I'd come across a few of these as of late, and figured I'd post them in one neat collection.
Definitely lives up to the definition of a "flash mob" in ways the subsequent clips do not.
Nothing like actual pregnant women and pretend pregnant women coming together to pretend to breakdance and actually breakdance (respectively).
The Black Eyed Peas helped plan this one which sort of detracts from the fun...until you realize Oprah wasn't in on it. Oprah doesn't upstage the entire mob, but she gets close.
Sort of stupid given that it's such a blatant ad. Nevertheless, the fact that randos join in by the end is pretty charming.
European train stations love this shit. The cascade of children is a nice touch.
Instantly creepy. I've never seen so many men reach for a camera in my life.
This is more like a flash support group.
Okay, I'm bored.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Monday, September 28, 2009
Alliteration Monday: Ha! Ha ha!
Definitely just a hodgepodge of Pizza Hut and Taco Bell commercials pieced together with other YouTube videos -- and it's perfect.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Oh, that reminds me
I've been writing a column for the Georgetown Voice this semester.
While I've opted not to post the full pieces here (so as to not muddle the tone of two v. different mediums), I felt it was worth linking to them. Enjoy, and beware of shoddy formatting:
"Gold Sounds" (Pavement reunion)
"A Ticket to Ride" (A defense of Beatles: Rock Band)
"The Golden Age" (Music consumption at its finest)
While I've opted not to post the full pieces here (so as to not muddle the tone of two v. different mediums), I felt it was worth linking to them. Enjoy, and beware of shoddy formatting:
"Gold Sounds" (Pavement reunion)
"A Ticket to Ride" (A defense of Beatles: Rock Band)
"The Golden Age" (Music consumption at its finest)
Monday, September 21, 2009
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Guest Spot: Who does it better?
Enticed by a well-worded Gchat status yesterday, I decided to invite Jen Okwudili to write an op-ed for the blog. Enjoy:
Many in the mainstream media have begun to frantically string together the events of last week—namely, Rep. Joe Wilson's freakout during the Joint Session of Congress and Kanye West's own freakout (number 1000...) during Sunday's MTV VMA awards. Do these events, in their fantastically unbridled rejection of class, decorum, and civility, actually mark the end of civilization as some are speculating? Has our society come so far that we have begun to devolve, slowly morphing into mindless trashy apes unable to publicly hold our own (oft unbalanced) emotions in check? Or is there some other more clear and pleasant answer at hand?
Ladies and Gentlemen, that answer is simple: Hip-Hop does it better. The widely acknowledged musical underdog (what?—Ed.), credit is rarely given where credit is due regarding this genre (okay, fair – Ed.). Putting aside all un-winnable arguments concerning Who Did It First, Hip-Hop can easily walk away with the Who Did It Best award nine times out of ten. RUN-DMC's "Walk This Way," wearing Tommy Hilfiger attire with a straight face, and producing energy drinks are a few minor examples, but last week's contest to publicly 'act the fool' was won, hands down, (for better or worse) by Hip-Hop's Kanye West.
Looking at the facts: Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC), did interrupt a Joint Session of Congress, which was watched at least in part by millions of Americans (let's hope). After having called President Barack Obama, leader of the free world, a "liar!" (sort of—Ed.), he even managed to survive the death-glare of Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). In the following days he was nationally labeled as an idiot, forced to apologize, and censored by the House of Representatives with a "resolution of disapproval." Pretty bad.
However, Hip-Hop artist Kanye West still managed to do it better. Biding his time a full 3 days, his appearance at the VMAs could not have been more perfectly executed. Unlike Wilson, West managed to even storm the stage in question, taking the spotlight and the mic as well. After flailing about making his (valid?) point, West left in his wake not the leader of the free world, but rather a teenage/blond/doe-eyed/southern country starlet with no Nancy "the hawk" Pelosi to protect her. West had done real damage. His aftermath? Not only immediate boos from the audience for the rest of the night and instant Internet hate tirades, but perhaps the most biting punishment of them all: in a fitting full circle to the dueling stories, being called "a jackass" by President Obama himself.
Hip-Hop did it better. Now let's celebrate with a re-mix.
Many in the mainstream media have begun to frantically string together the events of last week—namely, Rep. Joe Wilson's freakout during the Joint Session of Congress and Kanye West's own freakout (number 1000...) during Sunday's MTV VMA awards. Do these events, in their fantastically unbridled rejection of class, decorum, and civility, actually mark the end of civilization as some are speculating? Has our society come so far that we have begun to devolve, slowly morphing into mindless trashy apes unable to publicly hold our own (oft unbalanced) emotions in check? Or is there some other more clear and pleasant answer at hand?
Ladies and Gentlemen, that answer is simple: Hip-Hop does it better. The widely acknowledged musical underdog (what?—Ed.), credit is rarely given where credit is due regarding this genre (okay, fair – Ed.). Putting aside all un-winnable arguments concerning Who Did It First, Hip-Hop can easily walk away with the Who Did It Best award nine times out of ten. RUN-DMC's "Walk This Way," wearing Tommy Hilfiger attire with a straight face, and producing energy drinks are a few minor examples, but last week's contest to publicly 'act the fool' was won, hands down, (for better or worse) by Hip-Hop's Kanye West.
Looking at the facts: Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC), did interrupt a Joint Session of Congress, which was watched at least in part by millions of Americans (let's hope). After having called President Barack Obama, leader of the free world, a "liar!" (sort of—Ed.), he even managed to survive the death-glare of Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). In the following days he was nationally labeled as an idiot, forced to apologize, and censored by the House of Representatives with a "resolution of disapproval." Pretty bad.
However, Hip-Hop artist Kanye West still managed to do it better. Biding his time a full 3 days, his appearance at the VMAs could not have been more perfectly executed. Unlike Wilson, West managed to even storm the stage in question, taking the spotlight and the mic as well. After flailing about making his (valid?) point, West left in his wake not the leader of the free world, but rather a teenage/blond/doe-eyed/southern country starlet with no Nancy "the hawk" Pelosi to protect her. West had done real damage. His aftermath? Not only immediate boos from the audience for the rest of the night and instant Internet hate tirades, but perhaps the most biting punishment of them all: in a fitting full circle to the dueling stories, being called "a jackass" by President Obama himself.
Hip-Hop did it better. Now let's celebrate with a re-mix.
Monday, September 14, 2009
Monday, September 7, 2009
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
What Does The Future of "Audio-Visual Mash-ups" Look Like?
If you happen to frequent this blog, you may have noticed that I've developed a fondness for London A/V geeks Eclectic Method, a.k.a. Jonny Wilson, Ian Edgar, and Geoff Gamlen. The trio first formed in 2002, re-splicing the videos for U2's "Mysterious Ways" and the Beastie Boy's "Intergalactic" together as an experiment, and have since released close to 50 official videos (though I'm sure that figure doesn't account for other unofficial offerings). They were recently featured in Wired magazine (where I first picked up on them) and their resumé includes events as diverse as Sundance and a forthcoming Twestival gig in NYC.
So what do they do exactly?
According to their website: "The trio’s audio-visual mash-ups feature television, film, music and video game footage sliced and diced into blistering, post-modern dance floor events. It’s a cyclone of music and images mashed together in a world where Kill Bill fight scenes and Dave Chappelle’s Rick James rants are ingeniously cut and looped over bootleg samples, DVD scratches and pumped-up dance anthems."
To get a better idea of what that means, let's take a peek at a clip from their 2005 mixtape "We Are Not VJs":
The "mash-up" component of Eclectic Method's aesthetic should be pretty evident from the sample above: "audio" and "visual" samples interpenetrating simultaneously to form their own, new entity -- or so it would seem. As much as I'm entertained and delighted by Eclectic Method's work, part of me feels like it's not quite as "post-modern" and/or groundbreaking as it's cracked up to be (and if you can stomach a long-winded digression, feel free to read on).
"Mash-up" may be be a modern term, but the concept of combining multiple sources to form a new composition is not new. American composer Charles Ives should very well be credited as the first proper "mash-up" artist given his manipulation of well-known hymns, parlor songs, and other traditional music into his work--and he died in 1954. In this part of "Piano Sonata No. 2", for example, you can hear him quoting Beethoven at 1:17.
If we were to focus on direct sampling, however, (and ignore the fact that most hip-hop songs are technically "mash-ups" of sorts) then the first authentic example of a mash-up probably belongs to Double Dee and Steinski. Their legendary "Lesson 1 -- The Payoff Mix"--which has been championed by the likes of Robert Christgau (his excellent essay about the collage can be viewed here), DJ Shadow, Cut Chemist, and more--culls its material from an unprecedented set of sources (The Supremes, Herbie Hancock, Humphrey Bogart, et al), and its striking originality netted its creators top honors in the remix contest they crafted it for in 1983.
For your convenience:
Beyond that, Paul's Boutique and De La Soul's 3 Feet High and Rising have come to represent the pinnacle of unregulated sampling before the costs of clearing them became astronomical (both albums were released in 1989). Imagine the sense of collage that holds "The Payoff Mix" together, extend it across an entire album, and you get the gist.
My point here? That the practice of remixing songs together was pretty well entrenched before Girl Talk, The Hood Internet, and/or the Super Mash Bros. entered the picture, much less Eclectic Method.
But what about the video component of their work?
What strikes me most about their "mixes" is a reliance on audio to maintain a sense of coherence. When sampling snippets of recordings, for instance, a DJ will smudge melodies, rhythms, and even timbres together in ways that remain consonant. In theory, the same should be applicable to video, except instead of melodies or rhythms the artist should be blurring movement, color, and other themes together, so as to draw out the visual similarities between different sources.
Eclectic Method doesn't do that at all. Rather, they layer different visual clips on top of each other (or in boxes, etc.) in such a way that reveals the source of audio, but does not otherwise fuse the video together. The result--a product in which video is an auxiliary to audio--seems more of a way to "come clean" or otherwise draw attention to source material without actually creating something new visually.
I'm not aware of any sort of film movement that pulled this idea off successfully, but the types of videos Eclectic Method end up presenting have, in my mind, been done before.
2001's "Frontier Psychiatrist" from The Avalanches only album Since I Left You:
Clearly, the Eclectic Method videos are connected by individual themes (a Tarantino mixtape, a John Hughes mixtape, and so on), but the visuals only seem to do what they do in the clip above--draw attention to the samples themselves. To be fair, some videos meld images together abstractly (I've got their Temptations mix in mind here), but I find that they achieve a limited level of success.
So how could it be better?
Take a look at this video that draws similarities between Disney cartoons:
As far as "visual mash-ups" goes, this video relies on comparable movements of characters to make its point, i.e. it takes its cues from the images rather than the audio, giving it a very strong sense of visual coherence even if you mute the sound.
Additionally, this new video from Teenage Fantasy offers an interesting example:
Here the audio and video have very distinct connections (it's almost impressionistic in its execution), yet by mid-song the video component stands alone completely, offering fresh, stark eye-candy (sort of like another favorite of mine, "Begone Dull Care").
To be honest, I'm not entirely sure the sort of homologous mixture that's possible with audio is even translatable to video, but I do think Eclectic Method could be offering more holistic compositions--mixes that draw attention to visual continuities rather than aural ones.
All of that said (whew), their videos sure are fun to watch.
But will they lead us into the future of "Audio-Visual Mash-ups"? I'm doubtful.
So what do they do exactly?
According to their website: "The trio’s audio-visual mash-ups feature television, film, music and video game footage sliced and diced into blistering, post-modern dance floor events. It’s a cyclone of music and images mashed together in a world where Kill Bill fight scenes and Dave Chappelle’s Rick James rants are ingeniously cut and looped over bootleg samples, DVD scratches and pumped-up dance anthems."
To get a better idea of what that means, let's take a peek at a clip from their 2005 mixtape "We Are Not VJs":
The "mash-up" component of Eclectic Method's aesthetic should be pretty evident from the sample above: "audio" and "visual" samples interpenetrating simultaneously to form their own, new entity -- or so it would seem. As much as I'm entertained and delighted by Eclectic Method's work, part of me feels like it's not quite as "post-modern" and/or groundbreaking as it's cracked up to be (and if you can stomach a long-winded digression, feel free to read on).
"Mash-up" may be be a modern term, but the concept of combining multiple sources to form a new composition is not new. American composer Charles Ives should very well be credited as the first proper "mash-up" artist given his manipulation of well-known hymns, parlor songs, and other traditional music into his work--and he died in 1954. In this part of "Piano Sonata No. 2", for example, you can hear him quoting Beethoven at 1:17.
If we were to focus on direct sampling, however, (and ignore the fact that most hip-hop songs are technically "mash-ups" of sorts) then the first authentic example of a mash-up probably belongs to Double Dee and Steinski. Their legendary "Lesson 1 -- The Payoff Mix"--which has been championed by the likes of Robert Christgau (his excellent essay about the collage can be viewed here), DJ Shadow, Cut Chemist, and more--culls its material from an unprecedented set of sources (The Supremes, Herbie Hancock, Humphrey Bogart, et al), and its striking originality netted its creators top honors in the remix contest they crafted it for in 1983.
For your convenience:
Beyond that, Paul's Boutique and De La Soul's 3 Feet High and Rising have come to represent the pinnacle of unregulated sampling before the costs of clearing them became astronomical (both albums were released in 1989). Imagine the sense of collage that holds "The Payoff Mix" together, extend it across an entire album, and you get the gist.
My point here? That the practice of remixing songs together was pretty well entrenched before Girl Talk, The Hood Internet, and/or the Super Mash Bros. entered the picture, much less Eclectic Method.
But what about the video component of their work?
What strikes me most about their "mixes" is a reliance on audio to maintain a sense of coherence. When sampling snippets of recordings, for instance, a DJ will smudge melodies, rhythms, and even timbres together in ways that remain consonant. In theory, the same should be applicable to video, except instead of melodies or rhythms the artist should be blurring movement, color, and other themes together, so as to draw out the visual similarities between different sources.
Eclectic Method doesn't do that at all. Rather, they layer different visual clips on top of each other (or in boxes, etc.) in such a way that reveals the source of audio, but does not otherwise fuse the video together. The result--a product in which video is an auxiliary to audio--seems more of a way to "come clean" or otherwise draw attention to source material without actually creating something new visually.
I'm not aware of any sort of film movement that pulled this idea off successfully, but the types of videos Eclectic Method end up presenting have, in my mind, been done before.
2001's "Frontier Psychiatrist" from The Avalanches only album Since I Left You:
Clearly, the Eclectic Method videos are connected by individual themes (a Tarantino mixtape, a John Hughes mixtape, and so on), but the visuals only seem to do what they do in the clip above--draw attention to the samples themselves. To be fair, some videos meld images together abstractly (I've got their Temptations mix in mind here), but I find that they achieve a limited level of success.
So how could it be better?
Take a look at this video that draws similarities between Disney cartoons:
As far as "visual mash-ups" goes, this video relies on comparable movements of characters to make its point, i.e. it takes its cues from the images rather than the audio, giving it a very strong sense of visual coherence even if you mute the sound.
Additionally, this new video from Teenage Fantasy offers an interesting example:
Here the audio and video have very distinct connections (it's almost impressionistic in its execution), yet by mid-song the video component stands alone completely, offering fresh, stark eye-candy (sort of like another favorite of mine, "Begone Dull Care").
To be honest, I'm not entirely sure the sort of homologous mixture that's possible with audio is even translatable to video, but I do think Eclectic Method could be offering more holistic compositions--mixes that draw attention to visual continuities rather than aural ones.
All of that said (whew), their videos sure are fun to watch.
But will they lead us into the future of "Audio-Visual Mash-ups"? I'm doubtful.
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