Gotye hits on a remix idea (+video)

A scene from Somebodies: A YouTube Orchestra. Photo / YouTube

Since Australian artist Gotye loaded the video for his worldwide smash hit Somebody That I Used To Know (which features New Zealand starlet Kimbra) in July last year, it's had 300 million hits on YouTube, making it the ninth most-watched YouTube music video ever.

It has also spawned hundreds of parodies and covers - some highly professional, some done in the bedroom.

This Monday, in response to the phenomenon, Gotye (aka Wally De Backer) released Somebodies: A YouTube Orchestra (on YouTube), which is a tribute to the various covers, all mashed up into one giant mosaic video version.

You can witness everything from a Middle Eastern cover to the Netherlands' Radio Choir, a saxophone solo, some very entertaining reworks of the original bodypainting video and, of course, loads of people plucking away at home.

"I couldn't resist the musical aspect of it because there have been so many interpretations," De Backer told AAP.

"There's such a deep potential level of remixability in the versions that are out there, that I bowed to the temptation."

De Backer is keen to downplay the hysteria that has surrounded the song (which has surpassed sales of 10 million), but as the cover versions have proven so popular, he felt creating a "remix" of his own might help to draw a line under the craze.

"I was reluctant on the one hand because on some level it draws more attention back to a song that's already so big. But if it resonates with people and it's good enough as a piece of work, then maybe it'll feel like a bit of a last word. To me that would have a really beautiful circularity to it."

Watch the video for Somebodies: A YouTube Orchestra:

- TimeOut