If you used Mario Paint‘s composer function to create something worth listening to, I’m in awe of you. And if you’ve used it to cover an entire album, like YouTuber fartmancomposer did with Charli xcx’s BratI’m even more impressed. The actual album took the charts by storm all summer, so it’s a prime candidate for a cover consisting largely of bleeps and a cheesy-sounding drum track – the songs are easily recognizable from the jump. And every song on the album is a real banger, and that includes the Mario Paint versions.
Fartman composer’s video – aptly named after Charli xcx’s expansive album, Brat and it’s the same thing, but it’s still three songs, so it’s not and her remix album, Brat and it’s completely different but still brat – also provides some insight into the incredibly complex process of rewriting the songs by Mario Paint’s composer, which they said took two months of work. In the video you’ll see a list of eight-bar sections, labeled by song. Most songs require between 15 and 20 of those sections, which of course need to be written and then added to the playlist in the correct order.
The video also shows off the sheet music, so to speak, with the pink bar moving from note to note even as Charli xcx’s songs mess with time signatures and distortion. ‘Club Classics’, perhaps the most club DJ-esque song on the album, translates surprisingly well to Mario Paintdespite the heavy distortion at the end of the song. I can confidently say that you could be listening to this video even though you’ve never listened to it before Brat and still know the album is great.
The Mario sound acts as bass for most of the songs, with the taxi beep and red mushroom acting as melodies and harmonies. The beats per minute are occasionally a little faster or slower than on the actual album – I’ve tried to match them exactly and they’ll go off track within a few bars – but that doesn’t detract from the performance. My favorite part is the YouTuber’s choice of cat meow to replicate Charli’s auto-tuned voice, which is equally adorable and downright impressive.
There are also a few moments that sound distinctly Mario-esque, like the opening of “360” and the ascending notes in “Von dutch,” which really resemble the 1-up sound. You can make one yourself Mario Paint covers with your old SNES, or make like this YouTuber and download a fan-made version that you can find online. With some versions you can even use your MIDI board to control the program!