Mommy, where do vocals come from?

Searching for cover songs on YouTube is a sure-fire way to find unintentional comedy. You know those awkward moments at the Karaoke bar where the martini-diva sings "I Will Survive" in every key, at the same time? There are enough of these moments immortalized on the internet to keep you entertained until the cows come to the homepage. I searched "cover" and "shins" and found a sacrifice of "Kissing the Lipless". I thought to myself, "the original version has a crazy vocal range, this is going to be awful or amazing." This video taught me something new about music: if the song is too hard, just play it wrong and make it easy for yourself (if not your audience). I'm working on a kazoo medley of "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "Flight of the Bumblebee" to test this theorem.

There's an upside to this universal open mic night. Music lovers have rightfully become skeptical of what's "real" in popular music. If you're performing in your pajamas, chances are a million dollar producer didn't pay a ringer to sing the lead. We can blame Milli Vanilli, C+C Music Factory", and Paula Abdul for making us ask the question since the early 90's, "Mommy, where do vocals come from?" Those incidences of "who's actually singing this line anyway?" were all before auto-tune turned Nickelback and Britney Spears (yes, I know, leave her alone) into pitch-perfect studio performers.

These YouTube covers do allow us to see and hear music in it's most pure and occasionally horrific form. So without further ado, I've uploaded a living room recording of Bob Marley's "She's Gone". I'm not in my pajamas, but I may have bedhead.