Bleeping Stupid

Blinky Blinky Bleep Bleep! BOP! 2007 has undoubtedly been the year of the Game Boy in pop music. Whether it’s David E. Sugar crafting tunes on a bank of hacked consoles in his loft, or colon open bracket (sigh) supporting Hadouken! on their various nationwide jaunts, there seems to be no escaping that full-bodied 8bit sound.

Given 8bit’s underground ubiquity, you are probably wondering what some of your favourite mainstream pop records would sound like when fed through the SNES blender.

WELL WONDER NO MORE.

Why? Because someone calling himself ‘ElectronicMESS’ (which, if we’re being honest, is probably a far more apt name than was intended) has given banging bleep treatments to a host of the year’s biggest hits (and an old Pendulum song).

First we’ve got Sean Kingston’s summer smash ‘Beautiful Girls’, transformed here into a 1000mph acid jungle assault on the ears. Next up is ‘Umbrella’ by Rihanna, which you may remember as 2007’s best single about friendship and rainstoppers. This gets a similar treatment, with the addition of huge great bouncy rave beats during the chorus.

Finally there’s ‘Slam’ by Pendulum, which - in this incarnation - does actually resemble the music you’d find on ‘boss’ levels in certain Nintendo platformers. That is, until it goes all gabba o’clock and becomes earachingly incomputable. Needless to say, it’s breakneck stuff.

A selection of original compositions, as well as ElectronicMESS’ take on various Christmas songs, can be found at this page here. Be warned, it’s not for the faint-hearted.