More Musical Deep Hurting

Microsoft has a new product called Songsmith, which is being touted as a home music creation tool. But here's the deal - all the user does is sing lyrics with a melody and the program creates backing tracks in response. It actually sounds like a neat idea, in a parlor trick sort of way (says the user of loops without any hint of irony).

Befitting that status, YouTube is now ablaze with videos in which folks take classic songs, strip out the lead vocal, run it through Songsmith and post the results. Said results are either side slippingly hilarious or profoundly painful, depending on your point of view. Check these two out for size.

First, Ozzy Osborne's "Crazy Train":



Next, The Police and "Roxanne":



If those pique your interest, more are collected here and over at Pandagon.