The wheels of progress roll on

Admit it: you've always wanted to be a rock star. Even Bill Gates knows it. That's why Microsoft developed Songsmith, a new program that lets you sing, however amateurishly you want, and turn your song into a "masterpiece" using the miracle of modern computing.

Less miraculous has been Microsoft's promotion of the software. They released a video promoting Songsmith which has become the laughingstock of YouTube. The New York Times dissed the video by quoting Susan Sontag's 1964 definition of bad camp: “bad to the point of being laughable, but not bad to the point of being enjoyable.” Ouch. Judge for yourselves...



But then the world comes to Microsoft's rescue. Remember that MP3 of Running With The Devil with only David Lee Roth's vocals that zipped around the internet a while ago? Well someone had the bright idea to put that amateurishly sung vocal into Microsoft's Songsmith and create this "masterpiece":