Even Mac Miller Can’t Ruin This: yyioy Remixes Ariana Grande’s “The Way”

It’s a side of me that doesn’t always come through on this blog – try the Tumblr too – but I love pop music, even beyond the J-Pop that appears here sometimes. One of my favorite songs of the year has been Ariana Grande’s “The Way,” an absurdly upbeat number that slays despite featuring an appearance from rapper Mac Miller (“hit me on my celly” uggggggggh). I raved about this elsewhere (I’d give it a [9] today), but am not hesitant to once again mention how damn sunny this sounds.

Japanese artist yyioy, who has a thing for taking big American pop songs and morphing them into dance tracks, has gotten a hold of “The Way” and has transformed the perky number into a more hectic bit of dance music (it’s labelled “Jersey Club” on SoundCloud). Grande…and Miller’s…vocals get sped up a bit, and a series of break-beats have popped up, rattling this remix forward. It’s even more energetic than the original, although it sacrifices the warmth of the Grande’s untouched take in favor of pure frantic energy. Oh, and Mac Miller? Turns out having his voice sped up and backed up by the one part of yyioy’s remix that slows down a bit makes him sound creepy…not in his normal “drink, pledge” sort of way, but something more unsettling. Listen below.