The Ten Second Songs guy delivers another stunning performance
On the 15th of March 2014, Anthony Vincent, the Ten Second Songs guy to you and I, “quietly” set up a YouTube account, uploaded his first video and thought absolutely nothing of it. According to the YouTube star, he hadn’t told anyone about the account or the video he’d made. Then BOOM!! A week later he had 100,000 subscribers and over 3 million views.
“I wasn’t previously known to anyone”, said Mr Vincent. “I was a nobody who executed a pretty cool idea”.
From the back of that video going viral, Anthony was contacted by Rolling Stone Magazine for an interview, while America’s Got Talent also wanted him on their show. He had become so popular, even Pornhub had asked him to do a song for them (Maybe not a great idea to dabble in porn if you’re known as the Ten Seconds guy).
“At the time, I politely declined because I figured it was a little inappropriate” he says in between laughs. Amused and still wearing an ear-to-ear grin he continues “Not anymore. Pornhub, get in touch with me”.
So, what is this “pretty cool idea” as described by Anthony? Well, he decided to sing one song in the style of 20 artists, giving each style a few seconds each in the 4-minute clip. The video is of AV singing Katy Perry’s “Dark Horse” in the musical style of artists such as Eminem, Nirvana, Michael Jackson, Jamiroquai, Freddie Mercury, Frank Sinatra, Tech N9ne and many more. And yes, he really does nail the raps. Imagine rapping as fast as Tech N9ne using the lyrics of a pop song. Not a walk-in-the-park, I’d imagine.
Anthony Vincent has since made many similar clips, but choosing a different song each time. As of May 2021, the Ten Second Songs creator has circa 3.5 Million followers and his videos have had millions of views worldwide.
In addition to the Ten Second Songs uploads, the YouTube heavyweight has also uploaded several successful covers which have catapulted him to the attention of music fans globally.
The latest video, uploaded on the 30th of April, is a musical haven for those that appreciate both heavy metal and hip hop, though I have a sneaky suspicion that it may appeal more to heavy metal fans. Anthony’s version of Eminem and Dr Dre’s 1999 song Forgot About Dre has already attracted over 155,000 views in only a couple of days. In the 3 minute and 43 seconds clip, the artist/YouTuber starts off by introducing an electrical guitar riff before jumping into the first verse – originally performed by Dr Dre himself.
The rap starts with a low, mellow flow: “Y’all know me, still the same old G but I’ve been low key……..” with Anthony copying Dre’s lyrics word for word with slight alterations where Dre uses the N word. In the middle of the verse, all hell breaks loose on the word “oldies” in the line “who d’ya think taught you to smoke trees? Who d’ya think brought you the OLDIES”. Everything becomes louder, aggressive and way more exciting. The mellow rap becomes a shout-fest that is guaranteed to impress heavy metal fans. In fact, the rest of the song is very Slipknot-esque and an overall intense 4 minutes (just under) of amazing Nu Metal.
So what exactly is Nu Metal?
Nu metal (sometimes stylized as nü-metal) is a subgenre of alternative metal that combines elements of heavy metal music with elements of other music genres such as hip hop, alternative rock, funk, industrial and grunge.
In fact, a typical example of Nu Metal is Collision Course, a collaborative album from American rapper Jay-Z and rock band Linkin Park.
In conclusion, we would like to speak directly to Anthony Vincent:
AV, the WavWax team thoroughly enjoyed your latest Ten Second Songs contribution to YouTube, and hope you bring out some more similar clips. Thanks for keeping us entertained.
