Document:Q11622

From Rhizome Artbase

Through pop lyrics you learn to identify your own personal feelings of love, loneliness and joy with those of famous stars. Behind these public feelings there are often the desires of commercial powers such as record and film companies. Through "Let them sing it for you", you get the possibility of doing it the other way around. Instead of letting your vocabulary of feelings be dictated by famous voices, let the famous voices express your innermost thoughts.
By typing in a text of any kind you can get it sung for you by some of the world's greatest pop stars. A database of sung words has been built up and is growing continuously through the users' own interaction. If you find a word missing in the sound vocabulary, you have the ability to suggest a song from which to take the word and send your suggestion to The Swedish Radio.
"Let them sing it for you" constitutes an alternative to the way you can get computers to sing or read a written text. Even this function is automated, but with a much richer and more unpredictable result. Send your friend a love declaration, Christmas wish or poem sung by Judy Garland, Lou Reed and Christina Aguilera. Authorities can replace their streamlined phone answering voices with an unruly mix of mythological and sexually inviting voices belonging to the pop world's greatest icons.
"Let them sing it for you" was created in 2003 for the internet-based art channel SRC of the Swedish National Radio. Since it¹s creation it has had almost two million individual users all over the world. A swedish version with sound clips taken from swedish top 40 songs is to be launched in october 2004.
http://www.erikbunger.com