Hear Ariana Grande’s ‘Problem’ Sung in 20 Different Styles
The man of a million voices, Ten Second Songs’ Anthony Vincent, is back with another multi-faceted cover, this time performing Ariana Grande’s smash hit, “Problem” in styles ranging from the R&B pop of Destiny’s Child to Green Day‘s breakneck rock to Van Halen‘s big hair bombast.
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Like his renditions of Katy Perry’s “Dark Horse” and Jason Derulo’s “Talk Dirty,” Vincent throws in a couple of nifty surprises, including an impressive Elvis impression, some stellar Mamas and the Papas harmonies and most amazingly — sandwiched between the stylings of Green Day and metal outfit Fear Factory — some on-point Gregorian chanting. Vincent also covers all sorts of ground during Iggy Azalea‘s guest verse, jumping from a pitch-perfect DMX bark to Twista’s quick spitting, before making a left turn to the fast-paced alterna-patter of Barenaked Ladies and then slowing it down with some Massive Attack.
Vincent’s viral series began during downtime from his day job as a way to promote his production company, Ten Second Songs, which creates custom songs for special occasions. The musician, voiceover artist and video editor told Rolling Stone he initially wanted to try the project with Miley Cyrus’ “Wrecking Ball,” but the timing wasn’t right.
“I wanted to pick the most random styles you could imagine,” he said. “I listened to ‘Dark Horse’ and after I heard it, I immediately thought, ‘This is it. This is the one.’ And I got to work.”
His cover of “Dark Horse” picked up 1 million YouTube views in less than a week (it now boasts over 8 million) and his version of “Talk Dirty” has already topped 3 million. And while the attention is nice, Vincent said the best part of the whole experience was seeing viewers discover new music through the clip: “I love that people are having conversations that are involving Frank Sinatra, Type O Negative and Tech N9ne at the same time. If I’m in any way responsible for having some 14-year-old girl Google ‘Type O Negative,’ that’s crazy.”