#deejay young

VoicePlay is always looking for new ways to get their music into the world, collaborate with new artists, and reach new audiences. So in early 2022, they started searching TikTok for potential tunes they could work their harmonic magic on. First up was this indie darling.

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Dueting

Isabella Kensington sang the catchy chorus of this surprise hit song all by herself, so VoicePlay decided to give her some backup.

Details:

title: The Record Player Song (feat. Isabella Kensington)

original performers: Daisy the Great

written by: Kelley Dugan & Mina Walker

arranged by: Isabella Kensington & VoicePlay

release date: 13 February 2022

My favorite bits:

Isabella's breathy, playful timbre

the slight delay on Cesar and Eli's echo of ♫ "out… sorta green" ♫

how delicate Geoff's ascending bass lines are

Layne using a lot of woodblock sounds in his percussion

the guys cutting out to give Isabella the last word

Cesar's sweet, encouraging nod at the end

Trivia:

The original song was Daisy the Great's debut single in 2017. After it became a viral hit on TikTok in early 2021, the band was contacted by AJR, and the two groups worked together on a remix version released in August.

Isabella's first version features audio that pans back and forth when wearing headphones, but VP simplified it for their duet. She uploaded her solo portion with regular stereo audio a few years later.

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Duet-able

In the spirit of continuing collaboration, VoicePlay also put a duet-able version of their backing vocals on TikTok. (Darn Tumblr and its inability to directly embed TikTok videos / single video upload limit.)

Among the folks who took up the challenge, their buddy Deejay Young put his spin on it, including an inevitablly impressive riff.

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Dueted

Another local Orlando performer of their acquaintance, Sarah Whittemore, also gave it a whirl.

Details:

title: The Record Player Song (feat. Sarah Whittemore)

original performers: Daisy the Great

written by: Kelley Dugan & Mina Walker

arranged by: VoicePlay & Sarah Whittemore

release date: 15 February 2022

My favorite bits:

alto Sarah getting up into a lovely, airy head voice

her crisp diction for ♫ "came out a seasick sort of green" ♫

the bouncy ascent on ♫ "when they fall" ♫

ending on that smooth descending riff

Trivia:

Sarah has many connections to the group. She played the witch in the 2019 CFArts production of Into the Woods with Cesar as Jack, she was part of a livestreamed concert series hosted at PattyCake in early 2021, and she's a member of both Voctave and Voices of Liberty with occasional VP collaborator EJ Cardona.

Some of the gang were rather effusive at each other about the brief collaboration. (Here's hoping they get to do something in person someday.)

It's been a hot minute since I was a menace about VoicePlay here, have a new song that was supposed to be a short but they didn't want to chop it up for YT and dropped it as a whole video instead 💙

The bit is: One song, five genres. And yes, all of them slap.

Aaand the music-only version for those who aren't into acting, antics, or a cappella singers doing "the hand thing"

VoicePlay didn't actually release a full-length Christmas song in 2021 (just a couple of Christmas Minis instead), and so we're jumping ahead to the 3rd of December, 2022, when VoicePlay released what may in fact be my favourite Christmas song cover of theirs ever!

As a group, VoicePlay have had quite a lot of experience with performing this song over the years, as it was a regular part of their setlist when they used to perform at Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party at Walt Disney World. If you wanna learn more about that, check out these posts by @jules-has-notes linked HERE and HERE (and I hope Jules doesn't mind me tagging them but seriously their blog has *so much* stuff about old VoicePlay stuff, further back than I go that's for sure!)

Anyway, the original arrangement for this song, i.e. the one VP used for live performances, was done by a guy called Chris Diaz, who is (was?) in an acapella group himself, but Geoff made quite a few alterations to the song/arrangement himself, and so both him and Chris are credited with the arrangement! Geoff was also in charge of the video, he co-directed it with Tony, and yes, he added additional music bits and original lyrics of his own, because of course he did 😄

And of course the song features the amazing DeeJay Young, but enough talking, let's get into this!

First of all, love the way VoicePlay started the song with the kinda "old-timey" effect on the visuals (and the audio too!). They did something similar for the start of Sh-Boom and In The Air Tonight, and did it for a brief moment in We're Good as well.

Second of all, do you recognise the set? You should! It's the same one Geoff used for his Way Down video, just with a bit of added Christmas flair!

Belle soirée 🆕️ 🎄🎅💙

We can hardly stand the wait, please Christmas don't be late!

Bonus reactions from the carrot lord himself:

(Made two versions of it -- Alvin and Cesar)