10 astonishing Songsmith remixes you must hear

Thom Yorke: one of many victims of the Songsmith craze.
Thom Yorke: one of many victims of the Songsmith craze.

When Microsoft released its Songsmith software, little could it have known what a monster it was creating.

Designed as a 'fun' application for anyone who wants to sing into their computer and have it automatically create backing tracks, it's quickly fallen into the hands of YouTube users who've found another altogether more comical use for it.

They've hit upon the idea of running a cappella vocal tracks from existing songs through the software, and the results are…. well, we'll let you find out for yourselves.

We've compiled a list of ten of the finest pieces of Songsmithery to make it onto YouTube thus far. And if there's one thing you can be sure of, it's that there will be more…

1. The Beatles - Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

2. Radiohead - Creep

3. AC/DC - Thunderstruck

4. The Police - Roxanne

5. Oasis - Wonderwall

6. Ozzy Osbourne - Crazy Train

7. Nirvana - In Bloom

8. Billy Idol - White Wedding

9. The Cars - Just What I Needed

10. Rush - Tom Sawyer

And one more…

Bizarrely, perhaps the funniest Songsmith video comes from Microsoft itself. Is this advert tongue-in-cheek or serious? You decide.

The MusicRadar team

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