Many pop stars, one song (with Yvonne Strahovski)

May 11th, 2011

Here’s something recent- a song written by Dan Gurewitch, starring Yvonne Strahovsky of Chuck, directed by Vince Peone, and produced by Leigh Myles.

This project had some pretty interesting requirements:

• A single singer to impersonate Katy Perry, Ke$ha, Lady Gaga, and Justin Bieber
• Music production that switches to match each time the impersonation does

Enter Angela Ingersoll, one the most talented & hard-working singers I’ve worked with so far, below in gaga sunglasses:

In one marathon vocal session (the longest I’ve ever been in) she knocked out FIVE vocal impersonations (this includes a Taylor Swift section which was later cut for logistical reasons). She works really fast- vocal impersonation takes a long time no matter how you slice it. In this case we also had to make sure the characters were distinguishable from one another. Angela was constantly pushing for better and better takes to capture the subtleties of each singer, seemingly tireless even in a high key. As a producer I always hope for musicians with this kind of drive.

The shape-shifting music production was a nice challenge too. As this was very POP I didn’t need a lot of live musicians, but you’ll hear serial session player Max Crowe on guitar for the Katy Perry sections.