Mother Jones
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“Whenever we sit down to write our stuff, we always say, ‘Man, this is the stupidest shit’—but then when it all comes together, it works!” On that note, Michael Thurber ends his break and heads back into Terminus Recording Studios, which is something of a landmark in the Manhattan Theater District. Paul McCartney and Liza Minnelli have recorded here. It’s in the same building where Tupac Shakur was shot five times.
It’s also where Thurber’s crew, CDZA (Collective Cadenza), creates musical videos with a meta twist. “The Beatles Argument,” for instance, features a lovers’ quarrel sung almost entirely in Beatles lyrics.
“Hip Hop Shopping Spree,” a three-minute rap medley, is accompanied by a calculation of the cumulative retail value of the songs’ product placements—almost $57 million. One video samples the history of misheard lyrics, from Carl Orff to Pink. Another chronicles the history of wooing and seducing men in song, ranging from Aretha Franklin (“A Natural Woman,” 1967) to Riskay (“Smell Yo Dick,” 2008).
And another takes the theme song from the ’90s sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and translates it into foreign languages and then back to English using Google Translate; the broken lyrics are performed to violins and a rhythm section.
Link:
Behind the Scenes With CDZA, the YouTube Musical-Comedy Stars
