Bad Lip Reading - Seagulls - Selected Best Tracks (2011-2019)

Okay, here's something really weird. You may have heard of "Bad Lip Reading" (BLR). It's a YouTube channel created and run by an anonymous producer who intentionally lip-reads video clips poorly, for comedic effect. Many of his videos have gone viral. In fact, his channel has gotten over a billion views.

His videos rely on the fact that when a person says or sings something, the motions of their mouth could also be the exact same motions of some other words. There are a limited number of alternates of what could be said, and he picks phrases for comedic effect. As an example, there's a line in the BTS hit song "Idol" that goes: "You can't stop me lovin' myself." Yet BLR overdubs that to be "You took a sample of my pasta," and it fits the mouth movements perfectly.

You can read more about BLR at its Wikipedia page:

Bad Lip Reading - Wikipedia

What's maybe less known is that BLR has made about thirty songs using this same technique. The songs will use the mouth movements of a scene from a famous movie, or sometimes a music video. But this is even more impressive, because he creates a brand new song to go with the comedic misunderstood lip reading. Even if it's based on a music video of a hit song, he throws that out and comes up with a totally new song from scratch.

The crazy thing is, these songs are really, really good! The lyrics are bizarre, but the production, performance, melody, and every other aspect are top notch. Apparently, this anonymous person does everything: writing the songs, playing all the instruments, producing the vocals, and even singing all the vocals parts. He uses a vocal modulator to make his voice sound whatever he wants it to be, even female voices.

This is all very amusing. But I have to say, all joking aside, from a pure musical level alone, I'm extremely impressed. It's widely speculated that the anonymous person behind BLR must be a very successful music producer, because there are very few people on the planet with the skills to pull this off so successfully. If you peruse the many thousands of comments on each of the YouTube videos of his songs, you'll see one theme over and over, that people actually prefer the songs he wrote over the songs they were based on (when they're based on music videos), and that they could easily be hit songs if their lyrics weren't so bizarre. 

I totally agree. I'm not much of a fan of modern pop, finding it generally formulaic and musically simple. But it modern pop was like his songs, I'd be much more of a fan. The bizarre, funny lyrics are actually a plus in my opinion, because they're the complete opposite of the same ol', same ol' cliched and simple lyrics of the vast majority of modern hit songs. Plus, the lyrics often vaguely make sense in intriguing ways.

To fully appreciate these songs, you need to do to his YouTube channel and watch the videos. Here's a link to help you get there:

Bad Lip Reading - YouTube

But, heck, I just like hearing these songs even without the video element. This album is for other people who feel the same. However, I only took some of my favorite songs, in the hopes this will make you want to go to his channel and see the rest of them, and well as his other funny videos.

Six of the songs here are based on the "Star Wars" movies. The others are either based on other famous movies or TVs or music videos of very popular hits. If you go to the Wikipedia page linked to above, you can find charts that explain the source material of each song.

As an aside, I'm pleased to say that many of the famous people who had their movies or songs parodied by BLR have publicly commented how much they've enjoyed his work. For instance, Mark Hamill, who played Luke Skywalker in the Star Wars films, said this in 2017: "I love them, and I showed Carrie [Fisher, who played Princess Leia] the Yoda one… we were dying. I showed it to her in her trailer. She loved it. I retweeted it..." He actually went on to take part in another BLR video, reading the vocal lines of the character Han Solo in a scene. 

As another example, Lin-Manuel Miranda, the maker of the smash hit play "Hamilton," called one of the songs here, "Bushes of Love," "THE summer jam of 2017" and said that BLR had "made my life" by parodying some of his songs. In my opinion, in a better alternate universe, many of these would be hit songs in their own right.

This album is 48 minutes long.

01 Gang Fight (Bad Lip Reading)
02 Carl Poppa (Bad Lip Reading)
03 Hey Choo Choo Go (Bad Lip Reading)
04 Bushes of Love (Bad Lip Reading)
05 Seagulls [Stop It Now] (Bad Lip Reading)
06 Not the Future (Bad Lip Reading)
07 Hostiles on the Hill (Bad Lip Reading)
08 Ice God of Hungary (Bad Lip Reading)
09 It's Not a Moon (Bad Lip Reading)
10 Chocolate Lagoon (Bad Lip Reading)
11 Sample of My Pasta (Bad Lip Reading)
12 My Stick (Bad Lip Reading)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15124389/BadLpRead_2011-2019_Seaglls_atse.zip.html

The cover photo uses a still of a scene featuring Yoda from the Star Wars move "The Empire Strikes Back." But someone, maybe BLR, added in a microphone. So I figured that was ideal for this cover.