Why Mouth Silence is the Best Fucking Thing I Have Ever Heard by Cisco Hayward

Why Mouth Silence is the Best Fucking Thing I Have Ever Heard

I had never cried to Third Eye Blind before.

By Cisco Hayward

Third Eye Blind is a shitty band that makes shitty music. “Semi Charmed Kind of Life” is a shitty song written by a shitty band, and in general it tends to be liked by shitty people. Despite this, it’s a song that everyone fucking knows. That’s because it was a song on the radio, and we all heard it while our mom was driving us to soccer practice, while we were at the super market, or at a party hosted by someone we hate. That’s why we all know shitty radio pop songs. They were (and still are, even though it's not fucking 1994 anymore) everywhere. That’s probably why we hate them too.

We are all familiar with the concept of internet mashups. We all have that one video where some jackass plays two songs over each other and it’s like “okay we get it you have a copy of Ableton, shut the fuck up.” Furthermore, even though we can clearly hear that the two songs aren’t in time, everyone else still fucking likes the post, and now we have to as well; otherwise we’ll be the asshole.

So what if I told you that without a doubt, my favorite album of 2014 so far is a free mashup album on the internet, featuring Third Eye Blind, Nine Inch Nails, Katy Perry, and whoever wrote “Love Shack”?

Well, that’s what the mastermind behind Harry Potter Puppet Pals, BrodyQuest, and Lemon Demon has created. Neil Cicierga has blessed us with Mouth Silence, a mashup album constructed almost entirely of songs found on Rock Band. With an unmatched technical mastery, he performs sonic surgeries, stitching together pop hits into auditory Frankensteins which amble blindly in direct opposition to good taste. But the joke isn’t even that all the songs sound terrible, the joke is that they sound brilliant. Each track on this album fts perfectly into place, not only musically, but thematically. You can analyze this album. It is a Sistine Chapel of sound, and the joke is that he made it out of overplayed pop songs and dadrock.

This album makes me weep, laugh, and vomit profusely. It takes me on a musical journey that no other piece of media has taken me on. This album is an existential experience unmatched by any other album that has come out this year. Neil Cicierga has taken songs that I hate or never cared for or both and metamorphosed them into something I never thought they could become. If you like any of the bands I have mentioned in this article, please listen to this album. As I said before, I had never cried to Third Eye Blind. But when I listen to this album, I cry every fucking time.

Mouth Silence is available for download at www.neilcic.org/mouthsilence. It’s free.