A Slighly Mellower Party
January 2, 2012 7:16 AM   Subscribe

Party in the U.S.A. (warning: contains ukulele) performed by Danielle Ate the Sandwich (previously) and the Boulder Acoustic Society.
posted by davidjmcgee (30 comments total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
 
The original song was terrible, why make it worse with a ukulele?

Someone needs to do a ukulele cover of Friday by Rebecca Black
posted by MechEng at 7:31 AM on January 2, 2012


How about lots of someones?
posted by davidjmcgee at 7:33 AM on January 2, 2012


Weird Al did it better.
posted by Faint of Butt at 7:39 AM on January 2, 2012 [1 favorite]


I happen to think it's quite a beautiful version of a catchy pop song, and that people who reflexively hate on ukuleles are being dicks.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 8:22 AM on January 2, 2012 [8 favorites]


I've posted it before, but my favorite cover of a pop song by a stripped-down combo is the Ukrainian version of Katy Perry's Hot and Cold: Ти гарячий і холодний
posted by benito.strauss at 8:40 AM on January 2, 2012 [5 favorites]


I met Danielle ate the sandwich in 2006 when she was working in a coffeeshop. This is my only claim to fame. Yea she is just as cool as she seems. I'm embarrassed that I never got to hear her sing.
posted by Rubbstone at 8:40 AM on January 2, 2012


I liked that - I didn't think I knew the original, but I guess I did, since I recognized it. I much prefer this cover.

(And if all you "know" about the uke is that it's played by hipsters you don't like, which makes you feel righteous pride in hating an instrument (what?), or something, you might want to consider that it's not the uke's fault that your interests are so narrow that you don't know about this guy, or this one. And there are lots more like them.)
posted by rtha at 8:41 AM on January 2, 2012


warning: contains ukulele

The ensemble is ukulele, banjo, stand up bass and accordion. (warning: contains a Miley Cyrus song)
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 8:51 AM on January 2, 2012


Further warning: this is now utterly stuck in my head and the same may happen to you.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 9:07 AM on January 2, 2012


I have nothing against ukeleles but this sucks. Why waste time, effort, and talent covering such a shit song? The lyrics are absolutely dreadful and nonsensical. It's like bad poetry by a 12 year old girl. Further, you don't get in a cab at LAX and see the Hollywood sign on your right. It's 40km away on your left, ffs.
posted by You Should See the Other Guy at 9:12 AM on January 2, 2012


I know it's really cool and hip to sneer contemptuously at ukeleles, accordions, and Mylie Cyrus (unless copious irony is involved of course), but I thought this was really sweet and I feel happy to have seen it. Thanks for the link!
posted by jasper411 at 9:25 AM on January 2, 2012 [2 favorites]


if you liked the above video jasper, you may enjoy this one. I do enjoy the ukulele, just not the Miley Cirus song.

Your post reminded me of this one posted on the blue before.
My guitar gently weeps on the ukulele.
posted by MechEng at 9:50 AM on January 2, 2012 [1 favorite]


I know it's really cool and hip to sneer contemptuously at ukeleles

No, you have it backwards. It's hip and cool to use them. Boing Boing and Amanda Palmer made them popular, and they quite haven't hit the over saturation point, but it's surely getting close. They are basically the martini of music. Like how for a long time martini's were considered "our parent's drinks" and the definition of uncool, but with enough time, it circles around to cool again. (Laver's Law again) The backlash is basically because now it seems to be shorthand for "i'm quirky and zany, but not too much".
posted by usagizero at 10:13 AM on January 2, 2012 [4 favorites]


Yeah, it's not the instruments, but the fact that they've become the latest 'quirky' doodad. And the let's-cover-a-song-with-odd-instrumentation has been done, and better. Tiny Tim? Hayseed Dixie? Those Darn Accordions?
posted by jonmc at 10:33 AM on January 2, 2012


MachEng, that first video you posted may be the most adorable thing ever.
posted by davidjmcgee at 10:44 AM on January 2, 2012


At the risk of impersonating the hipster meme, I point out that ukuleles have been fashionable in Denver/Boulder for 5-6 years now (I, uh, didn't know Boing Boing was doing anything to popularize them elsewhere). Accordions for even longer.

See, for instance, Boulder-based artist Ukulele Loki for some of the finest drunken circus music going.
posted by 7segment at 10:49 AM on January 2, 2012


(warning: contains ukulele)

"You say "that instrument", Jeeves. And you say it in an unpleasant, soupy voice. Am I to understand that you dislike this banjolele?'

'Yes, sir.'

"You've stood it all right up to now'

"With grave difficulty, sir.'

'And let me tell you that better men than you have stood worse than banjoleles. Are you aware that a certain Bulgarian, Elia Gospodinoff, once played the bagpipes for twenty-four hours without a stop? Ripley vouches for this in his "Believe It Or Not".'

'Indeed, sir?'

'Well, do you suppose Gospodinoff's personal attendant kicked? A laughable idea. They are made of better stuff than that in Bulgaria. I am convinced that he was behind the young master from start to finish of his attempt on the Central European record, and I have no doubt frequently rallied round with ice packs and other restoratives. Be Bulgarian, Jeeves.'
posted by villanelles at dawn at 11:00 AM on January 2, 2012 [3 favorites]


i like ukelele covers. i like banjo and accordions and the stand up bass. i love good covers and over processed music stripped down.

i don't much care for this.

to me, the best covers bring something new - it's not just a treatment of different styles, but also showing another facet of the song. like this or this or this or this or this.
posted by nadawi at 11:07 AM on January 2, 2012 [2 favorites]


The main reason I have no use for this is encapsulated by the opening text: "Every time an acoustic musician covers a pop song... an angel gets her wings."

The underlying attitude seems to be that these folks see the original song as mainstream, vapid and unworthy of our attention, but that by presenting it in this new arrangement the song is being "rescued" or elevated above its original trappings and that we listeners will now be able to perceive the previously hidden beauty of the song.

While this approach has been successful for some musicians in terms of creating exposure, these assumptions are fundamentally flawed. Party in the U.S.A. is a fun, catchy song that doesn't need rescuing, and more importantly, by re-arranging it like this they've lost most of what made it work in the first place: the slick production values throughout, especially the awesome synth bass in the chorus, and the propulsive, youthful energy that gets lost with the slower tempo and lack of percussion.

The totally straight-faced, earnest (faux-earnest?) delivery seems like it can only be an attempt at irony, but it just makes the song more bland, as the lyrics and melody aren't strong enough to survive this kind of bare, dry presentation. There's no impressive technical display of musicianship, and no surprising twists in the arrangement -- they've removed dimensions from the original track, but they haven't added any new ones, and so what they're left with is even flatter and blander than what they started with. Plus the original song had a fun, attractive video, whereas this one is just some people standing around in a living room. It seems like a waste of the format to be a "Youtube musician" like Danielle Ate the Sandwich but have your videos consist of just standing still in front of a camera and performing songs.

This cover seems to rely on the novelty/"quirk" factor inherent in the instrumentation, as though music made with double bass, accordion, banjo, and ukulele is inherently more unique or valuable than something with guitars and synthesizers. See also: rockism. If there's anything worth hating about the recent popularity of ukuleles, it's that -- the delusion that taking any old tune and saying "Now with ukulele!" makes it novel or interesting. It's not the instruments you use, but how you use them. This seems like an obvious point, but some musicians, listeners, and critics seem to get hung up on it. As a guy who has recorded a bunch of pop music that incorporates "classical"-type arrangements, it took me awhile to come around to the realization that it's not helpful to describe my music primarily in terms of the instruments I employ, because that's not (or shouldn't be, anyway) what makes it worthwhile. Anybody (especially these days) can use strings, or brass, or accordion, or whatever quirky instrument-du-jour they like, but there's a lot more to arranging than just selecting instrumentation.

This concept of a non-mainstream musician re-working a Top-40 hit and therefore making it palatable for the alternative crowd isn't a new idea, although I'm not sure what the earliest example is. Fountains of Wayne covering Britney Spears's Hit Me Baby One More Time comes to mind, but that was in 2005, and I'm betting it goes back further than that. The differences between that cover and this one are also illuminating -- Baby One More Time works really well as a Fountains of Wayne song, whereas Party in the U.S.A. is pretty terrible as a folk/bluegrass number. There was also that guy who did the popular acoustic cover of Hey Ya (which I hate for all the same reasons as this) in 2006. There's John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats covering The Sign by Ace of Base, which he's been doing for awhile. I think it's clear by the way Darnielle, who is a fantastic songwriter and an intelligent guy, introduces the song onstage that he plays the song out of a genuine love for it, and he makes it work in his way, although I don't think it strictly "works" either; but then again I don't think he's ever recorded it, and doing that sort of thing as a live, audience-participation-type bit which someone happens to capture is a bit different, semiotically, from recording it and uploading it on youtube.

So yeah, this makes me feel pretty much the same as I've felt every time I've encountered anything by Danielle Ate the Sandwich, although I guess it must doing okay for her since I keep hearing about her.
posted by ludwig_van at 12:01 PM on January 2, 2012 [8 favorites]


This concept of a non-mainstream musician re-working a Top-40 hit and therefore making it palatable for the alternative crowd isn't a new idea, although I'm not sure what the earliest example is. Fountains of Wayne covering Britney Spears's Hit Me Baby One More Time yt comes to mind, but that was in 2005, and I'm betting it goes back further than that.

It goes back almost as long as punk does (The Dickies, Banana Splits theme song, 1979 I think, also I think wins for earliest + best in combination if not both separately)
posted by furiousthought at 12:35 PM on January 2, 2012 [1 favorite]


Why can't it just be a video of someone having fun making music?

That's what I do at home, with any number of whatever instruments I have around. (I haven't gotten a Ike yet, but I'd like to some day. I do have a banjo which I love to play claw hammer style, so maybe I still qualify as a hipster.) It's fun for me, and my friends seem to enjoy it. I don't expect people I don't know to have any interest at all, but I also never got the impression that Danielle ate the Sandwich (or Julia Nunes, same thing) thinks differently.
posted by ctmf at 12:45 PM on January 2, 2012 [2 favorites]


It goes back almost as long as punk does

Yeah, that makes sense. I also just remembered Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, who go back to 1995. Although I think there's a distinction to be drawn between an alternative band covering a mainstream song that was originally outside of their genre because they like the song (I'm inclined to place MFatGG in this category), and doing an "ironic" cover of a song as a way of simultaneously sneering at the inferior music while also allowing us to enjoy it without feeling guilty, like the Miley Cyrus cover in this post, or Alanis Morissette's 2007 cover of My Humps, or Jenny Owen Youngs's 2007 take on Hot in Herre.
posted by ludwig_van at 12:58 PM on January 2, 2012


A slightly less mellow party...
posted by narcotizingdysfunction at 1:53 PM on January 2, 2012 [1 favorite]


Very nicely done ... and no pitch correction. Imagine that!
posted by ZenMasterThis at 2:52 PM on January 2, 2012


Speaking of people making music just for the fun of it, I love this guy's YouTube channel. Makes me smile.
posted by ctmf at 3:32 PM on January 2, 2012


Sometimes people just play the uke for fun. Don't overthink it.
posted by Roger Dodger at 7:37 PM on January 2, 2012


Metafilter: Be Bulgarian, Jeeves.

I swear, I couldn't resist.
posted by axiom at 8:53 PM on January 2, 2012


warning: contains piercing accordion
posted by eddydamascene at 11:13 PM on January 2, 2012


Smells Like Teen Spirit performed by The Ukelele Orchestra of Great Britain on Jools Holland.
posted by Devils Slide at 3:52 PM on January 3, 2012


Ukulele even.
posted by Devils Slide at 3:54 PM on January 3, 2012


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