There are a lot of super annoying Christmas songs out there, and I could go off on how hundreds of them grate on my nerves. But this one in particular makes me want to rip my ears out. The only reason I am posting it is because I have a companion song to it which I actually find fascinating.
According to our friends over at Wikipedia, Alvin and the Chipmunks, started out as a puppet show in the 1950s. Ross Bagdasarian created the novelty record "The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don't Be Late)" in 1958. The record was highly successful, selling more than 4 million copies in seven weeks, and it launched the careers of its chipmunk stars. It spent four weeks at Number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart from December 22, 1958, to January 12, 1959. It also earned three Grammy Awards and a nomination for Record of the Year.
Record of the year??? And you thought Amy Winehouse (2008 Record of the Year winner) was bad.
"The Chipmunk Song" was recorded on audiotape at half of the normal speed, then played back at double speed which made the voices an octave higher in pitch at normal tempo. Here are the two for comparison.
Double Speed (The Chipmunks): The Chipmunk Song.mp3
Half Speed (Human Singers): The Chipmunk (remix).mp3
I found the "slow" version last year on the internets somewhere from a DJ called "Mr. Fab."
3 comments:
http://hypem.com/search/andrew%20swanson/1/
Here's Patton Oswalt's bit about this song
http://video.aol.com/video-detail/my-christmas-memory-patton-oswalt/923589174
Lovely snippet of info. Thanx
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