Songs Edited To Sound Like They’re Playing In Another Room Are Inexplicably Emotional

If you’ve ever snuck upstairs during a house party to sit in your friend’s room to pet her dog, just for a minute, just for a quick break from all the people—these songs edited to sound like they’re coming from another room will bring that anxious feeling all the way back.

The effect makes me feel like I’m missing out on something fun, just on the other side of a wall. Songs that are otherwise emotion-neutral suddenly feel loaded and complicated, like someone’s about to knock on the bathroom door and ask if you’re okay. Yes, it can get that emo.

YouTuber socially awkward fangirl has uploaded quite a few of these edits, and even more on their Tumblr. They’ve also given a tutorial on how this is done. It’s a fairly simple process in Adobe Audition, involving fiddling with the song’s elements, like reverb and amplitude.

Here are a few standout songs that are almost improved through muffled listening.

The Killers’ “Mr. Brightside,” already a jam rife with hyperactive melancholy, sounds even more bittersweet when it’s given the “Another Room” treatment. Everyone has either an awkward coming-of-age memory or a bar karaoke blackmail video associated with this song, and hearing it from afar is like reaching back through the years to that memory. Fuck, why am I sad now?

“Can’t Get You Out of My Head” by Kylie Minogue makes me want to stand outside a 2000s-themed dance venue in the Lower East Side and smoke a cigarette, and I don’t even smoke. YouTube user Kate Jay, in the comments, gets it: “this isnt a club jam this is a why am i crying in the club jam .”

Somehow, Gorillaz’ “Feel Good Inc” is one of the few songs edited in this way that actually does feel… good. You’re not missing anything, you’re just appreciating it from afar. Like you’re out in the fire escape catching a break from small talk for a minute. Also the bass line in this song is underappreciated and when everything else is muffled, it’s the star.

Similarly, muffled “American Idiot” by Green Day doesn’t necessarily make me sad; it just sounds like I had to step outside for a minute because this song gives me a headache.

The title of this upload is “What Redbone would sound like while you’re making out in the bathroom of a house party” and that is exactly what it is.