#acaplaya ramblings

[acaplaya-musings]

I didn't have the space to fit this one into my Voiceplay Visuals part 1 post for Thriller (dang image limit) but I felt compelled to share this one anyway, so here, have a bonus Geoff pic! Honestly he's so pretty (yes yes put another dollar in the jar), and maybe it's just me but it feels like this could be like a painting or something?

(Also would anyone at all be interested in a post or two of me showing off some of the pics of Geoff that I've accumulated? I have a whole folder full of them)

[acaplaya-musings]

Okay, I did a first watch-through/reaction and was going to type a few thoughts and then go back and rewatch it, but then I realized I'd probably have more to say after the second time.

Probably won't do a Voiceplay Visuals post for this video (unless any of you really want one anyway), but that doesn't mean there weren't any interesting things to look at! Really need to go back and pause a few times when I inevitably go back and rewatch after writing this

This was an Eli & Layne arrangement! The last time Eli and Layne collabed on a song arrangement was for Enemy, and the last time Eli did any sort of arrangement at all was for Creep (which also featuring Anthony Gargiula, interestingly enough)

I thought from the teaser image that this was maybe filmed at OptiView360 like Sleeping In The Cold Below, but actually it was filmed at Vū Studio Orlando, the same place that was used for Valhalla Calling!

We love a good subharmonic drop from Geoff <3 (and I love his grey streak too okay bye)

Oh boy I cannot wait for the reaction videos for this one! Plus I feel like this cover deserves some proper analysis that I don't have enough knowledge to do myself!

And just like with Sleeping In The Cold Below, Voiceplay have created this fascinating world/story concept, that just makes me want more!!!!

(Never beating the non-human allegations now /j)

Black Hole Sun - VoicePlay ft. Anthony Gargiula (acapella) Soundgarden #...

This is just mind-blowing 🤯 As someone who loves the original and ADORES the cyberpunk aesthetic, it's like VoicePlay put this piece of art together for me specifically. Treat your ears today and give it a listen.

[acaplaya-musings]

(As per previous videos, this was written up after I got Early Access on Patreon, but before I had actually watched it. Thoughts/Commentary post will be up not long after the YouTube premiere)

My guess was right! It's Thriller! And J None's back!!!!

I thought they weren't gonna do this song unless they could get Omar Cardona for it, but I guess this was too big of an idea to miss out on, and obviously J is gonna be perfect for it as well!

Honestly, after the god-tier amazingness of Hellfire last year, I've been really keen for months about what VoicePlay would do for Halloween 2024. And now? Well of course I'm still super excited, but I'm also scared 😅

Of course the song cover itself will undoubtedly be super amazing (I can practically hear Geoff doing that bassline already!) but what the heck is the music video going to be like? (And again, remember that I haven't got a proper thumbnail to go off of, and in fact I haven't even yet read the description of the Patreon post!) I'm hoping for no jumpscares like in the teaser (@VoicePlay y'all make me high-strung enough already thank you very much!), and that hopefully I can survive whatever Geoff looks like, for better or for worse (y'all reading this will obviously know what he looks like just from the premiere thumbnail posted above, but I'm keeping this here anyway).

Oh and also Geoff better do at least some of Vincent Price's spooky monologue or else what is even the POINT.

See you on the other side, I guess!

[acaplaya-musings]

Man, what is it with me and men who can sing who care a whole dang lot about their son and wife (as they should, don't get me wrong)

Like okay one is Geoff and the other is Odysseus from Epic The Musical/The Odyssey, but still, when I'm in two fandoms at once, you can't blame my brain for finding/making connections!

(EDIT: any Epic fans who see this and decide to leave a like on this are legally obligated to go to Geoff Castellucci's YouTube channel and listen to at least one of his covers /j)

[acaplaya-musings]

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A post shared by Geoff Castellucci (@geophr3y)

He's never beating the dragon allegations honestly /j

Also he's getting really good at holding subharmonic notes I mean like damn

[acaplaya-musings]

It seems VoicePlay have been busy doing filming for their October/Halloween video! (And yes I know they haven't posted anything (full-length) for September yet but it should be coming this Friday/Saturday, hopefully (timezone-dependent)).

(Note: neither of these are my screenshots - both got shared by different people on the VoicePlay Patreon Discord server).

At this point in time at least I really know nothing about what VoicePlay have in store for us for October, only that this year, Geoff is in charge of the Halloween song/video, not Layne (just the way the "arrangement/video leader roster" worked out this year, I guess?).

And if by some miracle they managed to get Omar Cardona as the collaborator for this one (he's been busy performing in an off-Broadway musical), then I'm pretty sure I know what song they're doing, because it's a song the Patrons have been requesting and Omar is the one that Geoff said he'd want as the collaborator if they were to do it. But I really don't know, and I'm not holding my breath. Whatever it is, I know it'll be amazing!

(And finally, I wonder if Geoff is wearing at least some of his video outfit in that photo or if that's just casual clothing, because I like the red/maroon/magenta shirt and it's not a colour he wears all that often, and pairing it with the unbuttoned black shirt feels like a deliberate choice. Okay bye)

[acaplaya-musings]

So there's an unofficial Discord server for Geoff's Patrons (he's very much aware of it and totally cool with it), and last night someone said that we should've suggested Geoff do a new cover of Be Prepared from The Lion King for Halloween (last we heard, he's yet to decide on a song for this year). And then someone else presented a description of how Geoff could dress/appear for such a video and it's been living in my head all day rent-free, so now I'm sharing it with all of you (but tweaked/added onto, courtesy of me)

Geoff with black hair (or at least very very dark brown) (but still with the white-grey streak (maybe even with the streak being more prominent?)), a scar across one eye, of course, and a low-cut shirt (maybe even a slightly ragged shirt with rips in it) (sleeves optional).

I swear if it wasn't for the fact that I'm in the middle of working on a big/super-detailed fanart thing that I wanna get finished as soon as possible, I'd be so tempted to try and draw this. But maybe I'll keep it in the back of my mind and get around to it at some point after I finish my current art thing. And I'll just leave you all with the mental image for now ✌️

[acaplaya-musings]

(As per usual, most if not all of this post is typed up after the video got its Early Access release on Patreon, but before I've watched it, so I can still share my own genuine thoughts/speculations based on knowing what the song is now and nothing else).

Looks like the speculations about the mini teaser clip were 100% spot on! And also dang this went up quicker than I thought it would - I wasn't expecting it to hit YouTube for another two weeks, but maybe it was pushed out a little earlier than initially planned due to Be Prepared getting delayed? Or maybe Geoff still planned for it to release before the end of September this whole time, idk.

As I said when I made my own post about the teaser video, I've never read any of the books or watched any of the movies in the Tolkien franchise, and most of what I know comes from being on the internet/in pop cuture spaces for like 10 years or so. And I don't really know this song, other than when I listened to the Clamavi De Profundis version on YouTube like yesterday (as of me typing this on the 19th), but I only got through maybe a minute of it before my attention span dwindled (and to be fair it was just a lyrics video, so there no interesting visuals to focus on). But with that being said, we know full well by now that Geoff is a MASTER at taking "dull"/repetitive songs and melodies and putting his own twist on them and giving them new life. I'd be shocked if this beats Unshaken or Big Iron for me in terms of 2024 favourites, especially as, again, I'm not a Lord Of The Rings fan, but it'll likely be another to add to my Spotify playlist, and probably worthy of at least a short Voiceplay-adjacent Visuals post, because how could I not?

[acaplaya-musings]

Y'all didn't hear this from me, but you're gonna want to keep an eye on the Pattycake Productions YouTube channel in October - there might be a *very interesting* video coming... 👀

[acaplaya-musings]

YESSSSSSS LET'S GOOOOOOO!!!!!!

You might like to know that I typed (most of) this at roughly 11:45PM on the 31st of August - the video just appeared on Patreon (no countdown for us this time), Epic The Musical's Wisdom Saga just dropped yesterday (and I am still far from recovered from it), and suddenly I have this? Voiceplay! Y'all are gonna kill me! (ADDITION from current me: And we don't get a proper thumbnail on Patreon - all I saw was a mid-zoom (head-to-chest) shot of Geoff and Cesar! And that didn't prepare me!)

Okay so I'm not gonna say too much here because I wanna go watch this ASAP, but basically I can tell you now that this is already getting a Voiceplay Visuals post, 100%, don't need to watch it before I confirm that. (ADDITION from current me: But I will confirm it anyway - it'll be happening. And I also made a thoughts/commentary post (mostly) focusing on the vocals/music arrangement, which will be scheduled to upload not long after this video debuts).

Oh my god I've been dying to hear a bass cover of Be Prepared, but I don't think I am prepared for this! But let's do it anyway!

(Sure this has been sitting in my drafts for four weeks now, but y'all still deserve to see just how darn excited (and slightly freaking out) I was about this (and rightfully so!) the moment it appeared on Patreon).

[acaplaya-musings]

Geoff Castellucci Song Of Durin - Thoughts/Commentary

At first I wasn't planning on making a post just about the vocals/music arrangement for this one, but then I ended up watching the video four times across the day that it dropped on Patreon and it turned out that I do in fact have Thoughts(tm).

So as I said in the Premiere post, I know the Clamavi De Profundis version a little bit - enough that I know what the original vocals for it sounded like, and yeah damn Geoff's voice works absolutely perfectly for this!

This is yet another case of "this feels like it's a very intricate arrangement, but I don't have the music knowhow to fully comprehend it." (Bring on the reaction/analysis videos!)

Tenor Geoff My Beloved! Like okay there weren't actually many high parts in this, but there was a bit right towards the end where I was like "oh wait that's so pretty"

Honestly there weren't actually any "super-duper low" parts either (or at least nothing that sounded that way), but that's totally fine! It was a perfect blend of bass, baritone, and tenor, and it sounded gorgeous! And the lower parts that were there felt so natural and suited to the song, like they had been part of the original arrangement too (I haven't heard enough of the OG to know for sure but I doubt it).

A couple of random vocal things that stood out to me that I liked:

The drop on the word "fall" on the line "in Elder Days before the fall"; it's practically a classic Geoff thing at this point to find opportunities to do low notes on words like "down", "low", and "fall" 😁

The way he sings "throne" on the line "a king he was on carven throne" - it's got a bit of a sort of lilt/accent to it? There may be other examples in the song too but that's the one that catches my ear the most. It's reminiscent of the Clamavi De Profundis version and also it just sounds nice <3

Honestly the whole vibe of it is actually kinda really beautiful imo in a way that's almost a little hard to put into words. Like I guess you could say Misty Mountains had a sort of determination to it, with a slight kind of confidence that comes from hard-earned knowledge and experience. I See Fire had the vibe of "sombre resoluteness"; pre-emptive mourning, even - the awareness of heading into what you know will be your final stand. But Song Of Durin, meanwhile, is not mournful; it's wistful, but sort of in a "mature" way? It's being at peace with the way things have turned out now, while still being able to reflect on happier times. It has a complicated sort of hope, almost, that isn't exactly saying "things will get better" per se, but it leaves you feeling stronger and lighter by the end of it regardless.

(I'm still not sure whether that fully makes sense or if I'm saying anything of worth here, but I typed that up on the Geoff's Patrons Discord the night after the release and then a couple hours later was like "actually that feels like it deserves to be put in a Tumblr post" so here we are).

So does this beat I See Fire for me? Unsure - it feels a little tough to compare them tbh, right now at least. But I still really enjoyed this, perhaps even a little more than I was expecting to!

[acaplaya-musings]

VoicePlay Thriller - thoughts/commentary

YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Oh my god that was PERFECT! Unexpected in a few ways, but so amazing! And just enough spookiness and creepiness without actually being scary to me! Honestly I think it's tied with Be Prepared for my favourite VP release of 2024.

Obviously this is getting a VoicePlay Visuals; the video was amazing, I absolutely loved it, and all my concerns were for naught! It's so fun and cool! However, this post is just to share my thoughts on the arrangement and vocals and stuff. All my thoughts about the on-screen stuff are waiting for my proper visual analysis!

More yelling/rambling of mine below the cut!

Oh god, I'm gonna have to make this into a two-part Voiceplay Visuals, aren't I? Like what I did for Classical Chaos. There is so! Much! To talk about!!!

UPDATE: I actually went through and did a sort of "image tally", like just noting down tally marks to make a rough estimate of how many screenshots I might want to include in a post for this (e.g. "I might take one here" or "I might want two pics for this moment" or "I might grab three screencaps from this moment"), and yeah I ended up with just under 60 - this is absolutely becoming a two-part Visuals post.

Right out the gate it started to become clear that VoicePlay absolutely made this song their own (while still definitely "paying respect" to the original), which I suppose I shouldn't be surprised about - this was arranged by Geoff, after all, and he almost never arranges covers to be just a carbon-copy of the original, and this is certainly no exception!

Geoff's bassline is shorter than I thought it would be (not exactly like the original), and starting with vocals right out the gate definitely caught me off guard (UPDATE: actually Geoff's bassline changes and is pretty dynamic in this song and it's amazing actually)

With that being said, I GOT MY WISH!!!! Basically as soon as Geoff began the whole "darkness falls across the land" spiel I think I nearly exploded with joy.

While doing my image estimation tally, I also went back (for like my 5th watch) and took down some notes on the music arrangement and stuff, because this video has a lot of stuff in it, my memory is not always great, and I wanted more to talk about here.

The "I'm gonna thrill you tonight" bit obviously isn't in the start of the original song, but it is in there! Originally it's part of the "filler/adlib" (?) part in between the two halves of the spooky monologue (I don't know fancy song terminology don't @ me)

On the line "you see a sight that almost stops your heart", J removes the word "stop" (he momentarily stops singing, get it?), and then before you've even fully processed that surprise change, he follows it up with a riff down on the word "heart"!

So if you've ever watched the full-length Thriller music video, you'll know that it's a bit "odd" in the fact that it re-orders the parts of the song, so it goes 'verse-verse-verse-monologue-chorus-chorus-chorus', and I'm pretty sure it leaves out the bridge entirely? The album version goes the more typical route of 'verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-verse-chorus-chorus- monologue' (though having a verse after the bridge section is something I feel you don't really see that often in songs nowadays?).

VoicePlay, meanwhile, take a bit of inspiration from both versions of the song, and they go 'verse-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus-verse-chorus-monologue-chorus'. Also, they take the chorus that was originally in between the first and second verses and stick it in between verse 2 and the bridge instead, meaning that we don't get the line "there ain't no second chance against the thing with forty eyes", which is a small shame because that line has always been a memorable one for me, but eh, minor personal hangup, it's no big deal. And the original music video version didn't have that chorus either I'm pretty sure

(Am I just stating the obvious? Perhaps. Am I actually making a point here? No. But this is as much for my own interest as for anything else).

ANYWAY, time for more actual song cover thoughts:

I loved how each person really got a chance to shine in this - everyone got plenty of parts to sing! (Well, except Layne who was just on backing harmonies and beatboxing, but he still very much got to shine on-screen, which I will say more about in my visual analysis!)

After the line "you hear the door slam" there's a percussion sound effect that kinda sounds like something slamming shut!

The lead-in to the first chorus here???? Like the way it goes "cause this is- cause this is- cause this is THRILLER!" with like the muffled audio effect on the first repeat, like dang it's honestly so groovy and funky

"You're fighting for your life inside a killer, thriller toniiiiight" yeah that was smooth

But seriously THE MONOLOGUE!!!! That was utter freaking perfection; guess Geoff's experience with doing narrations really came in handy, huh? I love the little inflection he put on "to terrorize y'all's neighbourhood" (and yes the "y'all" is part of the original too), I love the groove/percussion behind the second half of it, and of course the spooky/evil laugh at the end of the song is great. Honestly if Layne had arranged this song instead, I feel like he too would have definitely given Geoff the narration bit, because like duh! It's got his name written all over it! Hell, I made a post on my Discord like over two months ago specifically hoping for VoicePlay to do Thriller, and I said that Geoff would be perfect for Vincent Price's narration, and I was right!!!

But yeah everyone brought their A-game for this, this was such a fun arrangement, had me absolutely grooving, and I shall see you in a few days (probably) from when this is posted for my Voiceplay Visuals post for this video!

[acaplaya-musings]

New sneak peek teaser image from Geoff! Apparently us Patrons will be getting early access to this video very very soon (shortly, even), but as of me typing this, I'm as clueless as the rest of you!

Also I gotta laugh ngl because it was literally just a few days ago that I made a post here being like "man there's just something about Geoff and a piano; I love watching him play it!" and now look! He's at a piano again! I manifested it!

[acaplaya-musings]

Voiceplay Be Prepared - thoughts and commentary

Gonna try to just talk about vocals and arrangement stuff here, because I will be doing a VoicePlay Visuals post for this too, but we'll see. I do know the original song very well though - in fact I rewatched the OG like the other day or something after I saw that picture of Layne and Cyndi that hinted at what Voiceplay was up to. Anyway let's go!

(Put below the cut because this is a lot of just me rambling)

OKAY SO SLEEPING IN THE COLD BELOW HAS BEEN KNOCKED OFF ITS PERCH FOR FAVOURITE VP SONG OF 2024

The opening percussion fill thingy from Layne honestly reminds me a lot of the start of the Moana medley, and apparently I wasn't the only one to think that! A few other Patrons mentioned it, and there was even a very brief throwaway joke about it in the BTS! I have since compared the start of the Moana Medley to the start of this, and they're not identical, but there are still definitely similarities, and it's not actually all that common for VP songs to start off with that sort of drum-like percussion anyway.

Trying very hard to not talk about the on-screen stuff here, because I'll be leaving that for Voiceplay Visuals, but I just have to put it out there that Geoff looks amazing here, and the ACTING OH MY GOD. This is like Oogie Boogie 2.0 in terms of how much Geoff is moving around and embodying the character! Alright now back to vocals/arrangement

Okay so next thing that must be mentioned - the rap! According to a snippet from Layne in the Patreon post description, there was some uncertainty as to whether the dialogue should be kept in or not, which was an issue that VP also faced for their cover of Hellfire last year. When Layne asked Patrons what they thought, it was basically a 50/50 split, so not very helpful, rip. So he thought "What if we keep the dialogue but do it in a way that it feels like it's part of the song -> a 'rap'?" So yeah basically Layne wrote that rap section to be a stand-in for the original dialogue, and honestly it works so well!

This song features Mykal Kilgore, who is one of the OG members of "VoicePlay", way before it was called VoicePlay! I'll say a bit more about him in my Voiceplay Visuals post, but basically he was "one of the screaming high tenors" (Patreon post's words, not mine!), and yeah it shows! That high note on "long live the king!" was hella impressive!

(And if you're thinking "man I kinda wish I could hear more of what Mykal sounds like", first of all, he actually did some covers with Postmodern Jukebox like 7 or 8 years ago (and I apparently have seen one of them before? Watched it by total coincedence at some point? A cover he did of Since You Been Gone). And also, a treat for any of you who've read this far - you might be hearing him with Voiceplay again sooner or later...)

This is actually the third time that Geoff has sung Be Prepared with VoicePlay - the second time was of course the 2019 Aca Top 10 Disney Villains video, but the first time was for VoicePlay's "Once Upon An Ever After" album all the way back in 2012. It was part of a Lion King medley track (just audio, they didn't make a video for it), and so it wasn't the full song (honestly the shift is a little weird, because it jumps from "the lights are not all on upstairs" to "the point that I must emphasise is", like there's no rhyme connection!). Furthermore, the lead was shared between Geoff and Earl, similar to how it was for the Aca Top 10 part. Geoff took the opening verse, Earl took the chorus, and they each got a final line at the end.

And MAN has Geoff come a long way in his vocal abilities since 2012, like yeah duh obviously but STILL.

According to one of the Patrons, the lowest Geoff gets in this one is E1 (via subharmonics of course), and honestly the fact that that's basically child's play for him at this point is crazy. Like I literally had a moment of "oh only down to an E1?" because I know he can go lower, and then was like "wait what do I mean 'only' an E1, that's still objectively low!"

Geoff's voice... what the hell do I say about Geoff's voice? Like the timbre when he's in his upper chest range here, the resonance on the low notes, the GROWLS, like yeah okay obviously I adore his visual performance in the video (and visual everything about him), but that all would be nothing if it didn't come with some of the most amazing vocals you've ever heard in your life!

I love how Geoff goes down on the word "upstairs", and the way he does so with the little growl at the end, oooh it gives me happy shivers!

Low-key funny how there's a sudden low drop on "even you can't be caught unawares", because it does, in fact, catch you unawares (or it did with me anyway!)

Also you'd think I'd fully be used to Geoff's low notes by now, but to steal the phrasing of another reactor I recently started watching, the low drops here are potent! Like literally went down to my stomach (and then some) and even made my heart skip a beat the first couple of watches (and obviously the visuals really help give it a bigger impact).

Oh my god that slow slide down on his last "be prepared" line??? Literally that last syllable alone is stretched out for just a fraction under 10 seconds (I timed it with my phone's stopwatch), INSANE.

I cannot WAIT for reaction videos to this - Kaz, DJ, and Mortius are all gonna lose their goddamn minds!! (Also how many reactions/reaction video titles are gonna include "I was not prepared", lol, low-hanging fruit joke but it's so real)

Alright, I'm off to go watch the video for a third time - this is practically my new Hellfire (said with much love for both - I still love their Hellfire cover a whole lot), and we're not even in October yet!!! (though because of the release delay, we're quite close!)

(As of the public release, I've actually watched this at least half a dozen times, listened to the MP3 track, the karaoke track, and watched the BTS video for this twice. I. Am. Obssessed.)

I'll leave you with a comment and reply from the Patreon post that amused me when I saw it: 😄

[acaplaya-musings]

I've been noticed by Geoff - twice!

So when I got early access to Geoff's cover of Imagine on Patreon, I left a comment to express how wonderful I found it (and also to help "drown out" the small handful of critical/rude/ignorant comments that were talking about the song. Yes, on his Patreon!) What I didn't expect was for him to go through and leave heart reacts on a lot of the comments, including mine!

And the funny thing is that I had kind of already been planning to put a light-hearted comment when the public Youtube premiere showed up, in the hopes of maybe getting noticed, because I know Geoff often enjoys silly/fun comments and I know his sense of humour. So I still went ahead with that plan, and success!

[acaplaya-musings]

I'm a day late but I still wanted to acknowledge the fact that it's now been 5 years since the release of VoicePlay's cover for Oogie Boogie's Song! It's VoicePlay's second-most-viewed video, currently sitting at 13.25 million hits(!!!), and, like the case for many other people, it was my first ever introduction to VoicePlay.

Storytime! (On my first introduction to/first experiences with VoicePlay):

So I didn't find the video immediately after its release, but the fact that I found it at all was basically due to me setting myself up as the perfect target audience. Firstly, I'm a big Disney fan, have been since I was a young kid (as to be expected), and although I didn't actually watch The Nightmare Before Christmas in full until December last year, I was still familiar with a lot of its music. I have an old Disney Christmas album which starts out with Christmassy songs, but ends with songs from various Disney movie soundtracks (idk why), and it includes What's This, Oogie Boogie's Song, and Jack's Lament. And furthermore, each October I would watch the This Is Halloween intro scene from the movie on YouTube.

Secondly, at the time, I was a fan of at least some stuff by certain acapella and acapella-adjacent groups and artists. Straight No Chaser, Pentatonix, Peter Hollens, Nick Pitera, Jon Cozart/Paint, Todrick Hall, y'know. (Although I only watched/listened to covers of songs where I already knew the originals, because why would I listen to cover artists doing songs I didn't already know? Right? (I was naive)).

So it was late October when I finally clicked on VoicePlay's Oogie Boogie's Song. It had been sitting in my Suggested Videos sidebar thing for at least a couple of days iirc before my curiosity gave in (and seriously, it's quite a unique and striking sort of video thumbnail compared to most other VoicePlay thumbnails; something that perhaps worked in its favour?) And well, here's what I had to say about it on my Discord server:

(Little did I know that that E1 was not, in fact, the lowest goddamn note I would ever hear, lol)

But actually, that wasn't the first post I made about VoicePlay/Geoff. This was:

(In my defense of the description/comparison, I had been watching a lot of Unraveled and Overboard videos on Polygon's channel and it was the best description I could think of at the time).

So yeah, I fell in love with Geoff right from that video (I do love a man with a threatrical streak, and obvious bonus points for the hair!), and that crush was further solidified with videos like Panic In 4 Minutes (which I loved), and Queen In 5 Minutes (which I adored).

Also I just have to share this post/comment of mine, because man, Apollo's Dodgeball really side-swiped if not just straight up hit me with this one huh?

(For clarification, this was about 6 or 7 months before Geoff started making his own song covers on his personal channel, where he of course typically sings with "clones" of himself)

But like what I did with other singers and acapella groups, I mostly watched/listened to songs where I knew the original, including for Geoff's channel once it began (though I did also watch Headless Horseman and Mele Kalikimaka), and so yeah, I missed out on a lot at the time! So I wasn't "fully" invested yet, and I think I stuck around till like maybe late 2021 ish? Idk I remember watching Geoff's Monster Mash video, but I can't remember whether I watched VP's Friends On The Other Side at that point or not.

But then, in late October 2023, YouTube stuck Geoff's cover of Jack's Lament in my Recommended section, and I knew even before I watched it that it would be the best thing ever, and it was, and then I came across VoicePlay's cover of Hellfire, and well, the rest is history! 😄

So yeah, Oogie Boogie's Song might not have been the video that actually pushed me "down the rabbit hole", but maybe I might not have come across Jack's Lament four years later without it, or at least I wouldn't have had those memories or that degree of familiarity that made the video extra special, which helped make me want to go catch up on everything I had been missing out on.

In summary: Oogie Boogie's Song you will always be famous <3