Chocolate Rain

"Chocolate Rain"
"**I move away from the mic to breathe in" became a meme oft-repeated after its appearance in the "Chocolate Rain" video. Tay Zonday told MTV, "I just figured that if I didn't mention it, people would wonder what I was doing."[1]
Song by Tay Zonday
Released	2007 (Planet Zonday)
Format	Music download
Recorded	Tay Zonday's apartment, Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S.
Genre	Outsider music
Length	4:52
Label	None
Writer	Tay Zonday
Producer	Tay Zonday

"Chocolate Rain" is a song and music video performed by American Internet personality Tay Zonday. After being posted on YouTube on April 22, 2007, the song quickly became popular. As of November 2011^[update], the video has over 73,000,000 views.^[2] The music video portrays a bespectacled Zonday in a recording studio wearing a white T-shirt and singing into a condenser microphone. Occasional cutbacks to Zonday playing a digital piano are also shown. A caption appears early in the video - "**I move away from the mic to breathe in" - which has been parodied many times. The song, and its writer/performer, has attracted major media attention.

"Chocolate Rain" is ranked as the hottest viral video of summer 2007 by CTV^[3] and as the number 2 viral video in the world by utalkmarketing.com.^[4] It was the winner in the Music category in the 2007 YouTube Awards.^[5][6]

Critical response

The song is known for the deep voice of its singer and his mannerisms while singing.^[7][8] David Lowe of The Sun characterized Zonday's voice as being "gravelly as Rod Stewart but alas without the groove", expressing no surprise at Zonday's lack of formal musical training.^[9] Other reviews have been more favorable. Garth Montgomery of The Daily Telegraph praises the song's "hypnotic quality" while criticizing its "cheesy drum loop".^[7]

Both the melody and the drum track of the song have also been criticised extensively by the gaming community for being overly derivative of the title music from the SNES game "UN Squadron".^[10][11][12]

During a brief interview on The Opie and Anthony Show, Zonday referred to the song as "cheesy" and stated that its cryptic lyrics dealt with racism.^[13] This echoes Zonday's comments posted to the video's page on YouTube.^[10]

Many attribute the initial spread of the popularity of the song to 4chan.^[14] Tay Zonday said,

I'm pretty sure the 'Chocolate Rain' attention started as a joke at 4chan.org, an internet forum that is credited with starting lots of popular internet phenomena. It spread to a general **I move away from the mic to breathe in** audience and people started uploading spoofs. I don't know what causes people to listen to my music. If I could speak it, there would be no reason to write songs.^[15]

Performances

Clips of the video have been played or referenced on TV and radio shows, including G4TV's Attack of the Show,^[16] Last Call with Carson Daly, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and Maury. On August 9, 2007, Zonday performed the song on the late-night talk show Jimmy Kimmel Live as part of its "Internet Talent Showcase".^[17] It has also been performed live on the BBC Radio 1 Chris Moyles Show.^[18] More recently, Zonday appeared on Lily Allen's show, Lily Allen and Friends, where he sang in a live performance of Lily's song "Smile". Zonday performed Chocolate Rain during the autism education benefit Night of Too Many Stars on October 2, 2010. During some 2007 and 2008 performances, LeRoi Moore, the saxophonist for the Dave Matthews Band, integrated the melody into an outro on the band's song "The Dreaming Tree".^[3][7][8] Zonday also received a "Web Redemption" on Daniel Tosh's show, Tosh.0.

Spoofs and tributes

"Chocolate Rain" is the subject of numerous parodies, tributes, remixes and covers on the Internet. Major musical artists such as singer John Mayer^[19] and Green Day drummer Tré Cool^[20][21] have spoofed the song on television and YouTube.com, respectively. Blamesociety Productions produced its own parody using Chad Vader.^[22] He goes on to make his own lyrics, breathe away from the microphone as in the original, and runs out of lyrics that fit the structure. Notable parodies include a song titled "Vanilla Snow",^[23] also a spoof of a McDonald's commercial,^[24] a remixed version on YouTube reminiscent of classic 8-bit video games such as Mega Man 2,^[25] another 8-bit remix by Chiptune artist Epichunt featuring several added lead lines,^[26] a remix done by Joey Sun^[27] and a mashup of the song with Radiohead's "Talk Show Host".^[28] A parody on 2008 Republican Presidential candidate John McCain was made,^[29] as well as one of Barack Obama, the Democratic candidate in the same election.^[30] Also, there was a popular remix of the video made by Traphik in Youtube.^[31] Alex Albrecht spoofed the song in a fake commercial for Nestlé in the podcast Diggnation.^[32]

Zonday himself appeared on the August 3, 2007, episode of VH1's Best Week Ever and performed a parody called "Summer Break".^[33] In March 2008, Zonday appeared in YouTube Live, where he performed the song. Also, in that same show, Bo Burnham, with his song "Welcome to YouTube", made a comical reference to the song, with the lyrics "Your favourite coat's got a doo-doo stain, I pray to God that's Chocolate Rain." Zonday was featured in the music video for rock band Weezer's song "Pork and Beans" and appeared in a YouTube video with Weezer's Brian Bell to play an acoustic version of "Pork and Beans" on 3 June 2008.^[34] Zonday himself appeared as a guest voice on an episode of Robot Chicken, where this song was spoofed as "Chocolate Grain".^[35]

On April 2, 2008, South Park aired the episode "Canada on Strike" that contained an appearance of Zonday talking about "Chocolate Rain", along with other internet memes. Zonday was killed at the end of this scene when a stare from the Dramatic Chipmunk caused his head to explode. The title of the hit was humorously manipulated in the phrase "get ready for some chocolate pain" within the episode. The episode brought back the video's popularity and boosted its views by over one million in the days following its airing. On the episode of The Office titled "Business Ethics", Michael Scott confesses that when he discovered YouTube, he "watched Cookie Monster sings 'Chocolate Rain' about a thousand times". This prompted the creation of several said videos a few days later. Paul Reubens debuted a spoof educational film called Journey to Banana Land that beckoned "Chocolate Rain" when the narrator mentions cocoa trees; Zonday's YouTube video is used as Reubens sings along. Tina Fey's character on 30 Rock referred to the character of Toofer as "Chocolate Rain" in the 2007 season premiere.

In the The First two episodes of Season 2 of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (Return of Harmony Part 1 and 2) it briefly starts raining chocolate. This is largely thought of as a tribute to the song and a sort of bizarre nod to the sizable MLP fandom over in 4chan.

Comedy.com made a video in November 2008 spoofing not only the song, but its status as a viral video. The video looked at how different directors, such as Quentin Tarantino, would have approached the making of the "Chocolate Rain" video.^[36]

Commercials

In November 2007, Tay Zonday licensed the song to and recorded spoof lyrics for Comedy Central as a promo clip for their show Last Laugh with Lewis Black.^[37] On November 28, 2007, Zonday released a spoof/sequel to the song titled "Cherry Chocolate Rain". The music video is professionally shot and makes many allusions to the original song. The song makes fun of itself with its over-the-top visuals and mentions how Zonday was "paid a hefty, hefty fee" to do the video, as well as featuring professional rapper Mista Johnson, who repeats, "He moves his mouth away from the mic so he can breathe." The video and song were created as part of a promotional campaign for Cherry Chocolate Diet Dr Pepper.^[38]

License

The song and video are licensed under a Creative Commons by-nc-nd license. Although this license is not completely free, it has been suggested that the relative openness of the license has helped to encourage the song's spread. Creative Commons has praised Zonday specifically for this very reason.^[39] Zonday has expressed his own thoughts on the licensing situation on his Myspace blog, stating, "I want non-profit radio and small mom/pop cafes to be able to play my music for free. But I also want giant corporations who can afford to give me a dime or two to pay fair royalties."^[40]

References

1. ^ Gil Kaufman (2007-08-13). "'Chocolate Rain' Creator Talks Of Life Beyond His 15 Minutes Of Fame". MTV. http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1566977/20070813/index.jhtml. Retrieved 2008-07-14. 
2. ^ YouTube - "Chocolate Rain" Original Song by Tay Zonday
3. ^ ^{a b} Droganes, Constance (August 1, 2007). "10 hottest viral videos of the summer (so far)". CTV.ca. http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070801/summerviral_070801/20070801?hub=Entertainment 
4. ^ Top 5 Viral Videos^{[dead link]} utalkmarketing.com
5. ^ Carlson, Erin (March 20, 2008). "Will the Obama Girl win a YouTube award?". Associated Press. Archived from the original on 2008-03-23. http://web.archive.org/web/20080323233019/http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080320/ap_en_ot/youtube_awards. Retrieved 2008-03-20. 
6. ^ Associated Press (March 21, 2008). "Viral videos win big at second YouTube Awards". CNN.com. Archived from the original on 2008-03-23. http://web.archive.org/web/20080323035909/http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/ptech/03/21/youtube.awards.ap/index.html. Retrieved 2008-03-21. 
7. ^ ^{a b c} Montgomery, Garth (August 3, 2007). "Chocolate Rain goes huge". The Daily Telegraph. http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,22170787-5012327,00.html ^{[dead link]}
8. ^ ^{a b} Chocolate Rain on YouTube
9. ^ Lowe, David (2007-08-01). "Web crooner with 3m fans". The Sun. http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2007350800,00.html 
10. ^ ^{a b} "All Comments to "Chocolate Rain"". YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/all_comments?v=EwTZ2xpQwpA. Retrieved 2007-07-20. 
11. ^ "UN Squadron Music". YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtJlan6Z3i4. Retrieved 2010-02-05. 
12. ^ "UN Squadron Music". YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=br4ctKHIKVQ. Retrieved 2010-02-05. 
13. ^ "Tay Zonday on the Opie & Anthony show". 2007-07-19. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONpjOyzgnYY. Retrieved 2007-07-20. 
14. ^ Mathew Ingram (007-08-15). "Who is Tay Zonday?". The Globe and Mail. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070815.WBmingram20070815141502/WBStory/WBmingram/. Retrieved 2008-01-19. ^{[dead link]}
15. ^ "Make It Rain: Tay Zonday". HHNLiv. 2007-07-30. http://www.hhnlive.com/features/more/322. Retrieved 2008-01-19. 
16. ^ Tay Zonday on Attack of the Show's Daily Video Podcast
17. ^ Zonday performs "Chocolate Rain" on Jimmy Kimmel Live, August 9, 2007
18. ^ Zonday performs "Chocolate Rain" on The Chris Moyles Show
19. ^ MTV News Staff (2007-08-06). "Jennifer Lopez And Marc Anthony Roll Out Tour Dates; Plus Lindsay Lohan, Gwen Stefani, Nas, Amy Winehouse & More, In For The Record". MTV News. http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1566402/20070806/lopez_jennifer.jhtml 
20. ^ Cashmere, Tim (August 3, 2007). "Green Day Drummer Tre Cool Covers Tay Zonday". Undercover. http://undercover.com.au/News-Story.aspx?id=2560. Retrieved 2007-08-09. 
21. ^ Tré Cool's parody cover
22. ^ Chad Vader parody
23. ^ "Vanilla Snow" on YouTube
24. ^ Spoof on YouTube
25. ^ Chocolate Rain 8Bit Remix Video Gaming Today
26. ^ Chocolate Rain on Epichunt's MySpace page
27. ^ Chocolate Rain Remix by Joey Sun
28. ^ Mashup on YouTube
29. ^ "John McCain (Parody of Chocolate Rain)" on Youtube
30. ^ Obama Rain
31. ^ now to post a comment! (2007-08-16). "Traphik- Chocolate Rain (remix)". YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9NDyLhtxoE. Retrieved 2011-08-12. 
32. ^ Albrecht, Alex. Diggnation podcast 110.
33. ^ "Summer Break" from ifilm.com
34. ^ Acoustic Pork and Beans
35. ^ Robot Chicken: Chocolate Grain - Adult Swim Video (accessed April 26, 2010)
36. ^ now to post a comment! (2008-11-20). "Quentin Tarantino & Rob Reiner Remake Chocolate Rain". YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGACZxyHvbs. Retrieved 2011-08-12. 
37. ^ Last Laugh 07 promo on YouTube
38. ^ Cherry Chocolate Rain on YouTube
39. ^ Parkins, Cameron (2007-08-01). "Tay Zonday's "Chocolate Rain"". Creative Commons weblog. http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/7592. 
40. ^ Tay Zonday's Myspace page

External links

• Video on YouTube
• Tay Zonday's Personal Website