Smooth McGroove
Max Gleason, better known by his stage name of Smooth McGroove, is a YouTuber known for recording acappella versions of video game music.[1][2][3] His videos feature multiple videos of himself, ostensibly recording each part, often complemented by a video of the relevant game being played and the appearance of his cat Charl.[2]
Career
Gleason's musical career began when he was eleven years old and began playing the drums. He eventually started teaching private music lessons to support himself.[1] In college, Gleason began recording some MIDI tracks and posting them on MySpace, but never got much recognition for them. Later, he and some friends of his started a rock band, and in addition to being the drummer, he was responsible for the audio mixing. The band fell apart, and a few years later, Gleason decided to do more music. He began rapping about video games, and he gradually moved to a cappella music.[3]
Gleason has recorded music from many popular video game series, including The Legend of Zelda,[4] Super Mario, Sonic the Hedgehog, Final Fantasy,[5] Mega Man,[6] and Street Fighter.[7] Gleason's videos have garnered millions of views, and he eventually left his job giving private music lessons to focus fully on his a cappella videos.[8] When asked about working with more modern tracks, he sided against it, stating that "music for video games today serve a more atmospheric role with less of a focus on memorable melodies". He noted that the Elder Scrolls series was an exception.[9]
A Starbound patch known as "v. Enraged Koala" released in early 2014 added a microphone feature including sounds by Gleason.[10][11]
In 2014, Gleason provided narration for an episode of the video game webseries Did You Know Gaming? covering the F-Zero series.[12]
On January 22, 2015, Gleason was featured on Episode 2 of the Reddit podcast Upvoted. Gleason recounted how his musical career began, and how he suddenly gained the attention and viewers that eventually allowed him to pursue making music as a full-time career.[13]
Personal life
Gleason currently lives in Oklahoma City with his cat Charl[1][2] and his wife, Jo.[3]
Discography
- VGM Acapella: Volume 1 (2013) [14]
- VGM Acapella: Volume 2 (2013) [15]
- VGM Acapella: Volume 3 (2013) [16]
- VGM Acapella: Volume 4 (2014) [17]
- VGM Acapella: Volume 5 (2014) [18]
- VGM Acapella: Volume 6 (2014) [19]
- VGM Acapella: Volume 7 (2015) [20]
References
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- ↑ [1]
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- ↑ [4]
- ↑ [5]
- ↑ [6]
- ↑ [7]
External links
- Smooth McGroove's channel on YouTube
- Smooth McGroove on TwitterLua error in Module:WikidataCheck at line 28: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value).
- Smooth McGroove on FacebookLua error in Module:WikidataCheck at line 28: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value).