Song of the Year?

May I present to you my nomination for Song of the Year. In the past 72 hours since I discovered this clip I watched it dozens of times and have the song running through my head constantly. I even woke up in the middle of the night with this song buzzing through my head.

What are we watching here exactly? This is footage of Antoine Dobson, the brother of a girl who was awoken by her would-be rapist on July 28th. Luckily Antione and his sister managed to beat off the rapist, though he left behind his shoes, shirt, and fingerprints all over the place. The local news came an interviewed Antoine and his sister when Antione went off on a rant which was broadcast as part of the piece. The rant quickly became an overnight viral video.

But that's just the beginning. Enter the Gregory Brothers, a family of, uh... viral video makers. They're somewhat known for their "Autotune the News" clips you can find on Youtube. Usually they've taken well-known newspeople like Katie Couric and given them the autotune treatment for comedic effect. But what are more funny are their clips of "unintentional singers", basically everyday Youtube clips from everyday people which get turned into songs. You may have recently seen the Double Rainbow clip and the Gregory Brother's remix sensation version that's been making the internet rounds. As for the Bed Intuder Song, it's garnered more than 15 million views on Youtube in the past month.

What I love about the Bed Intruder Song is it's perfect mimicry of hip-hop/dance floor song tropes. Music companies spend thousands of dollars on focus groups, advertising, and training so that they can make the next Britney/Justin Bieber, while the Gregory brothers probably spent no more than twenty bucks on the pizza and pepsi they ordered while they sat around and make this awesome clip. And how could you not love the breakdown near the end?

What I find even more amazing is how quickly this song has spread. There's literally hundreds of covers of this song already, including a version by the North Carolina A&T University Blue & Gold Marching Band. There was a piece on NPR about the song. The band Linkin Park was even interviewed recently with the interviewer asking "Ok, which one of you is the rapist?". The song is currently the #35 seller on iTunes. And to top it all off just this past week Antione was invited onto the Today Show.

Maybe I'm overstepping it a bit here, but I'm more and more convinced that pieces like these are some new art form. It's not quite a traditional song because the lyrics were unintentionally "written", and it's not quite a random viral video of something you might see on America's Funniest Home Videos. There's definitely something clever going on here, and me, I love it.