![\"Chipmunk](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Chipmunk-soul-How-a-1950s-recording-trick-inspired-a-hip-hop-trend-in-the-2000s-Far-Out-Magazine-114.jpeg\")
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(Credits: Far Out \/ CBS)<\/p>\n
Sun 8 March 2026 7:00, UK <\/p>\n
\u201cI can do things a trained musician wouldn\u2019t do,\u201d Ross Bagdasarian told a reporter in the 1960s<\/a>, \u201cHe\u2019d know better, but I don\u2019t know better, so I do them, and they work!\u201d<\/p>\n Bagdasarian, who performed under the stage name David Seville, was better known to the world for the trio of singing cartoon characters he also created and portrayed: Alvin, Simon and Theodore, the legendary Chipmunks.<\/p>\n The origin of the Chipmunks dates back all the way to 1958, when a nearly 40-year-old Bagdasarian was experimenting with a new tape recorder he\u2019d bought, a state-of-the-art piece of home equipment for the time period. Up to this point, he had already had a fairly successful career as a character actor and mid-tier novelty songwriter, but when he messed around with the playback speeds on that tape machine, he was unknowingly on his way to becoming a multi-millionaire. <\/p>\n His first novelty song using the sped-up, comical version of his own voice, \u2018Witch Doctor\u2019, would be swiftly taken off the air in 2026, but it went to number one on the US Billboard in 1958, and inspired Bagdasarian to expand his new David Seville enterprise to include a set of recurring, fictional characters for him to voice, which he named after the execs at his record label, Alvin Bennett, Simon Waronker, and Theodore Keep. His next novelty hit<\/a>, a 1959 holiday tune called \u2018The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don\u2019t Be Late)\u2019, officially introduced the Chipmunks to the world, and the results were a staggering 12 million copies sold and three Grammy Awards.<\/p>\n Naturally, everyone wanted to know the secret behind the Chipmunks\u2019 sound, and Bagdasarian eventually admitted that it simply involved recording himself singing live at half-speed, then speeding it up on the playback. It wasn\u2019t, he said, as easy as it sounded. \u201cYou have to be very careful of your enunciation,\u201d he said, \u201cI talk at half-speed, but I must enunciate at twice the force\u201d.<\/p>\n Bagdasarian\u2019s children kept the Alvin & The Chipmunks empire going after his death in 1972, with the characters and their instantly recognisable voices soon becoming deeply ingrained in popular culture all over the world, and yet, despite the simplicity of the tape effects that created that sound, copycats were surprisingly few and far between. It was only in the 2000s when a new utilisation of a similar concept took hold in an unlikely segment of the pop music landscape: indie hip-hop.<\/p>\n
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<\/a>Credit: Alamy<\/p>\n