Future challenge idea

I've been listening on and off in the car to the best of The Faces - disgracefully scruffy records but with a certain Jack-the-lad charm. I've ended up subconsciously synthesising a mash-up of Ooh La La and You Can Make Me Dance, Sing or Anything with an admixture of Cindy Incidentally. Works suprisingly well musically. Anyway, I thought.......how about a challenge where you have to do a mash-up of songs by the same band (I don't mean The Faces)? Obviously not an earth-shatteringly original idea, but perhaps a useful backstop challenge if nothing better is in the offing?
posted by MajorDundee (7 comments total)

Bowie had that competition a few years ago where he invited people to mash up two songs from his reasonably diverse back catalogue and I got the impression that even that was thought to be a bit limiting. Not to naysay though, I'd definitely be interested in hearing whatever people could come up with. Half the fun would be in the choice of artist.

If it's not too cheeky to suggest an idea here that just occurred to me, what about cover versions with alternate lyrics for a possible challenge idea? Seems like one that might have been done before.
posted by comealongpole at 1:28 PM on September 7, 2012

Not cheeky at all comealongpole! Good to see a contribution from someone new (at least to me). Your idea has a good pedigree in a UK radio show called "I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue" where contestants have to sing the lyrics of one song to the tune of another.
posted by MajorDundee at 1:37 PM on September 7, 2012

I like this idea, but I think it should be a bit more specific; I think the OK Computer thing worked so well because it served as a constraint and in some cases required some people to check out an album they weren't familiar.

So perhaps we could create a list of bands, pick a minimum number of tunes, and then assign them..?
posted by dobie at 3:11 PM on September 7, 2012

I'm still jonesing to do one-song-to-the-tune-of-another. I didn't get round to the OKC challenge, but I was going to do Airbag with the lyrics of How Soon is Now, which works incredibly well.

I agree that the constraints are what make these challenges work. EG stipulate the Beatles.

I also have a chord-generating-card-game which I've been meaning to turn into a challenge for ages.
posted by unSane at 6:05 PM on September 7, 2012

And another thing...

A friend of mine has a routine where he starts a timer and improvises for ten minutes solid, and records the results, as a kind of musical journal.

I was wondering if there was a way to turn this into a challenge. Like 'improvisation month' or something. Basically you record an N-minute improvisation every day, and then if you like it, post it, or if there's a bit you like, crop that out and post it.
posted by unSane at 6:25 AM on September 8, 2012

This is another old saw of mine, but it would be really fun if we could organise an online jam session. I really miss doing that - just plugging in and seeing where things go. Might get a song out of it....might not......whatever...

I know there are time differences but, hell I'd even stay up past 10.00pm and forego my hot milk for this. Well......maybe.... I mean that is a pretty big ask...
posted by MajorDundee at 10:46 AM on September 8, 2012

I would LOVE to do that but I've never figured out a good way of doing it.

Latency is the killer.

Has anyone figured it out yet? I mean, if you can play twitch shooters like quake online, why the hell can't you jam online?

I'll be all over this if we can figure it out.
posted by unSane at 6:17 PM on September 9, 2012