Party Meow

{{Song | Name=Party Meow | Artist=Mike Shinoda | Release=Dropped Frames, Vol. 2 | Cover=PartyMeowArt.jpg | Working title=Dabke Doo Wop | Recorded=2020 | Released=July 31, 2020 | Format=Digital | Length=1:44 | Stems= | Time signature= | Tempo= | Key= | Samples= | References= | Live debut= | Last played= | Writer=Mike Shinoda | Producer=Mike Shinoda | Label=Kenji Kobayashi Productions | Misc=Template:Extra track listing "Party Meow" is the twelfth track on the "Dropped Frames, Vol. 2" instrumental release by Mike Shinoda.

Background

"Party Meow" 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.

"Party Meow" was a track made by Mike on May 19, 2020 under the working title "Dabke Doo Wop." This CoronaJam was the result of several ideas. Due to receiving so many requests to make jams in specific styles, Mike on May 14 decided to start mashing up several requests at once. Fans requested "Syrian dabke music" and "doo wop."^[1]

Mike said, "Yeah, this is going to be a challenge for lots of reasons. The request today is a mashup, we have Syrian dabke music and doo wop. So here's the thing, I don't know anything about dabke music. So I had to like look it up and see references and I don't know any of the instruments. I don't know the differences between Syrian and Lebanese and other versions of the music so I've got to just do my best. Thank you to zana3 and LVbomb for putting these in the mix. It's going to be interesting. Right now I've got a piano sound, just doing a little doo wop... that thing. And I think I'm going to have to re-approach this part to make the other stuff work."

Well into the stream after Mike had built a lot of layers in the track, he said, "I don't know how to rectify this, it got really weird. I'll just play it from the top because I know that this thing is like, coming apart at the seams. But we'll listen to it anyway. There is so much happening. It was a stretch, hey look, I see people complaining about certain sounds, like "Take that sound out." Here's the problem, I think we need to take all the sounds out. I think nothing is working. I think the whole thing is a mess. You can't win 'em all guys, yeah this whole thing is a total nightmare."

The chat on Twitch then requested the "Booty Down" samples. He commented, "I don't know where my Booty Down and Booty Up samples are guys, I don't know where they are. Should I get a new one? Get a new sample? We don't need to confine ourselves to just Booty Down and Booty Up. I should just have those on like a patch I can just import anytime we end up at this place. Oh there's vocoded ones." When going through samples, he liked the one that said, "This record is dedicated to all the lovers of the 808" and said, "Oh yeah, we're going to take that one. 808 lovers." And he liked the "meow" sample, so he added that in as well.

Mike concluded, "Oh fuck, you guys, that's amazing. Alright, well, yeah we really went for it today. It didn't really happen and sometimes that's how it works. Sometimes you just catch the plague. It's like the cat plague."

On June 10, 2020, Mike said that he delivered the final master for the "first volume", saying, the next day on June 11 that he won't reveal how many tracks (and which ones) will be released. He said, "I'm not going to tell you which ones either. This is part of the artistic decisions that have to be made, this is what makes me happy is choosing the right ones and transitioning them and making a mix from one to the next, making a presentation out of it. You've gotta leave some of it to me. I'm not going to tell you which ones." He also did a poll asking the fans to pick one song to be released first on the second volume. The options were "Party Meow" from the May 18th stream and "Waltz" from the June 11th stream.^[2]^[3]^[4] "Party Meow" won the poll.