The Gregory Brothers

The Gregory Brothers

The Gregory Brothers at the 2nd Streamy Awards
Background information
Origin Brooklyn, New York, United States
Genres Pop
Novelty
Hip hop
Blue-eyed soul
Comedy rock
Country music
Folk
Jazz
Years active 2007–present
Labels Gregory Residence Records[1]
Website thegregorybrothers.com
Members Michael Gregory
Andrew Gregory
Evan Gregory
Sarah Gregory[2]

The Gregory Brothers are an American musical group that characterize their music as "Country & Soul, Folk & Roll".[3] The members are Michael Gregory on drums and vocals, Andrew Rose Gregory on guitar and vocals, Evan Gregory on keys and vocals, and Sarah Fullen Gregory (Evan's wife[4][5]) on bass and vocals.[6] They are most famous for their creation of musical viral videos, most notably the "Winning" song that won a 2012 Comedy Award, as well as, Songify the News series (formerly known as Auto-Tune the News), as which includes the "Bed Intruder Song". The three brothers, originally from Radford, Virginia, moved to Brooklyn, New York in the mid-2000s and met Sarah in the local music scene. The four formed a band in 2007.

Discography

Meet the Gregory Brothers!

Cover art of "Meet the Gregory Brothers!" From left to right: Andrew Rose Gregory, Evan Gregory, Michael Gregory, Sarah Fullen Gregory.

The group released their first EP, Meet the Gregory Brothers!, on May 29, 2009.[6] Village Voice music writer Ben Westhoff characterized the effort as "a lounge-y, refreshingly sincere slice of blue-eyed soul", and Jake Frazier of PopSense praised the work, claiming that it "[brought] more to the table than the other 1000+ songs [in his music library]".[7] Westhoff opined that "unfortunately, many of the Brothers' new fans have no patience for anything that's not Auto-Tune the News",[8] though the group itself takes a broader view of its fans' tastes, believing that "there will definitely be some fans who found us through our videos, and who will be disappointed when they hear our records and they're not a bunch of hip-hop political parodies…[but] most people get that we are capable of creating music in different styles, and can appreciate our folky soul jams for what they are."[7]

For the period of July 15–22 2009, 47–54 days after its release, the EP was ranked as the top-selling album on Amie Street in the category of "Soul / R&B".[9]

Contributing musicians on the album include Doug Hulin (bass) and Justin Keller (saxophone). The album was recorded at the Mission Sound Recording facility in Brooklyn, New York, and was produced, engineered, and mixed by Zach McNees. The recording was mastered by Ricardo Gutierrez. The cover art photographer was Denny Renshaw, and Morgan King, founder of Yer Bird Records, is credited with its design.[10]

Track list

Meet the Gregory Brothers![11]
No. Title Length
1. "Cry Cry Cry"   4:07
2. "Butter on My Roll"   3:37
3. "West Coast Time"   5:21
4. "A Wonder"   3:39
5. "Do You Think?"   4:11

Other albums

Andrew Rose Gregory solo albums

Michael Gregory contributing albums

Musical collaborations

The Gregory Brothers at VidCon 2012

The Gregory Brothers appear as members of the Welcome Wagon Choir on The Welcome Wagon's 2009 debut album Welcome to the Welcome Wagon, produced by Sufjan Stevens.[18] The Welcome Wagon is a project headed by Presbyterian minister Vito Aiuto and his wife Monique. The Gregory Brothers often perform live with Sarah Gregory's band The Stanleys. The group was commissioned to compose the theme song for the Netflix series Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, which was based on their "Bed Intruder Song".

Viral videos

Main article: Songify the News

The Gregory Brothers (using the YouTube username 'schmoyoho') first became well known for a series of YouTube videos, Auto-Tune the News (rebranded in 2011 as Songify the News), in which recorded voices of politicians, news anchors, and political pundits were digitally manipulated to conform to a melody, making the figures appear to sing.

National television networks featured the Gregory Brothers' early political satires as early as the spring of 2009, but the group did not achieve mainstream recognition until the summer of 2010, when they released episode 12b of Auto-Tune the News, titled "Bed Intruder Song". "Bed Intruder Song", which featured excerpts from an interview with alleged crime victims Kelly Dodson and her brother Antoine Dodson, was viewed approximately 50 million times during its first six months online, making it the most-viewed YouTube video of 2010 (excluding major label music videos),[19] and currently has more than 100 million views.[20] Being largely non-political in content, it marked a departure from the Gregory Brothers' roots in political material. Following the mainstream success of that music video, the Gregory Brothers have generally produced a mixture of both political and non-political videos.

Although the Gregory Brothers are best known for the Auto-Tune and Songify series, they have created several additional videos, independent of that series, which have received broad attention. The following videos are part of their first season of Auto-Tune the News for 16 episodes.[21]

  • More than 100 Million views
  • More than 50 million views
    • "Songify This - Winning - A Song by Charlie Sheen" (58+ million views)
  • More than 30 million views
    • Jabba the Hutt - sung by PewDiePie(38+ million views)
    • "Songify This - DOUBLE RAINBOW SONG!!" (36+ million views)
    • "Songify This - Can't Hug Every Cat - a song about loving cats" (34+ millions views)
  • More than 10 million views
    • "Songify This - Oh My Dayum" (28+ million views)
    • "Songify This - Dead Giveaway!" (27+ million views)
    • "Songify This - Auto-Tune Cute Kids and Kanye" (12+ million views)
    • "Songify This - Backin Up Song" (12+ million views)
    • "Songify This - Obama Sings to the Shawties" (11+ million views)
    • "JUST DO IT!!! ft. Shia LaBeouf - Songify This" (10+ million views)
  • More than 5 million views
    • "Songify This - Reality Hits You Hard Bro" (9+ million views)
    • "Songify This - MOMMY & DADDY SONG!" (9+ million views)
    • "Rent: Too Damn High! Song." (8+ million views)
    • "smash, Smash, SMASH!" (8+ million views)
    • "Songify This - GINGERS HAVE SOULS" (7+ million views)
    • "Songify This - SunnyD and Rum - THE POP SINGLE!" (7+ million views)
    • "Songify This - CHUCK TESTA - a song about lifelike dead animals." (7+ million views)
    • "Songify This - Strut That Ass Song" (6+ million views)
    • "Songify This - BEST NASCAR PRAYER EVER - in song" (6+ million views)
    • "Titenic: The JonSong - sung by JonTron" (6+ million views) [22]
    • I'm A Pretty Girl - sung by PewDiePie (5+ Million Views)
    • "Songify This - I'M NOT A WITCH - sung by Christine O'Donnell" (5+ million views)
  • More than 1 million views
    • Songify This - TORNADO SONG!! - look at the tree" (4+ million views)
    • FINAL DEBATE SONGIFIED (4+ million views)
    • Songify This - BELIEVE IN YOURSELF." (3+ million views)
    • Debate Highlights Songified! (3+ million views)
    • Songify This - Poke Me - Amir sings his plea" (3+ million views)
    • Why, Why, Manti? (3+ million views)
    • Town Hall Debate Songified (3+ million views)
    • VP Debate Highlights Songified (3+ million views)
    • Songify This - Sanity Song (3+ million views)
    • Songify This - 'Fast Don't Lie' Remix - feat. Slim Chin, Dwight Howard, & D. Rose" (3+ million views)

The Gregory Brothers began to retroactively apply the series name "Songify This" to certain previously series-independent videos in late 2010, and they have released a number of new videos under this branding as well. The table above reflects the new "Songify This" branding where applicable.

83rd Annual Academy Awards

The Gregory Brothers created a musical segment where they auto-tuned bits of 4 major motion pictures from 2010: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1, Toy Story 3, The Social Network, and The Twilight Saga: Eclipse. Host James Franco comically introduced the segment as a tribute to a "great year for the movie musical." Characters that were autotuned included: Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, Sheriff Woody, Sean Parker, Christy Lee, and Edward Cullen. On July 14, 2011 it was announced that this segment earned The Gregory Brothers a nomination for a 2011 Emmy award in the category "Outstanding Short-Form Picture Editing." [23] Only Michael and Evan are nominated as there is a two-person nomination limit in this category.

While only those four aired, an alternative cut was released on the official 2011 Grammy Awards YouTube channel on February 27, 2011, featuring an auto-tuned version of The King's Speech in place of The Social Network.[24]

"Double Rainbow Song"

In July 2010, the Gregory Brothers released an auto-tuned version of the Double Rainbow viral video. The original video featured the overawed reaction of Paul "Hungry Bear" Vasquez to a double rainbow at Yosemite National Park. The Gregory Brothers turned Vasquez's astounded speech into a song and pledged all of the song's earnings to Vasquez and Yosemite.[25] As of September 22, 2015 the Gregory Brothers' auto-tuned remix had received 36,334,574 views.[26]

References

  1. ↑ "Artists on Gregory Residence Records". Amie Street. Retrieved 2009-08-10.
  2. ↑ "Auto-Tune the News #1: march madness. economic woes. pentagon budget cuts". YouTube. 2009-04-11. Retrieved 2009-07-22.
  3. ↑ "The Gregory Brothers: Info". Facebook. Retrieved 2009-07-12.
  4. ↑ Tagle, Steven (2009-05-18). "The Rumpus Mini-Interview with The Gregory Brothers". TheRumpus.net. Retrieved 2009-07-15.
  5. ↑ Gann, Patrick (2009-07-14). "Special Interview With "Auto-Tune the News" Creators, The Gregory Brothers". OriginalSoundVersion.com. Retrieved 2009-07-15.
  6. 1 2 "The Gregory Brothers". Retrieved 2009-07-12.
  7. 1 2 Frazier, Jake (2009-06-16). "An Evening with the Gregory Brothers". PopSense.com. Retrieved 2009-07-17.
  8. ↑ Westhoff, Ben (2009-06-30). "An Evening With the Brain Trust Behind 'Auto-Tune the News'". The Village Voice. Retrieved 2009-07-01.
  9. ↑ "Amie Street Top 25". Amie Street. 2009-07-22. Retrieved 2009-07-22.
  10. ↑ Liner notes for Meet the Gregory Brothers. Gregory Residence. 2009-05-29.
  11. ↑ "Meet the Gregory Brothers! by The Gregory Brothers". Amie Street. 2009-05-29. Retrieved 2009-07-17.
  12. ↑ http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/andrewgregory
  13. 1 2 3 4 5 http://www.andrewrosegregory.com/
  14. ↑ http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/andrewgregory2
  15. ↑ http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/andrewgregory3
  16. ↑ http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/andrewgregory4
  17. ↑ http://www.amazon.com/Endless-Space-Kapluckus/dp/B001I20ZK4/
  18. ↑ "allmusic(((Welcome to the Welcome Wagon > credits))): Info". AllMusic. Retrieved 2009-07-20.
  19. ↑ "Official Google Blog: Double rainbows, annoying oranges and bed intruders: the year on YouTube". The Official Google Blog. Blogger. 2010-12-12. Retrieved 2010-12-15.
  20. ↑ "Auto-Tune the News: BED INTRUDER SONG!!! (now on iTunes) ", March 22, 2012
  21. ↑ Gregory, Michael; The Gregory Brothers. "schmoyoho's Channel". YouTube. Retrieved 2012-03-22.
  22. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9DKoMSiDc4
  23. ↑ "2011 Emmy Nominations Press Release", July 14, 2011
  24. ↑ "2011 Oscars Music: Harry Potter, Toy Story 3, Twilight & The King's Speech", February 27, 2011
  25. ↑ Brown, Damon (16 July 2010). "How the 'double rainbow' video blew up". CNN. Retrieved 29 August 2010.
  26. ↑ The Gregory Brothers (2010-10-26). "Double Rainbow Song!!". YouTube. Retrieved 2014-01-11.

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