It's Terrible Track Friday and today I'm posting a track that is not only terrible, but also has a movie coming out today that looks equally as bad. That's right, it's the Chipmunks.
THE CHIPMUNKS were created in 1958 by Ross Bagdasarian when he wrote The Witch Doctor and sang it under the name David Seville. He used cutting edge technology to speed up the recording of the Witch Doctor's vocal track which gave it a 'chipmunk-sound'. The song was a suprising hit, peaking at #1 in the US for two weeks! It went on to win a Grammy Award for engineering!
Realizing the money making potential he had created, Bagdasarian began recording album after album, starting with the hit song The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don't Be Late).
To date, the Chipmunks have released over 40 albums! Including WHEN YOU WISH UPON A CHIPMUNK in 1995 which features ten songs from Disney movies done in their trademark squeaky voices. The album has novelty value (as any cover album does), but this one gets boring after the first minute of the opening track, Hakuna Matata. And while some of the songs get new musical arrangements, this one sound exactly the same as the original except with vocals in a higher octave. Boring!
Take a listen and see for your self. It sounds just as bad as the trailer for the new movie looks.
 | Hakuna Matata The Chipmunks 1995   |
4 comments:
Thanks for that bit of Chipmunk history...I always thought the cartoon came first. :S
But the chipmunks singing Disney songs just ain't right.
Wow, that is terrible. You also know Ross Bagdasarian was one of Jimmy Stewart's neighbours in the Hitchcock classic Rear Window? As a songwriter, no less. Definitely a must-see, though not necessarily for that reason.
My grandma used to have that album and we listened to it in the car a lot. Jessi and Katie hated it, but I liked it for some reason. But hey, I was 5.
Vote 2008- Cover Your Ears!
I sometimes enjoy the music of the Chipmunks, on a level of a guilty pleasure, but even this version is uncalled for!
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