Music / RecD

Tom Hart Jr., better known as RecD (short for "Recorder Dude", can be pronounced either "wreck-dee" or "wrecked"), is a singer and songwriter who mainly operates on YouTube. He makes covers of video game songs With Lyrics, although he has also composed some original Filk Songs as well. He has quite the impressive vocal range. While he normally plays characters with a plucky, high-pitched voice, he can also make his voice very deep.

One notable series by RecD is Friday Night Funkin' WITH LYRICS. See that page for tropes related to that series.

RecD also provided the voices of Sonic and Shadow in the Sonic Forces in Minutes miniseries.

You can find his channel here.

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RecD and his videos include examples of:

• Adaptation Expansion:
  • Cuphead: The Delicious Last Course does not properly explain the Big Bad's motivations for wanting to take over the astral plane, and it only vaguely hints at what he plans to do with his newfound power. RecD's cover of "Baking the Wondertart," however, gives him a proper backstory and motivations: All the residents of Inkwell Isle 4 were constantly demanding Chef Saltbaker to make bread, cake, and other confections for them. Saltbaker was overworked and stressed. This filled him with rage, driving him to the point of insanity. When he gains control of the astral plane, he plans to fill the world with the salt making up his body, shred everything and everyone up with his salt grains, and reform the world into one made of salt.
  • All the bosses in the Pizza Tower videos are given a Freudian Excuse as to why they want to get even with Peppino, and how they met Pizzahead:
    • Pepperman took part in a contest to design a sign for Peppino’s pizzeria, but due to the sign mostly including him and only barely having Peppino on it, he was rejected and became spiteful. Pizzahead offered him a deal to get even (and to make a pinup of him).
    • Compared to the other bosses, Pizzahead gaslighted the Vigilante and accused Peppino of having harmed John E. Cheese.
    • The Noise was once a popular TV star, but after severely injuring Peppino in one of his episodes, his show was cancelled. Pizzahead offered to reboot his show.
    • Fake Peppino was directly created by Pizzahead, and spent his time watching how Peppino acted.
• Adaptation Name Change: In "Pizza Time Never Ends" the fourth boss is referred to as Peppinos Paghetti in the lyrical cover and barely, if at all, by the canon name Fake Peppino.
  • In "Doggone Dogfight", Sergeant O'Fera of the Howling Aces is referred to as Pilot Saluki. Justified in that her name wasn’t known at the point when the video was released.
• All Just a Dream:
  • In "Snow Cult Scuffle", the entire fight is revealed to be this. Cuphead passed out from the cold just getting to Mortimer Freeze's place and dreamed up the whole fight.
  • Played for Horror in “Take a Rest,” where the entire sequence of DogDay defeating CatNap and saving his friends from sleeping forever turns out to have been a dream he had after CatNap gassed him asleep like with the other critters.
• Angry Chef:
  • Exaggerated in "Baking the Wondertart": Chef Saltbaker explains that the reason he turned evil was because the residents of his island were overworking him by constantly demanding him to bake for them, even at night. He became so enraged that he plotted to gain the unfathomable power of the astral plane so he could shred them up into a paste and reform the entire island.
    "I have toiled
    But this island's spoiled!
    My fury BOILS
    They will know the way it feels
    To be treated like a meal
    When they DROWN!"
  • Done to some extent with Peppino in "It's Pizza Time". He spends most of the song panicking about Gustavo and Mr. Stick, who he assumes to have been kidnapped, as well as his own fate should he fail the level, but he gets seriously mad at a couple points.
• Brick Joke: In "The Death I Deservioli", Peppino spots a certain Forknight enemy who was responsible for several of his failed runs. He proceeds to punt him, in the words of both characters, "INTO THE SUN". Come the end of the video, we find out that the Forknight didn't quite make it out of the atmosphere, and he lands directly on Peppino as he celebrates his P-rank, ruining said P-rank and turning it into an S-rank. As expected, Peppino doesn’t take this well.
• Brotherhood of Funny Hats: In "Snow Cult Scuffle", Mortimer's cult is elaborated on as this. Mortimer creates a perfect winter storm for the snow people to live in and never melt. The most malevolence he shows is deciding to dismember Cuphead and Mugman for shooting his doorman and demanding the sugarcubes that are his power source. Extreme, but justifiable. As the song goes on however, it becomes more clear that Mortimer is running a Scam Religion. Melting dissenters with a heat lamp and using his followers for labor to get rich before ditching when police show up. Granted, this all happens in Cuphead's dream so the only thing that is verifiably true is the sugar cubes being Mortimer's power source.
• Care-Bear Stare: In "Take A Rest", Bobby Bearhug dreams of one of these after being put to sleep.
• Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Fake Peppino is a corrupted copy of Peppino in both shape and mind. He seems to think his name is "Peppinos Paghetti," speaking opposite to his meaning several times, and thinking Peppino is a Toppin. Besides that, he makes his pizzas with a much wider variety of "toppings" such as dollar bills, pieces of metal, apples, ice, an entire pig, and a mortal chicken.
• Crossover: After making videos based on both "The World Revolving" and "Furret Walk," RecD made "The Walcc Revolving - Furret Walk Vs. Jevil WITH LYRICS The Musical (50K Special)," in which Jevil and Furret meet each other and become friends. The music incorporates the tunes of both "The World Revolving" and "Furret Walk."
• Dark Reprise: Fittingly, "Pizza Time Never Ends" borrows many lyrics from "It's Pizza Time," Fake Peppino copying Peppino's words while Peppino panics and (later) fights his doppelganger off.
• Evil Laugh: In "Baking the Wondertart," RecD does three evil laughs throughout the video, all equally powerful. The second one is even a spot-on impression of a laugh that the villain actually does in-game.
• Denser and Wackier: The songs made for Cuphead's "Delicious Last Course" DLC follow this as the climactic "Baking the Wondertart" was released first. "Snow Cult Scuffle" and "Doggone Dogfight" are much sillier in their lyrics and story.
• Evil Sounds Deep: As in the game, RecD gives the Big Bad of Cuphead: The Delicious Last Course a very deep, operatic voice in "Baking the Wondertart."
• Filk Song: When he's not writing lyrics for existing video game songs, he's writing original songs for video game characters.
• Fun with Subtitles: Many of his videos feature split-second moments where the subtitles switch to making snarky comments.
• Furry Reminder: In "Take A Rest", when Catnap menacingly advances on Dogday with the zombified versions of his friends, Dogday's tail tucks between his legs like an actual frightened dog.
• Foreign Cuss Word: Peppino tends to utter "marone" when exasperated or frustrated.
• Here We Go Again!: In "Snow Cult Scuffle" after Cuphead wakes up from his dream of the fight thanks to Mortimer Freeze providing some warm chocolate milk. Despite Mortimer's seemingly kinder demeanor he snaps in the same way his dream self does. When Mugman asks for his sugar cubes, which are his power source, he starts chanting "Wanna be dismembered? Wanna be dismembered?".
• Laser-Guided Karma: In "Make Some Noise", the Noise torments Peppino throughout the song, culminating with tricking the poor chef into drinking a bottle of his wife's cooking blended into a liquid, and seizing the opportunity to rally the other enemies in the game to kick the helpless Peppino while he's down and dealing with stomach cramps. Before he can finish off Peppino, however, Noisette barges in to reveal to the Noise that— not knowing why he blended her cooking— she blended his dinner as well… which, compared to the tiny milk bottle Peppino drank, is instead in a bottle almost as tall as the Noise's entire body. The final nail in the coffin is Peppino telling the Noisette to ensure that the Noise drinks it all to "recharge his voice".
• Lethal Chef: Whatever Peppinos/Fake Peppino's idea of a pizza is, it doesn't wouldn't taste remotely good, since he thinks that dirty dollar bills, apples, ice cubes, pieces of metal, a mortal chicken, an entire pig, and Peppino himself would be needed to make the perfect pizza. Even after his defeat and extracting sweat from Peppino after getting hit in the head with the elevator key isn't doing him any better, he now thinks "synthesizing middling crisis" is needed for making the perfecf pizza during his commercial post-defeat, those ingredients are now: 50 birthday candles, a crowbar he calls "meal replacement bar", a frog's wart he calls "worry wart", a last will and testimony, a comfort plushie of Gustavo, and dirt.
• Madness Mantra:
  • "The World Revolving" starts out with "Chaos, chaos, chaos, chaos" repeated very quickly, to fit Jevil's demented personality.
  • During the Darkest Hour and later near the end of the song, Fake Peppino repeats "Pizza Time Never Ends" until it turns into this.
• Make My Monster Grow: Lampshaded in "Baking the Wondertart." When the villain grows to enormous size, RecD makes a pun about it:
  "Not a fan of me, I gather? Don't worry: I'll GROW on you!
• Massive Multiplayer Crossover: "Horror Fandom Song," one of his original songs, is a crossover between several popular indie horror games, including Five Nights at Freddy's, Baldi's Basics in Education and Learning, and Doki Doki Literature Club!.
• Motor Mouth: Zig-zagged. RecD can sing both very fast notes and slower, longer notes with ease. In some songs, such as "Baking the Wondertart" and "The World Revolving," he goes back and forth between different speeds with ease.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Among Us song "Another Beautiful Day" has Gruesome Green the Killing Machine
  Red: THAT'S HIS FULL NAME?!
• "Not So Different" Remark: Despite their different personalities, it turns out that Peppino and Fake Pepinno don't just have resemblance appearance-wise: In the "Okay Campers, Rise and Shine!" section of the song, the latter remarks how his lack of freedom due to not making good pizzas isn't so much different to Peppino's day-after-day overwork and his efforts for his establishment to not fall apart and getting bankrupt, something many adults and workers can relate to.
  "Fight your failing trend
  And life is sure to send
  A curse upon you when
  Pizza time never ends
  When there's no cash to spend
  Pizza time never ends
  When work takes you from friends
  Pizza time never ends
  When sleep's just a pretense
  Pizza time never ends
  Until your lifetime ends
  Pizza time never ends"
• Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: A brief and likely purposeful moment of this in "It's Pizza Time". RecD's performance of Peppino has a consistent Italian accent except for a brief moment where he's caught off guard by the appearance of Mort the Chicken.
• Reality Warper: Peppino becomes one just to challenge himself. Because he "baked the fourth-a wall!" (which is represented by a rainbow pizza), Peppino begins his 3rd lap. When he finishes his 3rd lap, he decides it's not challenging enough and beings to bake more reality breaking pizzas.
• Ruder and Cruder: After his "Furret Walk" song got marked for kids by YouTube and he cannot get it to be unmarked, he plans to make some of his future videos this to make sure his channel doesn't get mistakenly targeted towards a younger audience again.
• Sanity Slippage: Peppino is very anxious and panic-driven during "It's Pizza Time!", constantly agonizing over the time he has left. During "The Death That I Deservioli", he oozes confidence and even roasts Pizza Face while being chased by him. In "Pillar John's Revenge", though, he rewrites reality itself via Game Mod just to add another lap for a bigger challenge. And when he DOES finish that third lap, he decides that it wasn't tough enough and adds infinite laps. While transforming himself into an Eevee. And also fighting a Boss Rush during the laps. Even Pizza Face expresses genuine horror and concern at what Peppino has done. It then gets even crazier as he transforms into Wario, Pinkie Pie, a Quilfish, and Peppina Ramen to fight the bosses.
  Pizza Face: (with an "Oh, Crap!" Smile) ...You've lost your mind.
  Peppino: But I've found something-a so much-a better!
• Shout-Out:
  • In "Roar of Dedede / Masked & Wild: DDD WITH LYRICS", when King Dedede dons the boar mask, he undergoes a transformation similar to the ones in The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask.
  • In "It's Pizza Time WITH LYRICS", Peppino sings similar lyrics to a commercial for Mario Bros. for the Atari 2600 (which itself was sung to the tune of the theme song of Car 54, Where Are You?), with the figure in Peppino's imagination dressed as Luigi from the commercial.
  • "Snow Cult Scuffle" adds an overt reference to Bimbo's Initiation with the Doorman singing "Wanna be a member? Wanna be a member?" and Mortimer Freeze singing "Wanna be dismembered? Wanna be dismembered?"
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: "Pizza Time Never Ends" has moments of this. Once where Peppino is being absorbed by his fake, until he snaps and decks him with a curt Big "NO!". The big one is where the monstrous Fake Peppino is chasing him reciting his Madness Mantra, as Peppino reaches the door.
  Fake Peppino: Pizza time never ends!
  Pizza time never ends!!
  Pizza time never ends!!!
  PIZZA TIME NEVER ENDS!!!
  Peppino: YES...IT...DOES!!!!! (escapes through the door)
• Slasher Smile: Peppino sports a massive one as he brandishes a massive pizza cutter in one hand, and has Pizzaface in the other at the end of "Pillar John's Revenge".
• Something We Forgot: Briefly in "Baking the Wondertart", once Saltbaker is defeated. He accepts his defeat and offers the Wondertart to Mugman and Chalice after he finishes baking it with Cuphead's soul. For a moment, they accept it as a hero's reward for beating such a grueling fight, before remembering they were fighting to save Cuphead in the first place and demand him back.
• Weaksauce Weakness: In "Doggone Dogfight", Saluki suffers this when she's got Cuphead on the ropes. Her attack causes Cuphead to leak the Chocolate Milk he drank in "Snow Cult Scuffle". As a dog, she panics and calls it a hazmat before abandoning ship.
• Who's Laughing Now?: In "Baking the Wondertart", this is the root of Saltbaker's motivation. All the relentless demands of the island's inhabitants drove him mad. With the power of the Wondertart, he intents to drown them all in salt and grind them up.
• You Killed My Father: Vigilante's main reason for fighting Peppino is that he killed his grandfather. Subverted, since the end of the video reveals that Vigilante's grandpa was actually just kicked by a cow trying to milk it, and Pizzahead just lied to him.

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