The Gregory Brothers

This week's band of the week is a bit of an unusual case, but their music is brilliant, the impact their videos have had is astounding, and I'm looking forward to what they'll accomplish in the future. The band of the week is...

THE GREGORY BROTHERS!!!

The brothers are best-known for "Bed Intruder Song", the song they made with the news footage of Antoine Dodson reacting to the attempted rape of his sister. The song was so popular it made it to number three on the iTunes charts, earning enough money (possibly when combined with T-shirt sales) for the Dodsons to allow them to move out of the projects and into a new house. So not only is the video a musical accomplishment, but now it's a real mitzvah, as it has allowed the Dodson family to live a better life. As Antoine himself said in an interview, what happened to them ended up being "a blessing in disguise."

Now, the footage was cool to begin with, but the reason the song became such a huge hit is because it legitimately is a great song. The dramatic, piano-laden backing track is simple but solid, the beat's strong; admittedly it's not quite at the level of the real pro producers - my first impression was "Dre-lite" - but still, it's good. And combined with Dodson's instant-classics like "run an tell dat" and...pretty much the rest of his 'testimony', it struck a chord with people. Which is why it currently has over 40 million hits on YouTube. That's amazing. One of the brothers and Dodson even performed the song at the BET Awards - though the performance wasn't all that great, considering Dodson isn't all that great of an auto-tune singer...

But these guys are far from one hit wonders. They've got a host of other amazing videos under their belt, each with millions of hits, and they come out new ones all the time. My favorites: "Mommy and Daddy Song" and "The Rent Is Too Damn High Song". Just saying.

The brothers clearly have a great ear for lyrical hooks. They know their way around song structure and are masters of genre-specific songwriting. Whether it's soul, or rap, or some Danny Elfman shit, they got it down pat. And some of the footage they use is hilarious, like the gospel singing in the "Mommy and Daddy Song" video, or Jimmy McMillan punching Chuck Norris and Darth Vader to demonstrate his karate skillz. Genius. And that's why they're the band of the week.

http://www.youtube.com/user/schmoyoho