Awesome Music / Neil Cicierega

aka: Mouth Albums

• "Space Monkey Mafia" simultaneously plays the vocals to "We Didn't Start the Fire" and "It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" over an originally-composed, frenetic, chiptune/polka-inspired beat. It's an incredible concept with an even more incredible execution.
• "Goodbye", the opening to Mouth Silence, mixes stuttering, glitched-out vocals to "Semi-Charmed Life" and "I've Seen All Good People" over an original, Blade Runner-style ambient instrumental (which is actually Smash Mouth's "All Star" slowed down to 6.25% speed). It's somewhat less comical than most of Neil's catalogue, but in turn it ends up sounding chilling and sincerely beautiful.
• "Orgonon Gurlz" from Mouth Silence - a mashup of Katy Perry's "California Gurlz" and Kate Bush's "Cloudbursting". There's a fair amount of surprise at how it manages to work and is sometimes used as an example of one of Neil's jokes that legitimately sounds good.
• The closer of Mouth Silence, "Piss". It needs to be heard to be believed.
• And its Spiritual Successor, Mouth Moods' "Shit". It's... an experience.
  I'mma doodoo my way! It's my way! My doodoo highway!
• "Bills Like Jean Spirit" as well. Who would've thought "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and "Billie Jean" could be mashed up together so perfectly?
• "Smooth Flow" makes for a perfect ending to Mouth Sounds.
• "Rugrats" does an excellent job at remixing the opening theme with quotes from the show.
• "Wndrwll" somehow manages to balance being a hilariously glitched-out remix of Oasis's "Wonderwall" which abruptly transitions into the theme from Full House, yet still retaining a ton of the song's original sincerity through Liam Gallagher's pitch-shifted vocals, especially when they start harmonizing with each other.
• "T.I.M.E." is a given, due to the composer of the instrumental, but it's pretty damn inspiring in its own right.
• "Smooth" combines the vocals of "One Week" and "Smooth" and the instrumentals of "Smooth Criminal" to produce something both absurdly hilarious and enjoyable.
  The same as the emotion that I get from Harrison Ford!
• Two songs in particular that do an excellent job of Subverting the original feel of the song. "T.I.M.E." gives a more depressing look to the song "YMCA". But on the flip side we have "The End", which mashes up Linkin Park and Doobie Brothers and makes the lyrics to the song "In The End" seem a lot less sad and more hopeful and happy.
• "Numbers" mixes Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe" and Cake's "Never There", a remixed refrain of No Doubt's "Spiderwebs", and a bunch of old commercials for various hotlines with a dash of David Bowie and Kraftwerk for good measure.
• "Wow Wow" is just really, really fun. Some of its charm comes from the way Neil rearranged the lyrics to "Wild Wild West", but it's the backing beat, crafted by Neil himself, that really makes this song a musical masterpiece.
  Understand me son, I'm the slickest they is,
  I'm the slickest they is, I'm the slicki-wicki-wickest they is!
• The entirety of "Annoyed Grunt." Neil takes more than a dozen different sources and constructs a completely new song out of it, and it's unbelievable.
• "Wallspin", much like "Bills Like Jean Spirit", takes two unlikely songs, in this case Dead or Alive's "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)" and Oasis's "Wonderwall", and creates an unlikely combination that is remarkably solid.
• In an example that's not from the Mouth albums, "Say It Ain't SoCal" takes two different Weezer songs, one of their most loved and one of their most hated, and combines them to create a surprisingly more emotional take on "Beverly Hills".
• "Avril", which mixes "Complicated" with the "National Aerobic Championship Theme", is an outtake from Mouth Moods. General consensus is it's as awesome as the rest of the album was and almost should have been added in.
• Another Mouth outtake gives "Avril" a run for its money: "Who," a Spiritual Successor to "Best" and "Numbers" involving samples of songs themed around the titular word.
  YouTube commenter: jesus christ the competition for mouth moods was intense.
• Mullet with Butterfly Wings is fine enough, but really comes into its own when the lyrics and music swap around.
• "Rollercloser". Where to even begin...
  • First, there's the fact that the dark, brooding lyrics of Nine Inch Nails' "Closer" go surprisingly well with the funky, upbeat instrumental of the Ohio Players' "Love Rollercoaster" despite (or even because of) the clear Lyrical Dissonance.
  • There's also the fact that, whenever Trent Reznor would normally sing "I wanna fuck you like an animal," the "fuck you" would be cut off by a sample of Kool & the Gang's "Jungle Boogie."
  • During the second chorus, the background singers imitate the synths from "Closer".
  • And finally, as the song progresses, more and more of the instrumental from "Closer" seeps into the song, and it still manages to sound totally awesome.
• "Closerflies" from Mouth Dreams is absolutely a highlight. Being a mash-up of "Fireflies" by Owl City and "Closer" by Nine Inch Nails, the two songs compliment each other surprisingly well, making for a mash-up you can enjoy as a joke for the tonal difference in either song, or enjoy unironically for it's surprisingly good execution.
• "Ribs", a sort of spiritual successor to "Best" from the earlier Mouth Silence, is an upbeat song that mashes up several tunes including "Everybody Wants to Rule The World", "The Lion Sleeps Tonight", "The Beautiful People" and... the Chili's Babyback Ribs jingle?
• "Mouth Dreams (Extro)": To reference one YouTube commenter, the sample of the Backstreet Boys used in this song could easily be mistaken for a groovy vaporwave track. Surprisingly nice for being so short, both despite and because of the "coded message hidden within the song".
• "Nightmovin'" Painfully short for such a strangely fitting mashup, combining the metal vocals of "Nightmare" with the bouncy instrumental of "Movin' Out". This was done as a joke, ending at the lyrics "'Cause it ain't over yet." Luckily, a fan threw together a longer version.
• "Yahoo" takes the famous yodel of the titular web company, overlays it over different pitched versions of itself, and couples it over droning synth leads. The result is shockingly beautiful.
• "Cannibals" starts off with various heavily reverbed and atmospheric vanity plates, culminating in the THX Deep Note, which provides the backdrop for what can only be described as if Justice and Lorn collaborated on a remix of "She Drives Me Crazy" by Fine Young Cannibals, foregoing any pretense of humor and just becoming an unironic banger.
• "Fredhammer", a mashup of "Nookie" and "Sledgehammer," also featuring the theme from Seinfeld, is considered by many to be a successor to "Wow Wow" in that it is easily on par for catchiness, memorability and sheer absurd hilarity.
  She put my blender, in a blender,
  And still I surrendered- my cookie!
• "Fredhammer" forms a one-two punch with another great mashup, "Limp Wicket"; the instrumentals of "Nookie" combined with the lyrics to the Ewok Celebration festival at the end of Return of the Jedi, with Fred Durst's lyrics returning triumphantly towards the end.
• The penultimate song of Mouth Moods, "Mouth Pressure." After "All Star" has been teased throughout the album, finally it makes its full appearance. The mashup is easily one of Neil's simplest - the vocals from "All Star" with the instrumental from "Under Pressure." Nothing more than that - and yet, so memorable.
• Another classic from Mouth Silence is "Crocodile Chop", the unexpected brilliance that comes from merging the instrumentals of "Crocodile Rock" by Elton John and Serj Tankian's vocals from "Chop Suey" by System of a Down. It's so strangely dissonant yet absurdly fitting, catapulted into complete hilarity by the vocal part being slowed to better match the tempo of the music which makes it sound like Serj had a few too many before taking the stage.

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