Bob Dylan onstage during the 17th Annual Critics' Choice Movie Awards held on January 12, 2012 in Los Angeles, California.
Some traditionalists have never forgiven Bob Dylan for ‘going electric’ almost half a century ago. So they’re really going to hate what a group of musicians have done with their smartphone apps.
An anonymous collective of coders and instrumentalists recorded this version of “All Along the Watchtower” — which admittedly is more of a cover of the 1968 Jimi Hendrix version of the song — and sent it to Evolver.fm. The project was spearheaded by developer Adil Sherwani, who created the Guitarism App that simulates the experience of strumming away on six strings using any Apple smartphone, music player or tablet.
(WATCH: South Korean TV Network Bans Psy’s ‘Gentleman’ Music Video)
“Recently, I teamed up with two other creators of iOS guitar apps to form an iOS developer band,” he told Evolver.fm by email. “I met these guys on the Audiobus developer and user forums, and we’re recording everything using only Audiobus and its compatible apps.”
Sherwani performed the vocals himself, singing directly into an iPhone without employing a external microphone. Although the constituent parts were mixed together using desktop Macs — ostensibly because the ‘band members’ were scattered all over the place — 100% of the resulting music was created by smartphone apps.