These kids are as old as the gap between albums

March 20, 2013 7:17 PM

WNYC has a feature called Tough Critics, getting 5th-graders to review new music releases. Today they reviewed Godspeed You! Black Emperor's We Drift Like Worried Fire. They decided it was missing something...

So WNYC decided to mash it up with a little Taylor Swift.

Much better!

posted by Lemurrhea (21 comments total)

did they have a control group where they were given psilocybin?
posted by mannequito at 7:33 PM on March 20, 2013 [8 favorites]

Onaje is so confident in his positive review that he doesn't even stoop to trying to argue with the haters on the panel. Impressive.

Well, that or he has given up trying to reason with them.
posted by waterunderground at 8:05 PM on March 20, 2013 [6 favorites]

Man, that mash-up would sound great if Bjork covered it.
posted by myelin sheath at 8:23 PM on March 20, 2013 [2 favorites]

The bus is on fire,
And there's no driver at the wheel.
And the playground is all crowded with a thousand hyper 4th graders.
And the recess whistle blows.

The principle is corrupt,
And we're on such a sugar high with Adventure Time on and the curtains drawn.
We're trapped in the belly of this horrible classroom,
And the class doesn't end for another hour.

The lunch break is over,
And the teachers are all screaming,
And the tests are all graded on the top of their piles.

It went like this:
Summer break collapsed in on itself,
Mothers making us go to computer camp instead of playing video games,
And not showering for days at a time.

The cafeteria looks beautiful,
All crepe paper and disco lights flashing in to the darkness,
Everything washed in a thin pink haze,
I txted "lol wnna french :-P ".

You grabbed my hand and we shuffled stiffly to Taylor Swift,
All awkward and nervous.
posted by codacorolla at 8:26 PM on March 20, 2013 [33 favorites]

Crap, I'm at work and don't have the ability to stream. Sadface.

That said, even without seeing or hearing any of it first, I am going to go ahead and say this is fantastic, and exactly what the internet was invented for.
posted by OHSnap at 8:36 PM on March 20, 2013 [1 favorite]

Alvin: White people are always saying, "ooooh, I love you so much, are we going to a movie?, you are so beautiful as a flower..."
posted by kenko at 8:39 PM on March 20, 2013

That Godspeed/Swift mashup MP3, in case your browser isn't displaying the embedded mp3 player properly.
posted by ardgedee at 8:44 PM on March 20, 2013 [1 favorite]

Ow my ears. Ow. Ow.
posted by dobie at 9:32 PM on March 20, 2013

MeFiMu request: someone please please do codacorolla's version of dead flag blues.
posted by eyeballkid at 9:32 PM on March 20, 2013 [2 favorites]

Next, do Mahavishnu Orchestra.

And Onaje is the muhfuckin booooooooomb! <3
posted by symbioid at 9:52 PM on March 20, 2013

The video was cute but that was the laziest mashup I've ever heard. I mean, did they just pick the first Taylor Swift song they could find? I know it was just a little joke, I'm not expecting Girl Talk here, but damn.
posted by saul wright at 10:06 PM on March 20, 2013

and agreed on Onaje being hilarious and having awesome taste for a fifth grader.
posted by saul wright at 10:08 PM on March 20, 2013

The questionable folks over at Vice already did this.
posted by Sys Rq at 10:24 PM on March 20, 2013 [1 favorite]

Codacorolla I think I love you.
posted by Sebmojo at 1:45 AM on March 21, 2013

Fifth graders aren't supposed to have good taste. That's why we educate the little snots.
posted by 1adam12 at 4:03 AM on March 21, 2013 [1 favorite]

My wife and I are feeding our son a diverse musical diet of "classics" (Beach Boys, Beatles, Kingston Trio), new funk (Sharon Jones and the Daptones crew), drum'n'bass and house, and whatever else we have around the house, along with a lot of Sesame Street, which has some pretty good music. You can take your Kidz Bop and shove it.

Someone who knew my diverse musical tastes asked if our son would rebel and only listen to top 40. I cringed at the thought. We'll see, I said. We'll see.
posted by filthy light thief at 7:02 AM on March 21, 2013

From the vice linked above: "Daddy loves Dubstep." and "The drop is when you drop being sensible". Ah kids.
posted by zenon at 8:17 AM on March 21, 2013

This reminds me of The Guardian playing a bunch of classic rock songs to kids.

Best lines:

"He sounds like he's just smelled something really bad, like cat poo."
(Dylan, Like a Rolling Stone)

"It sounds like when your wee goes back up."
(The Who, Substitute)
posted by spectrevsrector at 10:24 AM on March 21, 2013

I realized that after I wrote that thing about computer camp I basically described it anyway in the next two lines...

Anyway, as to the content of the FPP, I think it's interesting to see people react to GY!BE who have no cultural context about the band. They don't really get the political angle, the relation to mainstream music, the anti-commercial branding of a large orchestral post-rock band. To them it sounds like "the serious part of the movie soundtrack". I'd like to see the band respond to the response.
posted by codacorolla at 10:34 AM on March 21, 2013 [1 favorite]

You know what though, goddamn it does sound a little bit like the serious part of the movie soundtrack.

Definitely not a montage, though. A montage needs lyrics.
posted by mr_roboto at 9:34 PM on March 21, 2013

Yeah, in my head I would put a lot of GYBE together with someone like Clint Mansell's soundtracks (either Moon or the Fountain). I came to them only 4 years ago or so, so the mainstream music & politics were indeed different.

I can recognize the difference in them when I pay attention, but I'll often put them on interchangeably for specific moods.

And codacorolla, those lyrics are amazing. I can't really get it out of my head, including a weird video.
posted by Lemurrhea at 6:41 PM on March 22, 2013