Each week, as I go through my RSS feeds, Twitter, email, and other mediums through which I find cool stuff, I come across things that I’ll open up in my browser but forget about. They may sit in an open tab for days, but at some point a mental alarm goes off and I think, “Well, I haven’t read that yet. Time to close it and forget about it.”<\/p>\n
That happened a week ago with the freaky music item of the week, a slowed down version of Dolly Parton’s “Jolene”<\/a> that people were buzzing about. It sat in a browser tab for at least four days. But each time I came across it again, I decided I didn’t have four minutes to sit and listen to it. Thus, as happens too often, I closed it and forgot about it.<\/p>\n Mistake.<\/p>\n Tim Carmody is guest blogging at Kottke<\/a> this week. He reposted the “Jolene” audio along with the science behind adjusting the speed of a song and keeping it in tune. Then, he added several songs that he adjusted just to prove the math. I finally listened to “Jolene,” and it’s jarring. I don’t know if it’s good, but it’s pretty interesting to listen to.<\/p>\n (Non-footnoted aside: like most boys who grew up in the 70s, while I have no great affection for Dolly Parton’s music, a significant portion of my early joking career involved Ms. Parton. Thus she’s deep in my pop-cultural DNA. Plus, The White Stripes ripped this track up, so while I’ve heard the original less than 10 times, I’ve still heard a<\/em> version of the song many times over the years.)<\/p>\n What’s really amazing are Carmody’s slowed down versions of Prince’s “I Wanna Be Your Lover” and Mazzy Star’s “Fade Into You.” And then, if you jump over to his Soundcloud<\/a> page, he has much more.<\/p>\n These aren’t revolutionary re-workings of famous songs, versions you’ll want to listen to over-and-over again like the originals. But it’s a cool way to make your brain listen to familiar songs in a brand new way.<\/p>\n