It’s time for a little humor, and I don’t mean Steve Martin’s greatest hits (although King Tut is a classic).
Song of the Week: Smooth by Neil Cicierega
The savvy among you will recognize Smooth Criminal by Michael Jackson and One Week by Barenaked Ladies, as well as smatterings of other songs. You may also notice that this combination of songs actually sounds…almost intentional, as if the two songs were made for each other. That’s what Neil Cicierega does.
Neil Cicerega started out as an internet silly person back before Youtube. You can hear all about his rise to “stardom” in his talk at the XOXO Festival, a gathering of independent creatives. Those with knowledge of the old memes will recognize his work from Potter Puppet Pals (circa 2007), The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny (circa 2008), or, more recently, Mouth Silence and its sequels. Smooth is from the third Mouth ______ album.
But why are these songs so funny? It works for two reasons. First, because it sounds natural. Your mind can comprehend the songs that were used to put this song together, but it also recognizes a competent composition in its own right. This is where the second reason comes in: the laws of jokes and why things are funny.
No one has figured out why jokes are funny, at least not totally. If we did, we could write algorithms and come up with all the jokes ever. However, there is a basic rule that most jokes follow: combining together two or more things that don’t normally go together or make sense together. Take this classic example from Groucho Marx: “Last week, I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How the elephant got in my pajamas, I’ll never know.” You start assuming that Groucho was in his pajamas. Then, when it is reveals that the elephant was in his pajamas, your mind has a revelation of the situation. The area of your brain related to those revelations is the same that processes humor, and so you laugh.
Back to the music. Using a similar concept, Neil has combined two songs that you don’t expect to hear together, and when your brain comprehends that, it triggers a humor response. You can then either be done with the song, having gotten the joke, or keep listening because you genuinely think the song is good. Your choice.
I do recommend listening to the entire 55-minute album. Some of the songs aren’t great, but that’s true of any album. If you want to dive directly into the deep end of music that is jokes, I recommend Siivagunner. However, this leads to a problem with humor: you need to know the references. Siivagunner uses video game music, so if you’re not versed in the topic, you won’t understand all the jokes. Some of them will still work, like this one (if you know Taylor Swift, you’ll get at least half the joke), but others, like this one, won’t because you don’t know that there’s a joke. It’s a joke told in Russian: without context, you don’t know it’s supposed to be funny.
That's Pretty NEET 