"There's a New Sound" is a 1953 novelty song by Tony Burrello, written by Burrello and Tom Murray.^[1]

Burrello, a songwriter and jazz pianist better known as Tony Tamburello,^[2] and Murray started writing novelty songs after they were unsuccessful in having their more serious material recorded by prominent musicians.^[1] They noted the success of music that was seemingly intentionally bad, after hearing a disc jockey play Harry Stewart's version of "Yes Sir, That's My Baby" sung in a faux-Japanese accent. According to Murray, the disc jockey said that the record was a hit but also "one of the most horrible records he had ever heard".^[3]

Burrello and Murray responded by creating the songs "There's a New Sound", performed by Burello, and "Fish", sung by Leona Anderson, which they released as a single. "There's a New Sound" consists of a single chorus repeated five times, each time in a higher key, with calliope accompaniment.^[4] The lyrics describe "the strangest sound that you have ever heard", which turns out to be "the sound that's made by worms".^[1] Burrello was credited as the artist on the single,^[5] which was released on Burrello and Murray's own record label, Horrible,^[4] as catalog numbers H 100 (ten-inch 78 rpm format) and H 100-X45 (seven-inch 45 rpm format).^[5] The single was Horrible's only release.

When Billboard magazine reviewed the single, it commented: "A weird one. 'The new sound is the sound made by worms.' Strange sound effects go with nonsense lyric. It's a studied attempt to be as screwy as possible."^[5] For the flip side, "Fish", Billboard′s review was "Same comment".^[5]

Burrello and Murray originally had only 500 copies of "There's a New Sound"/"Fish" issued to be sent to disc jockeys.^[4] However, within two weeks, they received orders for more than 100,000 copies of the single.^[4]

Soon afterward, Burrello and Murray were called upon to write a song for Brucie Weil, who was then 6 years old.^[6] The song they wrote for Weil, "God Bless Us All", reached #18 on the Billboard singles chart.^[7][8] Burrello and Murray were soon called upon to write music for other artists, including a theme song for John Conte and special material for Tony Bennett.^[9]

Anderson went on to exploit her newfound fame as a "horrible" musician by making appearances on The Ernie Kovacs Show and signing with Columbia Records for two more singles.^[10] In 1957, for Unique Records, Anderson released a full-length album, Music to Suffer By, in the same mock-operatic style she used for "Fish."^[10][11]

"There's a New Sound" was later featured often on the Dr. Demento show^[12][13] and performed by Scooter on The Muppet Show.