For a brief moment back in 1998 (one week to be exact) Canadian rock group Barenaked Ladies had the No. 1 song in the world with their hit "One Week."
It's still weird to think that a song about "Chinese chickens" and "watching X-Files with no lights on" took over the world's imagination, but there is one explanation: the opening line "It's been one week since you looked at me" has a way of climbing inside your brain and never leaving. Specifically, the way singer Steven Page bends the delivery of the first two words "it's been" has made a lasting impression.
Providence, Rhode Island musician Evan Desautels (who has “tapped into the art of creating awful audio memes”) was intrigued with those two opening words so much that they remixed the song, replacing every instrument with the memorable “it’s been” intro—resulting in a self-described “horrid remix.”
Inspired to do the remix as a way to follow up a previous sound-replacing audio meme using the Star Wars theme, Desautels tells P&P, “‘One Week’ was perfect, the song was already all over the internet in various memes, and everyone knows it and has heard it a million times already. I found the perfect song to effectively destroy for everyone. It took me maybe an hour and a half to make.”
"I find it hilarious, so many people are never going to 'unhear' this, it will persist as long as the actual song 'One Week' lasts," Desautels continues, as the remix's play count soars past 100,000. "But it's funny, its the kind of thing that I'm glad that people don't make it past 30 seconds listening to it, it means it worked."
