Gershon Kingsley

Earlier in the week, we put up a post on 9 Flavors of Popcorn, a collection of music videos for a variety of versions of the synthpop classic.

Once again, though, a Synthtopia reader, Ian Page-Echols, has topped us – finding an ancient WFMU post that offers no less than 79 covers of Popcorn. They cheat a little and use Prodigy’s Popcorn Techno Dance 99 Remix 1 twice, but it’s a pretty good cover, so why not?

Others on board for this massive collection include Aphex Twin, Kraftwerk, The Boston Pops & twisted children’s musician and techno pioneer Bruce Haack.

A few examples are embedded below; see the WFMU post for the motherload.

 

 Prodigy's Popcorn [3:31m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Aphex Twin Popcorn Remix [3:40m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Boston Pops Popcorn [2:55m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Just about everybody’s familiar with the synthpop classic, Popcorn, above.

Composer Gershon Kingsley first recorded the track Popcorn for his 1969 album Music to Moog By. In 1971 the song was re-recorded by Kingsley’s band First Moog Quartet. Stan Free, member of the First Moog Quartet, rerecorded the instrumental with his band Hot Butter in 1972, and it was a huge hit – probably the most recognizable track from the Moog explosion of the late 60’s and early 70’s.

Popcorn has since been covered by an insane variety of artists, ranging from DJ Voyager to a pre-fame Jean Michel Jarre to Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops to Richard D. James, AKA Aphex Twin to Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. There are more than 500 cover versions Popcorn!

Here are nine flavors of Popcorn from over years, including a vocal version, a trance version and a set of piano variations that may surprise you.

Which one do you think is the most interesting cover? Read more…

Popcorn performed on Synthesizers.com

via Thalassa77:

Popcorn cover performed in Synthesizers.com, all sounds are from this system except drums.

11 different synthesizers.com sounds are in this track.

All made with one VCO!

The video isn’t especially sexy – but’s it’s a great reminder of what you can do with limited resources – and that most of the synth pop classics were made with a fraction of the gear that most electronic musicians now have.

Torley plays piano trance hits!

Description:

Here’s a collection of trance hits (and a few oddities), covered on the piano by frequent Synthtopia commenter Torley.

List of tracks included:

• BT – Flaming June
• Robert Miles – Children
• Hybrid – Finished Symphony
• System F – Out of the Blue
• Chicane – Saltwater
• James Holden – Horizons
• James Holden – Nothing
• Ricardo Villalobos – Fizheuer Zieheuer
• BT – Godspeed
• Gershon Kingsley/Hot Butter/Crazy Frog – Popcorn

Torley’s piano covers highlight that, if you take away the kick drum and synth bass, these tracks all feature memorable melodies.

Nice medley, Torley!

via Torley

Gershon Kingsley On The Moog Synthesizer

Description:

Joel Chadabe, president & founder of the Electronic Music Foundation, introduced Gershon Kingsley, who speaks about the Moog synthesizer & Bob Moog.