Summary: While the mayoral race is still underway in New York City, another race has come to a close: Soundcheck's Remix The Mayor Listener Challenge, which, for the last month, asked listeners to take short clips of quotes from past New York mayors and craft them into songs. Now it's time to announce the finalists -- and declare our winner. To help, we turned to guest judges: Julie Klausner, the writer, comedian and host of the podcast How Was Your Week, and Evan Gregory, of the Gregory Brothers, whose AutoTune The News and Songify The News videos have taken political remixing to a new level of funny. Given their comedy backgrounds, both unsurprisingly said that at least partially informed what they were looking for in a good remix. "Maybe this is because I watch too much competitive reality television -- I watch too much Top Chef and Face Off," says Klausner. "But I was looking for something that really fulfilled the assignment and spoke to the challenge. It featured the soundbite prominently and that there was humor in it didn't hurt at all." "We always come from a humorous standpoint, or often do," Gregory adds. "Although I was looking for that, it wasn't necessarily a hard criteria. For me, the biggest thing was: did it capture the character of some of the soundbites and elevate it in some way? So overall, what did our judges think the three finalists? "I thought they were great," says Klausner. "There were a couple that were so catchy that I would just have them on my iPod anyway. It was one of those things where I could never imagine doing it myself. [I] was really impressed with the process that must have given birth to these songs." "I was most impressed by the great variety in the submissions," says Gregory. "There were danceable beats, and these sort of dreamy psychedelic entries." Listen To The Finalists: Jules, Chris, Trevor, "Mayoral Remix" Julie Klausner: "I like that I've never done MDMA, but I imagine that it would be similar to what I've just heard." Evan Gregory: "That refrain, it's just magical that they just pulled out. And I love that they composed their own musical bed that captures this character. And they even included or incorporated some of the mayor's vocal pauses -- the ums and the uhs -- became the part of the fabric of the song. I love this one." Julie Klausner: "It had a lot of variety. The chorus wouldn't necessarily have to live in the same world as the samples and the verses." The New Lines, "They Pretend To Be Happy But They Are Not" Evan Gregory: "I would go so far as to call this is a "Songification" -- which they lengthen his speech and were able to tease out this melody from LaGuardia. It sounds fantastic, and they accompanied it perfectly with this kind of waltz feel. It really works. And they focus specifically on this one sample and tried to pull out everything they could from it. They picked a great sample, because it is an eternal political truth: That they pretend to be happy." Julie Klausner: "This was the prettiest one... the one I liked listening to the most. But I think the song is the focus... I don't know whenever you've ever seen someone who wants a tattoo covered up, they don't like their tattoo so they want a bigger tattoo and it's a lot prettier, but you can't really see the original. But for me, I feel like the original LaGuardia quote is kind of the original tattoo that they're sorta just fitting into a bigger, prettier… They wanna do an "Incense and Peppermints" style song, which I love... but I don't feel like it preserved the integrity of the quote." And The Winner Is... Jon Altschuler, "Move Your Car, Move Your Body" Julie Klausner: "This is a party. I picture all the mayors just like getting down in a room. This is what remix culture in its most celebratory is. This is a big success. I just can't help but smile listening to it. Evan Gregory: "Musically… both Ed Koch and LaGuardia, the cadence of their voices fits so well into the rhythm of this remix, you almost im
