Mike's Gonna Mike: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 06:44, 21 February 2024

"Mike's Gonna Mike" is the seventh track on the album Dropped Frames, Vol. 3 by Mike Shinoda.

Background

"Mike's Gonna Mike" is a song by Mike Shinoda made during the 2020 global COVID-19 pandemic.

In March 2020, the global pandemic created by the COVID-19 coronavirus caused communities to quarantine at home. During this time, Mike Shinoda decided to start live streaming online and inviting fans to watch him create new instrumental music.

"Mike's Gonna Mike" was a track made by Mike on May 25, 2020 under the working titles "5.25 four way mashup", "5.25 four way mashup2", and "5.25 Mikes Gonna Mike."^[1] This CoronaJam was the result of several ideas. This was a mash up of Nirvana + "Tools Of The Trade" + Giorgio Moroder (requested by thanat0s88) + Italian neomelodic (requested by PeppePark).

Mike said, "Today we've got a four way mashup. I went really aggressive with this one. Here's what we've got. JFar920 wanted "Tools Of The Trade" style. "Tools Of The Trade" was a Fort Minor b-side that I sampled like random things around the room, so we'll do that today. We'll be mixing that with Nirvana grunge by FioDTree. I looked up the Wikipedia page on grunge just because I was curious, but I think most of us know grunge. I just wanted to see a little bit of history on a couple of these because the way they characterize grunge is "punk, metal hybrid" and it is characterized by lo-fi sounds and approach. You could argue, "Yes" or "No" or whatever. I just wanted to put that out there because I'm going to need some wiggle room to do my own thing with this jam. Because these aren't all going to easily mash up, it'll be a challenge."

"Peppepark wanted to hear neomelodic neapolitan - that I did not know what that was. It's basically an Italian-style characterized with basically a Spanish acoustic guitar and lots of love songs. Apparently it's originally from Naples and apparently sometimes in the lyrics they glorify crime which I thought was great. And then last, Banitoss wanted something in the style of Giorgio Moroder. He is most well known as a composer who used a lot of keyboard and synths. It was like 80s. So, Clockwork Orange, Scarface, Blade Runner, and I didn't realize The Neverending Story as well. So, how about that? He also did stuff like Daft Punk, he's dope. I felt like we are going to have to choose and element from each of them. With the Moroder thing, what I like best about that which is signature is some of these old keyboard sounds. The Moog, old 80s keyboards in particular. I'm going to use a combination of the Moog, the Prophet, I've got those keyboards. I've actually got a mini Juno as well, they're all from that era and have that sound, sonically they will get you that sound. And then I was thinking we could go and try and middle ground between Nirvana and neapolitan with the chords."

He revealed the title during the August 12, 2020 stream, when he was creating a theme for GamesCom, "We sent them some of my jams, from this channel. The ones they liked are what I ended up call these jams, "Dust Code" and... There is one where, during the stream, I said something to the effect of like, 'This falls under the category of Mike's gonna Mike', like you guys had asked me to do something and then I kinda just turned it into my own thing, it sounded like Linkin Park. I called that one "Mike's Gonna Mike". And they liked those, they were like, 'Ok, do something like these!', and I was like, 'Ok, sounds great, I'll make a new thing from scratch!'"^[2]

During the September 18, 2020 Twitch stream Mike talked again about the meaning of the title, saying, "The reason I called this track that is because it was supposed to be... Nirvana, oh my God! "Tools Of The Trade", Nirvana, Giorgio Moroder and Italian Neomelodic... I nailed it! Wow, not so much! I really just went my own direction with it, I knew that whatever it was I named it that because I really just was like, 'Yeah, I'll just gonna do my own!'"