When 8-bit goes bad.

'Nuff said.

Several things help us connect to older, simpler times.  Some of us like to retreat to wide open fields located in remote reaches of the worlds; a lot of us still like people.  Some others like to go one step more remote and try to remember the days when Weezer was good; a lot of us know better.  For me, remembering those simple times comes back to one thing: 8-bit.

I remember the first time I played Nintendo, pushing Mario to walk or run using only the four directions the controller allowed you to.  Who were we fooling?  We could only really use two of those directions anyway.  Those were days when things could only move forward or backward (on the screen, right or left), and when bumping your head on something didn’t hurt you, but gave you a chance to grow bigger and stronger, if only temporarily.  Oh, 8-bit.

And the music!  Always music, always stuck in your head much beyond hitting the off switch on the game.  Always sounding more modern today than the day it was born, many only blossoming into themselves in this more modern age, with new spins on “old” ideas.  Futurity, I say.  8-bit had it.  That’s why I love the Gameboy Variations of Beck’s Guero so much.  That’s why I like cheap MIDI covers of songs.

But 8-bit has a dark side.  It’s not black, but rather, kind of blue.  Or as the creators like to say, “Kind of Bloop.”  I had this conversation with the project’s visionary, Andy Bajo, in my own head:

Me:  Andy, I’ve listened to “Kind of Bloop” now.  So tell me, why did you decide to take a shit all over a classic album like “Kind of Blue?”

Andy: <Silence>

Me:  Okay, so maybe I phrased that a bit strongly.  Let’s try this: how did you decide on 8-bit as the perfect medium to castrate the soul of Miles Davis?

Andy: <Silence>

Me:  Fine.  Probably still coming on a bit harshly.  Why does–

Andy: BLAEEEEEEEEERRRGGGGHHHH.

He screamed this as he put up his finger and pointed right at me, staring blankly past me into the unknown beyond.  You see, it seems our friend Andy Bajo was really pod-person Andy Bajo.  I took a shovel and jack handle and did his head in.  Then, checking franticly around me, I ran away as quickly as I could with no apparent direction because if I didn’t the rest of the pod people would find me.

That was all in my head though.  You can hear the actual reasons for the project here, or contribute to it here.  The truth of the matter is that Miles’s music simply loses dimension in 8-bit.  It all seems a bit flat, a bit two dimensional.  Perhaps this should be unsurprising.  The real Miles Davis would roll over in his grave, but movement in that dimension is impossible in the 8-bit world.

But with 8-bit, you take the good and the bad (and I have a few covers listed below to reflect it).  I have to.  It’s deliverance.  It’s futurity.

Firebrand Boy – Such Great Heights (Postal Service Cover) (YSI)

the 486 kid – Sweet Chip of Mine (Guns ‘N Roses Cover) (YSI)

Shamikaizer – The Final Countdown (Europe Cover) (YSI)

Virt – Freddie Freeloader (Miles Davis Cover) (YSI)