If you’ve used Mario Paint’s composer feature to create anything 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 Brat, I’m even more in awe. The real album took the charts by storm all summer long, so it’s an excellent candidate for a cover that’s mostly made of beeps and a cheap-sounding drum track — the songs are easily recognizable from the jump. And every song on the album is a certified banger, so the Mario Paint versions are, too.
Fartmancomposer’s video — aptly named after Charli xcx’s extended album, Brat and it’s the same but it’s three more songs so it’s not and her remix album, Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat — also lends some insight to the incredibly complex process of rewriting the songs within 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 anywhere from 15 to 20 of those sections, which need to be written, of course, and then added to the playlist in order.
The video also shows the sheet music, as it were, with the pink bar bopping from note to note even as Charli xcx’s songs mess around with time signatures and distortion. “Club classics,” arguably the most club DJ-like song on the album, translates surprisingly well to Mario Paint, despite the heavy distortion at the end of the song. I can confidently say you could listen to this video having never listened to Brat and still know that the album kicks ass.
The Mario sound acts as a bass for most of the songs, with the taxi beep and red mushroom functioning as melodies and harmonies. The beats per minute are occasionally a bit faster or slower than the real album — I tried matching them up exactly and they’re bound to get off track within a few bars — but that doesn’t detract from the feat. My favorite part is the YouTuber’s choice of the cat’s meow to replicate Charli’s auto tuned voice, which is equally cute and downright impressive.
There are also a few moments that sound distinctly Mario-ish, like the opening of “360” and the ascending notes in “Von dutch,” which really resemble the 1-up sound. You can make your own Mario Paint covers using your old SNES, or make like this YouTuber and download a fan-made version you can find online. Some versions even let you use your MIDI board to control the program!
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