A Thread for Random Videos

[Cygnia]

 

[Cygnia]

 

[Ragitsu]

 

[death tribble]

Metallica and Lady Gaga rehearse for Grammy performance

 

[Cygnia]

 

[tkdguy]

 

[Cygnia]

 

[tkdguy]

 

[tkdguy]

 

[Lord Liaden]

Nobody sings Unchained Melody better than Bobby Hatfield did. This was one of the most perfect live vocal performances ever recorded. It's so fortunate that it was preserved.

 

I've looked at quite a few YouTube "reaction" videos by young people encountering this song, and similar ones from the same era, for the first time, and the response is almost always the same. The men express surprise and admiration for genuine singing talent and beautiful songs, but the women swoon. It's like us old fogies always say, kids today don't know what great music is, but they respond when they discover it.

 

I should probably put up the original video so it can be appreciated in its entirety.

 

 

[tkdguy]

31 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

Nobody sings Unchained Melody better than Bobby Hatfield did. This was one of the most perfect live vocal performances ever recorded. It's so fortunate that it was preserved.

 

I've looked at quite a few YouTube "reaction" videos by young people encountering this song, and similar ones from the same era, for the first time, and the response is almost always the same. The men express surprise and admiration for genuine singing talent and beautiful songs, but the women swoon. It's like us old fogies always say, kids today don't know what great music is, but they respond when they discover it.

 

I should probably put up the original video so it can be appreciated in its entirety.

 

 

 

I was watching the reaction videos of this recording. Quite a few ladies fell in love on the spot.

 

Tom Jones, The Bee Gees, and Simon and Garfunkel moved a few to tears as well.

 

Here's a reaction to the Bee Gees. Guess what shocked the viewers?

 

 

[IndianaJoe3]

 

[Cygnia]

 

[Starlord]

Gary Whitta Shares Concept Reel For The Last Starfighters (superherohype.com)

 

 

 

[Cygnia]

 

[Ragitsu]

 

[Tjack]

On 3/24/2021 at 6:45 AM, Lord Liaden said:

Nobody sings Unchained Melody better than Bobby Hatfield did. This was one of the most perfect live vocal performances ever recorded. It's so fortunate that it was preserved.

 

I've looked at quite a few YouTube "reaction" videos by young people encountering this song, and similar ones from the same era, for the first time, and the response is almost always the same. The men express surprise and admiration for genuine singing talent and beautiful songs, but the women swoon. It's like us old fogies always say, kids today don't know what great music is, but they respond when they discover it.

 

I should probably put up the original video so it can be appreciated in its entirety.

 

   The whole “reaction video” thing bugs the hell out of me. 
   First it seems like another symptom of the “I’m proud to have my head shoved up my a$$” attitude.  People are making a weird honor of the fact that they didn’t pay attention in school, don’t want to ever know about or try anything outside their comfort zone or personal experience and don’t trust or believe anything in any form of mainstream media unless it conforms to their preconceived notions.

   Second it smacks of a kind of reverse racism. Every video I see is about some Black person in their twenties watching some song or something that has been covered or referenced in numerous movies and TV shows.

I saw one recently where Abbot & Costello were doing “Who’s on First”.  I’ve seen that bit done and re-done by everyone from Bugs Bunny to Two & a Half Men.  If there were videos of Whites being amazed at Gangster’s Paradise the ‘net would explode with commentary about being oblivious to other cultures.

   WTF, these two idiots never saw Top Gun?
   Whatever, I’m old and the world sucks.

 

[Lord Liaden]

Yes, we're old and the world sucks. 👴 And no few "reactors" to things like songs or movies are obviously faking their responses to try to be more entertaining. But the majority of them are exactly the opposite of what you describe. Those who are looking at older movies or listening to older songs do so because they do want to expand their horizons and get out of their comfort zones, and often say as much. Some of them are from countries where they aren't constantly bombarded with American pop culture. Others are just young, in their teens or twenties. For stuff that came out in the 1960s or earlier, often even their parents hadn't been born yet. YouTube has given them an opportunity to discover these classics, and I applaud them for taking advantage of it. And I have to say it's rather exciting to watch someone discover something great that I knew from my own youth. Experiencing it through them, it's like I reconnect to its special magic.

 

BTW Top Gun came out thirty-five years ago. When you were a teenager, how many three-decade-plus-old movies had you watched, or even heard of?

[tkdguy]

Look at it this way. A lot of people didn't have exposure to some of the things we take for granted. Maybe they weren't originally curious, or they came from a different culture, or they just didn't know where to look. Then someone made a suggestion, and they saw or heard something for the first time. It turns out a lot of them enjoyed what they were looking at, and their horizons were expanded. Is that a bad thing?

 

I actually came into contact with this a year ago. I took a Lyft to the opera. My conversation with the driver revealed that he had never even heard of Mozart or Beethoven because nobody in his household listened to that music. Even I have found stuff I never knew about or even considered looking into while browsing online.

 

Don't be so quick to judge.

[Tjack]

8 hours ago, tkdguy said:

Look at it this way. A lot of people didn't have exposure to some of the things we take for granted. Maybe they weren't originally curious, or they came from a different culture, or they just didn't know where to look. Then someone made a suggestion, and they saw or heard something for the first time. It turns out a lot of them enjoyed what they were looking at, and their horizons were expanded. Is that a bad thing?

 

I actually came into contact with this a year ago. I took a Lyft to the opera. My conversation with the driver revealed that he had never even heard of Mozart or Beethoven because nobody in his household listened to that music. Even I have found stuff I never knew about or even considered looking into while browsing online.

 

Don't be so quick to judge.

   In the words of Dennis Miller (he was a comic) “I don’t want to go off on a rant here....but.”
   When we’re using the word “culture” I’m not expecting someone from another country to get every pop reference or being upset when my nieces and nephews didn’t get my comment about some TV show from before they were born.

   To use your example, if you played me some classical music and asked me who the composer was I’d have either no clue or a blind guess.  But I have heard of both Mozart and Beethoven.  I know that Mozart is a term for a child genius and Beethoven was deaf.  How do I know these things?  Because I pay at least a vague amount of attention to the world around me.  I couldn’t name three Indian dishes, but I know if I go to an Indian restaurant the food will be spicy and I won’t be able to get a steak. 
   Back a million years ago when I was growing up a person was expected to know what was called “common knowledge”.   Now the norm is to be oblivious.  I get that there’s a lot more information coming at people now and we all need to turn our brains off from time to time just to keep what sanity we have left.  But it’s the pride in the “I don’t know and I have no interest in finding out” attitude that makes me crazy.

   

[tkdguy]

Yes, there's a lot of that going on, but it's not universal. A lot of the things that we consider common knowledge is no longer taught, so the kids don't know about them. To be fair, they'd be surprised at our ignorance about a lot of what they consider common knowledge. A lot of things have changed. And let's face it, how many kids really care about how things were like in the past? I generally didn't, so I can't blame the kids for their lack of interest. It's not limited to the kids, either. A lot of folks our age don't want to step outside their comfort zone.

 

I do understand where you're coming from. I often encourage my students to try and expand their horizons. I also notice I need to take my own advice more often, and the reason I watched those reaction videos was I was bored and needed something different. What I got out of watching them was seeing people discovering something new and being moved by music they hadn't considered listening to before. Not a bad thing, actually.

[Lord Liaden]

4 hours ago, Tjack said:

 But it’s the pride in the “I don’t know and I have no interest in finding out” attitude that makes me crazy.

   

 

I hate that attitude too, and it's been elevated almost to the level of folk wisdom in today's climate of anti-intellectualism in America. But I agree with tkdguy that what's "common knowledge" changes over time. Every generation defines its own experience. How many of us on this forum know how to plant crops, or skin a rabbit, or shoe a horse?

 

All I'm saying is that the motivation of these reactors is the opposite of what you appear to ascribe to them. They want to know more, to broaden their experience.

 

BTW over forty years ago, when Ringo Starr's dreadful Caveman movie was in theaters, I was riding a bus passing by a theater showing that film, with Ringo's name on the marque. A couple of teenagers were sitting behind me, and I heard one ask, "Who's Ringo Starr?" The other one replied, "Wasn't he in the band that used to back up Paul McCartney?"

 

[tkdguy]

I remember one Jeopardy contestant during the late 1980s or early 1990s who thought Paul McCartney's first band was Wings.

[Tjack]

2 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

 

I hate that attitude too, and it's been elevated almost to the level of folk wisdom in today's climate of anti-intellectualism in America. But I agree with tkdguy that what's "common knowledge" changes over time. Every generation defines its own experience. How many of us on this forum know how to plant crops, or skin a rabbit, or shoe a horse?

 

All I'm saying is that the motivation of these reactors is the opposite of what you appear to ascribe to them. They want to know more, to broaden their experience.

 

BTW over forty years ago, when Ringo Starr's dreadful Caveman movie was in theaters, I was riding a bus passing by a theater showing that film, with Ringo's name on the marque. A couple of teenagers were sitting behind me, and I heard one ask, "Who's Ringo Starr?" The other one replied, "Wasn't he in the band that used to back up Paul McCartney?"

 

   I get that the goalposts change every few generations, but I do know what crop rotation is, that hasenfeffer is a German dish with rabbit meat (even if I can’t spell it) and that horses do in fact wear shoes. 
   As to the idea that there are people out there who don’t know who the Beatles are...they need to be taken out and either beaten, shot or educated depending on their reason.   See, I can be reasonable.

[IndianaJoe3]