Air Horn Remixes

About

Air Horn Remixes are audio tracks and music videos that feature samples of the loud, high-pitched sound produced by the portable pneumatic instrument. While the sampling of air horns in music production has its roots in reggae music, and more recently popularized through reggaeton, electronic dance music (EDM) and trap music, it is most commonly featured as an ironic-comedic device in montage parodies and other mashup tracks by remix artists on YouTube and Soundcloud.

Origin

For several decades, air horns have been used by American sports fans to root for their teams while attending outdoor sporting events, most notably in the National Football League (NFL), National Basketball Association (NBA), National Hockey League (NHL) and Major League Soccer (MLS).

Usage in Music Production

According to an article published by the Red Bull Music Academy,^[3] the air horn was first sampled in songs played at Jamaican dancehalls in the 1970s. On January 6th, 2010, YouTuber dannyeye2k6 uploaded an audio clip of an air horn, which gained over 889,000 views and 320 comments in the next five years (shown below, left). The earliest known ironic air horn remix was uploaded by the Soundcloud user EPIQUE on Dec 6, 2011, featuring electronic versions various Christmas songs with air horn sounds (shown below, right)

Spread

On November 13th, 2013, the TVNorge YouTube channel uploaded a sketch by the comedy duo Ylvis, featuring covers of popular songs with air horn blasts added (shown below). In the first year, the video gathered more than 1.7 million views and 1,300 comments.

On January 16th, 2014, the /r/airhornremix^[8] subreddit was launched for submissions of songs with added air horn sounds. On April 1st, Soundcloud user Airhorn Orchestra uploaded an air horn remix of Beethoven’s “Symphony No.5, Op.67” (shown below). On June 24th, Redditor rkz submitted the Airhorn Orchestra Soundcloud track to the /r/montageparodies^[9] subreddit, where it accumulated upwards of 2,200 votes (96% upvoted) prior to being archived. On October 7th, CollegeHumor^[7] published a list of songs “improved with the inclusion of air horn.”