Students recombine pop hits in Spring Weekend mashup contest
The UA Events Committee announced the winners of the first MIT Spring Weekend mashup contest yesterday. The three top vote-getters Allin Resposo ’11 (aka Allin Gaga), Garrett L. Winther ’11, and Michael R. Harradon ’13 will have their mashups reviewed by Spring Weekend Concert headliner Super Mash Bros., who will decide which mashup will be played at the concert on Friday April 23.
Mashups are made by mutating and recombining songs, splicing and warping them to yield a new creation. Mashups can be made on personal computers with the correct software.
The foundation for Resposo’s song “Stop Callin’ I Dancin’,” which won 321 votes, is Lady Gaga’s “Telephone.” The mashup starts with a series of ringtones, but is overcome by Lady Gaga. While the melody of the mashup continues, Gaga is replaced by rappers and random outbursts of “Oh” and “quit calling me.” Gaga comes back in the end saying, “Stop callin’, stop callin...” Despite her efforts, the song ends as it started: With more ringtones.
“The majority of the mashup was created by cutting up tracks and arranging them,” said Resposo. “Aside from that I used distortion, pitch shifts, EQing, and telephone noises.”
Resposo based his song off situations in real life when people are constantly getting interrupted by their phones. He said: “Sometimes... you just gotta hang up the phone. And dance.”
Resposo said that the part of the mashup he is most happiest is “Angry Beyonce.” “She really gives the music that extra punch,” said Resposo.
Winther, who came in second place with 274 votes, incorporated many more songs into his mashup “Sleepy State of Mind.” It starts by layering Owl City’s “Fireflies” over Miley Cyrus’s “Party in the USA.” Winther took freedoms in experimenting with 11 different songs, each with its own styles and beats. “I’m the most happy about the fact I put everything together in a week...” he said.
Winther made some rather strange juxtapositions, like layering Rihanna’s “Rude Boy” over Green Day’s “Good Riddance.”
Harradon, who got 235 votes, based his mashup “Lady Gaga Loves My Beats” completely on Lady Gaga’s most popular songs, but with one big difference: the beat. Lady Gaga says it all in the first line of the mashup: “Let’s have some fun, this beat is sick...” From there, a huge range of beats overwhelm the voice of Lady Gaga, who spontaneously switches between “Love Game,” “Poker Face,” and “Bad Romance.”
Joseph P. Diaz ’10, chair of the UA Events Committee, said that he wanted to do something different this year to get students interested in Spring Weekend.
Diaz called the contest “wildly successful” and said he was impressed with the all of the mashups that were submitted.
“It already goes without saying that MIT’s student body has many great musicians and performers, but I had no idea of the level of professionalism that some students could mix and DJ with,” said Diaz.
All of the submitted mashups are available on the spring weekend website, http://springweekend.mit.edu/.