ReMix: Super Mario Bros. 'The 2-2 Blues'
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- Game: Super Mario Bros. (Nintendo, 1985, NES)
- ReMixer(s): brentalfloss
- Composer(s): Koji Kondo
- Song(s): 'Game Over', 'Swimming BGM'
- Posted: 2010-05-06, evaluated by djpretzel
And now for something completely different... many of you are no doubt already familiar with one Brent Black, aka brentalfloss, who's been kicking ass and running out of bubblegum for a while now with his unique brand of VGM "WITH LYRICS" videos. I actually chatted with him about nostalgia & retrogaming for a solid ten minutes at MAG without even realizing who he was, so I can also add that he's a cool dude. Now, there are plenty of folks doing musical parody on the Internet who are good at parody, and plenty who are good at music, but Brent's pretty damn good at both, so I'm not surprised to be posting something of his here. That being said, many of his releases are mostly about the lyrics, which are hilarious, and not necessarily the types of tracks that would jive 100% with what we're about at OCR. In this case, however, he's deviated a bit from his usual motif and put together a bluesy ballad that, gasp, actually sorta connects on an emotional level and isn't all about the lolz - not that there's anything wrong with that. Bb writes:
"Not much of a story here; After a mellow night of sitting around, I bellied up to the keys and started playing whatever came to mind. I've always enjoyed tinkering with The Super Mario Bros. "Underwater" theme; making it a Jazz waltz, usually. But I'd never taken a 6/8 approach. A little bit of experimenting led to an immediate and urgent need to attach lyrics. Being in a mellow mood, I wrote what felt right and suddenly I had a song that seemed more about the universal human search for our own princess or prince and less about avoiding bloopers and cheep cheeps. The end."
So, I gotta be honest, while obviously YouTube has changed the world and allows artists like Brent to do their thing and reach a huge audience, often the comments there are... I can't even think of an appropriate adjective. Let's go with "demoralzingly devoid of substance," as a kindness. Nevertheless, here and there some folks chime in with some genuine insight, and after listening to this track myself several times, I checked the video comments and noticed that someone else heard the same thing I did - a striking similarity to Randy Newman. Maybe it's because I just watched Toy Story again (Anna had somehow never seen it), but the Newman-o-meter was off the charts, in a good way, when listening to this piece. Vocals, lyrics, and bluesy piano playing - all well-executed in their own right - really combined into a singer-songwriter piece that I could easily see being used in a Pixar Mario movie. Man, Nintendo & Pixar, doing movies together... "Video Game Story"... it could be beautiful!
...But I digress; the piano part & playing here are good enough that this really could float sans vocal as a solo piano mix, and - I might add - contributes some sorely-needed blues piano work to the site. Solo pianists take note - we've got tons of classical piano, a good deal of jazz piano, but I think the bluesy style Brent employs here could really be explored & applied successfully to more VGM, vocals or not. And about those vocals - the singing's great and the lyrics are perfect, period. The only thing holding the vocal track back just a bit is the recording - mic distance sounds a bit off and the overall character is a little metallic. That's my only complaint, though, and it doesn't hold me back from enjoying the arrangement, the awesome original writing, and Brent's charismatic performance. This is a unique mix that belongs on OCR in every way; I dig all of Brent's stuff, but I'd love to see him wax serious and/or poetic more often, if this piece is any indication. Great, classy, completely unique debut - check out the rest of brentalfloss on his YouTube channel.
Discussion: Latest 15 comments/reviews; view the - JaDE ARaN HaRuNo on January 21, 2011
- sicnarf on September 6, 2010
- Vortaka on June 15, 2010
The piano playing is smooth, but that's not really what this mix is about. It's about the lyrics and singing. This song has clever lyrics with great execution.
Needless to say, this song was awesome. <3 it.
- Level 99 on June 1, 2010
KyleJCrb;681631 wrote: This is a bit different from Brent's usual works. If you want to hear stuff more along the lines of what he usually does, you need this. http://brentalfloss.bandcamp.com/
Ah, sweet. I actually really dig the rest of his work. Kind of feeling a Johnathan Coulton vibe in it.
- Master_Yoshi on May 26, 2010
The piano performance is wonderful, the vocals are good (though a bit quiet), and the lyrics are just pure awesome. Lines like "you're in someone else's castle" and "it's-a-me" are perfect.
And I agree with djp; we need more blues piano in here.
- Martin Penwald on May 26, 2010
- KyleJCrb on May 26, 2010
Thus, I have an innate dislike of this track from a perspective of taste. Still, this is well executed, thoughtful, creative, and you are a really good singer for what you are doing! So it's not going on any of my playlists, but I still liked it enough to listen through, and feel a little bit warmer and fuzzier.
- Master_Yoshi on May 26, 2010
- Less Ashamed Of Self on May 23, 2010
- Dafydd on May 18, 2010
Instant fave.
- PROTO·DOME on May 13, 2010
~LS
- Lady Shinigami on May 12, 2010
Good job. well done. Keep it up.
- animatedjay on May 11, 2010
- Ybrik Metaknight on May 10, 2010
