NEIL CICIEREGA
2017 MASHUP/MAGICAL MEME MUSIC
Mouth Moods is the third album in internet comedian and multimedia artist Neil Cicierega’s collection of mashup albums. I first listened to Neil’s music way back in 2014 off of the first of his mashups albums, Mouth Sounds. I was in college and I spent the entirety of the day blasting the record front to back laughing hysterically at its unbelievable combinations. My roommates thought I had finally lost it and entered a demented stupor. Mouth Sounds felt like an obscene meta joke, wall to wall Smash Mouth joining hands with tracks that I could have never fathomed; I still struggle with the fact that Billy Jean and Smells Like Teen Spirit are a match made in heaven. Neil deals with two general song constructions on these mashups, one where the vocals of one song are put onto the instrumental of another with a bit of manipulation but the idea is to have popular hits collide in comically unexpected fashion. The second is a giant freak-out with a multitude of clips and segments stitched together to make a gut busting Frankenstein’s monster.
It’s important to differentiate that Neil’s music is not to simply anger the audience with odious fusions that look to grate the ear to create memorability. Rather these songs stand strong on their own and are enjoyable without the context of the sources; their shocking quality is more of amazement than revulsion. Mouth Moods opens with the aptly named The Starting Line, an intro of intros as the first few seconds of several songs loop. From Story of a Girl to Bullet with Butterfly Wings and naturally, All Star, it all meshes well and prepares the listener for the onslaught that is to come. Floorcorn is the incredible combination of the instrumental from the age old Popcorn by Hot Butter and Bodies by Drowning Pool. The plucky pop instrumental combined with the barked growls is priceless, when the vocals upshift it’s impossible to not laugh. AC/VC starts with the twinkling keys of A Thousand Miles and the instantly recognizable vocals of Brian Johnson off of Back and Black burst in. I hate the original AC/DC track. I always found the delivery to be so obnoxious, but it’s hard to deny how well it works when combined like this with pretty much zero alterations needed.
The action is broken up with the comedic interlude 300MB. A disappointment. The soaring instrumental from 500 miles with a vocal recording from a pitch of a 300 megabyte hard drive from a bygone age, it confers a chuckle at best then manages to overstay its welcome at a mere two minutes in length. Revolution #5 is a quick joke involving Mambo No. 5 and exactly the Beatles track you’d think. I got nothing from this but it’s thirty seconds long so eh. You may be ready for wackiness but Annoyed Grunt is another thing altogether. A shambling monstrosity of so much insanity, it has me gasping for breath from the moment a sample states “so how do you explain Tim Allen?”. It’s genius, all this garbage just shouldn’t work but it does. The Home Improvement theme with the “oh ah ah ah ah” of Down with the Sickness, Freak on a Leash, Du Hast, M.I.A., that weird Tim Allen grunt, Homer’s d’oh, Austin Powers’ “yeah baby”, and many more all join hands in this bizzaro carnival ride to music hell. The infamous Bustin’ is less of a mashup and more of a mix-up as the Ghostbusters song is switched around to be a tad more sexual with its oh so irresistible new chorus.
BUSTIN’ MAKES ME FEEL GOOD
Naturally Bustin’ is followed up with Busta’. Heavily altered vocals from TLC’s No Scrubs are beautifully bonded with the intro to Stairway to Heaven, simultaneously hilarious and angelic. Tiger takes INXS’s Need you Tonight and Eye of the Tiger but with the word tiger replacing most of the lyrics. It’s flat out not funny, a joke that falls flat and is repeated as if hoping it might improve after the twentieth time, it does not. In an unbelievable twist The End is the same famous edgy disaster piece by Linkin Park on top of a bouncy blast of a Doobie Brothers instrumental. It’s incredible how the perfectly pitch shifted vocals don’t sound remotely out of place. The way each syllable interacts with the jubilant piano is uncanny. In an unlikely twist Neil’s drops the tearful T.I.M.E. A major highlight, as the vocals from Y.M.C.A. take on a completely different meaning with the epic and sorrowful Time by Hans Zimmer off the Inception soundtrack. It’s mind-blowing, each utterance becomes a gut punch; a funeral dirge for the young man. Near the tracks end you can hear the distant whistling off of All Star to warn the listener of the approaching danger. But Neil hits the listener with the old expectation subversion as Smooth begins with, as you might expect, Smooth Criminal The tension is palpable with anticipation, what will he do now? What happens next is horrifying as the much lamented vocals from One Week by Barenaked Ladies come sprinting in. The mind can barely comprehend how this can function or even be enjoyable and yet it is.
If you thought that was bad, Stand by Meme is a deranged joke. The bass line of Stand By Me opens and the vocals from One Week again improbably find their way to slot in so perfectly. Equally awe inspiring and frustrating. When the weeping strings sync with the lyrics of “chickity china, the Chinese chicken” I look to the sky and ask Neil why would you do this? Wallspin is another side-splitter as the guitar from Wonderwall transforms into the synths from You Spin Me Round. Gallagher’s vocals are outrageous on this instrumental and y’know it’s Wonderwall, there is a decent bit of inherent comedy. Then we are given the most outrageous of all the concoctions, Wow Wow. An expertly crafted explosion that is mostly a heavily modified Wild Wild West with a few extras playing small but important roles. It’s madness as Will Smith spits so many lines everything starts to blur and you can lose track of the rapid fire mockery. The intro is a real mindfuck as the beginning of a few other songs meld until Will drops the lines “wicky wicky”.
Mouth Pressure is Neil going back to his proverbial roots with All Star down pitched on Under Pressure. It’s flawless and only gets better as the track continues; when Under Pressure peaks in intensity it leads to a meme filled orgasm. That would have been a suitable closer, a clever call back to Neil’s roots, but instead we are given the appropriately named Shit. Yes, it’s awful and not in the wonderful way the prior mashups are, more like a detestable mess. It’s reminiscent of Annoyed Grunt but an example of what happens when you do a track like that wrong. It’s a shame, I want a Neil track that uses the ingredients of Spice Girls, Gwen Stefani and Limp Bizkit. As is it’s a situation of lesser than the sum of its parts. Despite the sour ending Mouth Moods is fifty six minutes of pure absurdist joy, a style of music I would have never have considered more than an idiotic novelty turned into honest to god art. If you open your mind you will find yourself smiling ear to ear, running to show your friends, to see their dumbfounded expressions at the compositional gymnastics that Neil pulls off.
8/10