Sidemeat – 17th Slice

comedy

The Key of Awesome / Barely Political versus Bart Baker

With these two camps producing parodies of almost exactly the same songs, which one makes you laugh the hardest?

Watching “funny videos” isn’t something I normally do, though admittedly I’ll stumble across something humorous on occasion and dive in for more. Such is the case with the pop music parodies made by the groups The Key of Awesome (a.k.a. Barely Political) and Bart Baker. I’ve seen a lot of heated debates in the “comments” section of both groups on YouTube, and I wanted to use a short slice of Sidemeat to sum up my own thoughts on the issue.

The Key of Awesome

If you’re not familiar with either of these camps, start with a few songs that both have parodied – Meghan Trainor – All About That Bass, Katy Perry – Dark Horse, and Ariana Grande – Problem. With these 6 videos/songs under your belt, you should have a pretty good idea of the styles of both groups and who you like best. Throw Lorde – Royals in as well if you need to, but I think the above 3 are enough. All of these videos (plus 1 extra) can be viewed at the bottom of this page, just click on the appropriate text to expand. You may also want to check out their respective channels.

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The Key of Awesome (YouTube Channel)

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Bart Baker (YouTube Channel)

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Bart Baker

So who’s better?

Without a doubt, The Key of Awesome is better. They’re funnier, more focused, possess better production values, and retain more talented writers. I don’t know if Key of Awesome has a larger number of “members” to draw from or what, and maybe Baker is relying more on just himself to pull off these videos, but if so, Key of Awesome definitely benefits from collaboration.

All About That Bass

Let’s start with “All About That Bass.” First of all, Baker completely misinterprets the message of the song, which just makes him sound stupid. He’s so intent on bashing what (he thinks) the song says that he doesn’t leave much room for comedy. Having to resort to lyrics like “suck a dick thin people” really displays a limited comedic range. Key of Awesome takes a less charged stance, and the turn the song into a premature version of itself where the singer is trying to write a song. Not only does this give them more material to work with, but the lyrics are funnier and infinitely more clever. I love the line, “because you know I ain’t no skinny waif / I ain’t shaped like Urkel / I got handles for love / like a Dove commercial.” Baker rarely hits on anything clever that isn’t outright raunchy or trashy.

Baker also has a problem sticking to the rhythm of the original song. Instead of making word choices that matter, he crams whatever phrase he wants into the space, regardless of how it sounds. He actually does a better job in “All About That Bass” than most of his others, so I’ll wait to point out some examples. Key of Awesome sticks with the flow of the song almost perfectly.

I don’t know why, but Baker insists on doing his female roles in drag, which detracts from the performance a little bit. Otherwise both of these videos are reasonably well produced. The biggest issue here is how during the last minute or so, Baker goes off the rails with the workout video commercial. A lot of his parodies are padded by this extraneous nonsense – he’s a big fan of having random conversations take place within his videos, another aspect that I believe points to the gap in talent between his writing abilities and those of Key of Awesome.

Problem

Problem Now let’s move on to Ariana’s “Problem.” Both camps take a bit of a “literal video” approach to the song (remember those “literal video versions” that carved their way through YouTube a few years back?) and share a good number of the exact same sentiments (such as “horny face;” Baker calls her 10 while Awesome says 11; etc.). The difference mostly lies in the quality of the writing and performing. Key of Awesome pretty much sticks to what’s happening in the video, while Baker goes off on silly, unfunny tangents like “the black guy having food stuck in his teeth” or the random appearance of “Mariah” for a vocal contest, including the weird gay man who pops up. I find these diversions extremely pointless, like when the black dude starts waving the gun around…it just has nothing to do with the song and it isn’t funny to anyone over the age of 12. And while the “black guy” in Baker’s parody can’t do anything except repeat himself and get mad about zooming in, Awesome works it into the song by giving him a purpose for having to whisper, thus leading to some actual content rather than repetitive bitching.

Key of Awesome does a really great job following “Problem” almost syllable by syllable. Earlier I mentioned that Baker often takes phrases, many of them too long to fit, and rhythmically decimates them to fit into the rhythm of the song. This leaves us with gobs of awkward sounding and difficult to understand lines, especially when Baker dons the Iggy Azalea wig. “My hair is bigger thaaaan my-huge-butt-in-this vi DEE OH”….the man has no sense of rhythm of replacing the existing lyrics syllable by syllable. On the other hand, Key of Awesome knocks it out of the park with the Iggy verse. In the exact same part of the song where Baker clunks along, Awesome comes out with one of the best parts of the whole song, “My voice is a cross between a baby and Biggie and Bane.”

Key of Awesome also throws in the hilarious Batman reference, again in line with the “story” thus far. Yes it’s random, but it makes sense, unlike Bakers video where everyone stops so that the guy can tell everyone to shut up while using fuck, damn, and hell all in the same sentence….which is followed by “Ariana’s” crying.

Lastly, Key of Awesome’s performance is better. The dancers are better, the singer both sounds and looks more like Ariana, and as already stated, Awesome’s Iggy impersonation was lightyears beyond Baker’s. Baker has no eye (or ear) for subtlety and insists on using the same tired gimmicks in song after song rather than being original and drawing the comedy from the song itself.

Dark Horse

For the last video, let’s head over to Katy Perry’s “Dark Horse.” Again, it’s Baker in drag. I don’t know if he likes it or thinks he looks good or what, but it’s unnecessary. And again, he struggles with timing, often forced into clunky situations where one syllable words are strung out unnaturally and four syllable words are freakishly rushed. As far as subject matter, Baker chooses to focus on Perry’s love life, which is probably only funny if you’re happy dropping $4 on US Weekly once a week.

Key of Awesome goes a more intellectual route, choosing instead to take the opportunity to address Perry’s potential misunderstanding of metaphors. I’d certainly rank this among the most clever Key of Awesome songs, from the way that “Perry” misuses metaphors to the verse where “Juicy J.” explains them to her. “I don’t even care what a ‘meta’ is for” is one of the funniest moments I’ve seen in all of these parodies.

I’m not saying that crass humor can’t and doesn’t have a place, but Baker uses it not because it’s funny, but because he can’t think of anything more clever to say. The best way he has to end his song is making some crack about “big tits” which isn’t even funny, compared to Awesome who actually manage to tell a story throughout their song.

Key of Awesome’s set is noticeably better as well, and their “Katy Perry” is a much better singer than Baker’s autotuned voice. The rapper in Awesome more than holds his own by delivering his lines with a great flow (not to mention how effortlessly he explains certain sayings to “Perry”), but Baker’s rapper suffers from the same sort of unpolished rhythmic structure as Baker himself, not to mention that some of his lines don’t even come close to rhyming.

Everything Else

Royals I don’t know what more you could possibly need to be convinced. Personally, I’m not even sure I understand why the two are discussed in tandem. Baker is amateur hour all day long whereas Key of Awesome really has a shot at polishing themselves up and becoming the kind of artist who come make some good money from their efforts.

You may also want to check out Lorde’s “Royals” from both as well, though in my mind it doesn’t illustrate anything more than what I’ve already mentioned. More clunky, dated, and puerile lyrics abound from Baker’s camp, while Awesome tries to take a more clever and intelligent route (though admittedly, it isn’t one of Awesome’s best). There are tons more videos from both…Baker’s rendition of “Fancy” is the closest thing to “good” that he’s done, though he still fumbles miserably while trying to rap. Key of Awesome has some hilarious originals based on a young Justin Bieber.

Finally, I should probably mention the collaboration between Awesome and Baker, a parody of Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe.” Sadly, we have to sit through another “Baker in drag” video, though I think it’s clear that Awesome helmed the production and writing. The story here is pretty funny, and though it loses its way near the end a la Bart Baker style, I think fans of either group will get a kick out of this one.

So yes, Key of Awesome wins the competition hands down as far as I’m concerned, though I would be eager to hear from a Baker fan any good reasons why his work is objectively better!