Every December since 2010, “mash-up artist” Daniel Kim has edited a video with dozens of the year’s most popular songs into a Girl Talk-like blur of current music trends. This year’s installment, via Crushable, includes hits from Adele, Katy Perry, fun., Rihanna, and Swedish House Mafia, and even if you hate all those artists, it’s hard not to appreciate the skill that it takes to put the video together. He explains it on his blog:
Once I have all my audio parts, I then start planning out a way to fit them together. Audio parts must be in the same key AND in the same tempo in order to fit together. But it is not as simple as digitally manipulating all the tracks to one key and tempo (though many other mash-up artists do this). If vocal parts are pitched more than one semi-tone from its original key, the vocalists no longer sound human (they either sound like chipmunks or like king Xerxes from “300″). The tempo of instrumentals cannot be changed too much either. In order to find the perfect key to work with, I make a key chart. (Via)
Kim could also be fooling us, and the mash-up’s really easy because “every pop song sounds the same,” as the common refrain goes, but we’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.
