For this assignment, I was instructed to take two songs and do a mashup of them. Then I was supposed to compare the differences among the songs such as instruments, changes in volume, etc.
Instead of only doing two songs, I decided to pick four. These four are important because I picked one song from each of my group members selected movie for our Radio Show project. For my movie Atomic Blonde I chose David Bowie’s Cat People (Putting out the Fire). Lauren chose the Nancy Drew movie so I used Come to California by Matthew Sweet. Hannah chose Salt, Evelyn Salt so I picked the Escaping the CIA song from James Newton Howard’s soundtrack. Finally, Tiffany chose Mr. and Mrs. Smith so I picked the song Mondo Bongo by Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros.
One thing I noticed with the songs from these different movie soundtracks were the mood of the songs. The songs I chose from Nancy Drew and Mr. and Mrs. Smith are both upbeat songs that are catchy. These movies are also funnier spy movies, unlike the other two I chose. The songs from Atomic Blonde and Salt are more instrumental or slow-moving songs. These movies are more serious spy movies.
This assignment showed me the importance of a soundtrack in displaying the theme of a movie or tv show. These four movies all chose songs representative of their theme and it adds a lot to the experience of watching them.
One of this week’s audio assignments tasked us to create a mashup of two songs and combine them to create one new song.
This assignment stuck out to me because the differences in music and audio between male and female secret agent films is one possible discussion topic my group and I thought about for our DS106 radio show called, “Girl Power.”
I thought it would be a really discussion starter for my group’s radio show to combine two secret agent theme songs, one from a female secret agent film and one from a male, and would be a really cool assignment to combine two songs and create a new song for my radio show, “Girl Power.”
the two songs I chose to combine were the James Bond theme song, and a Jane Bond themes song I found on the internet. Jane Bond is the female version of James Bond but sadly James Bond is more heard of than Jane. Since Jane and James bond are counterparts of sorts, I thought combining their theme songs to see what differences we can hear would be interesting.
To make my mashup, I first downloaded both the Jane and James Bond theme songs from youtube to MP3 files. One I had the audio files, I then imported them onto Audacity. Once both songs were on Audacity, I cut down and combined each song to make one new song!
Can you guess which song is the James Bond theme song and which is Jane Bond?
Well you can probably easily guess which is which because the James Bond theme song is much more recognizable, but in case you cant I will fill you in…Jane Bond is first and James Bond is second!
The most interesting part about combining these two songs is the difference that appear in the Jane Bond song versus the James Bond song. The Jane Bond theme song contains much higher pitches and tones, with a much smoother/fluid tempo. Listening to this song gives off the vibe of Jane Bond, an attractive, suave women. Meanwhile, the James Bond theme song contains much lower pitches and tones, with large changes in sounds that add to the drama of the tune. Listening to this song gives off the vibe of James Bond, a suave but strong and rugged man constantly caught in the middle of the action.
I think its really interesting how the musical audio choices used in theme songs even contribute to the possible idea that women secret agents tend to have a stronger emphasis on their looks rather than their capabilities, while the male secret agent theme songs have the drama that contributes to their “bad-ass”-ness.
So for this, I thought it would be fun to pick the two most cliche spy theme songs: James Bond and Pink Panther. Both had very similar sounds, which made them blend together pretty well. The two both have jazzy-sounding music, with the Bond one had a much higher temp and the Pink Panther being much more mellow and smooth. I think this has potential to be Our theme song for our radio show.
Pick any two songs and combine them to make one song. Point out the differences between the two songs. Examples: gender singers, high vs. low voice, changes in volume, instrumentation etc.
