
Comments (0)
You don't have permission to comment on this page.