Since starting this blog I have spent a lot of time on YouTube. I’ve always tried to not be from the internet. Ideally, I would never understand any memes (the best would be if I didn’t even know what a meme was ) or anything that anyone in a comment section was talking about. From hours of wading through videos and clicking link after link, though, I have come across some real gems.

As a result, I present to you Another Flavor’s 5 Best Things on YouTube (That Aren’t Music Videos).

1. Best Show - Yacht Rock

Yacht Rock tells the story of really smooth music. Steely Dan, Doobie Brothers, Hall and Oates, and Kenny Loggins are all featured. It is originally from Dan Harmon’s Channel 101 online TV network, but is also available on YouTube. Each episode tells the story of a really smooth song.

What is so great about Yacht Rock? Take a look at the first episode. There is a bizarre blend of the real (Michael McDonald being a new member of the Doobie Brothers) and the crazy (Jimmy Messina, homeless and drunk, inspiring What a Fool Believes). And the nautical jokes! “He’s swimming in a sea of sadness.” They really commit to the idea that all the makers of smooth music knew each other and all believed in the raw power of really smooth music. If you like music, TV, both, or all three, you’ll love Yacht Rock.

2. Best Comment - John Knox

YouTube comments are like if you were in a sewer and you needed to poop so you found a toilet in the sewer. Once you were done you flushed. Where would your poop go? It must go someplace worse and more disgusting than the sewer. This is the YouTube comment section. If you read the comments for this video you will see about 1,000 cases of some 12-year-old boy saying that he would have sex with the lead singer of the band. Duh. 12-year-olds would have sex with anyone or anything if they could. These comments are extremely sexist and annoying. Who mentioned sex? Why, when these people see a woman, do they only think about whether or not they would want to have sex with her? Is it because they have never had sex and no one will ever want to sleep with them? Is it because they are terribly alone?

Anyways, eventually you would come across this comment from John Knox:

“My name is brodie, mow mow mow mow, tch mow mow mow, tsh mow mow mow.”

Brody is the name of the singer of the band and one of the lines of the song is, “My name is Brody I’m from Melbourne. Fitzroy Melbourne Fitzroy Melbourne.” That’s what The Distillers want you to think, anyway. I think John Knox has more accurately depicted what she is singing.

Why is that comment so good? I don’t know. Sometimes I think about it in my tender moments and laugh. I imagine Brody sitting down to work on the lyrics and writing, earnestly, “My name is Brody mow mow mow mow.” She stops, pencil eraser in her mouth, to think. “Tch mow mow mow,” she writes. “Tsh mow mow mow.” If only every YouTube commenter made me feel like John Knox does I would make an effort to read the YouTube comments more often.

Note: All non-sexist comments on YouTube make some sort of reference to high school and claim that things happening in 2003 were “old school”. Do not take one excellent comment as a license to read YouTube comments. You will regret it.

3. Best Theme Song - Angel

Mmm, Angel. Angel’s theme song is so good that I think every serious show should use it and then just whisper the name of the show at the end of the credits when all the bells are ringing, early-episodes- of-Sliders-style.

The Angel theme song takes you on a journey. It opens with mysterious synths. Then a bell rings while a cello starts playing. Spooky. Then drums kick in and a guitar joins the cello. Each change in the song is accompanied by bell ringing. The song builds to a climax with a high cello note and the bells ring us out. I end each listen satisfied, happy, and slightly damp.

If you know how to video the YouTubes I highly recommend you go in and replace all theme songs with the Angel theme song. You won’t regret it.

4. Best Fan-Made Video - Side Kick by Rancid (animated)

I like Rancid. I like this song, too, although I think it would be better if every instance of Wolverine was replaced with She-Hulk. Sometimes, though, you want to see a song and not just hear it. That’s probably why I like music videos so much. So we are lucky that this fan, armed with MS Paint, created this video.

The thing I like best about it is this sequence:

Such artistry to his expressions. Wolverine usually expresses himself through drinking and waving his claws around, but here we see everything through his face. His claws don’t even move. And look at those trees and that grass in the background. That detail isn’t necessary but I think it adds something. This guy went through a lot of trouble to provide literal illustrations of every line in the video. And he didn’t bother to check his spelling. But that is fine. This video also makes me feel good.

Just look at this:

Those people really believe they are doing the right thing by calling the cops, and that is the beauty of this video.

5. Best Book Collection Explanation - Danzig

This was the hardest category for me to choose from. There are so many good book collection explanations on YouTube these days, but this one ultimately feels the best to me. “Welcome to my book collection.” What an opening.

I love all his smiles in this video. He smiles after speaking of the true story of a werewolf who comes out of the woods shaking a baby in his mouth. Or this picture:

“Every school child should have this book.” Hilarious. The whole video is a weird blend of mock serious and totally not serious. And then there’s the last line, “If you believe in any of that stuff.” Man, Danzig. Danzig Danzig Danzig. His name is Danzig mow mow mow mow.

-PTD

Ever since the earliest days of this blog (approximately 8 minutes ago, for those of you just joining us) I’ve stressed that a good music video is an ad for your band. A video gives you something to look at while you slog through the stultifying chore that is listening to music. A video lets you see the band up close in a way that you never could at a live show. I’ve found it is much easier to buy drugs at a live concert, though, because my cats are rarely holding. A video lets you feel like you are hanging out with the band and doing what they like to do (apparently make music videos). And a video gives you a chance to learn about the personalities of the band members.

With a multi-person group (groups with only one person, like Bon Iver, are best avoided) it is important for the various members to have distinct personalities. I [faulted One Direction once](/posts/ridiculous-hairstyles-on- beach-what/) for not doing this. The Spice Girls understand it, and even gave the members names that indicated their personalities. Sporty Spice liked sports. Posh Spice was rich. Baby Spice was a baby. Ginger Spice had red hair. And Scary Spice was terrifying because she was black. These are archetypal characters that are quickly grasped. We don’t need subtle characters that might star in an indy film about a man who learns that his entire family has been engaging in intercourse with starfish. We just need a single character trait for each person.

Not every band is as straightforward as the Spice Girls, though. Still, you can always create personas for your band. To wit, Dream Police by Cheap Trick:

This whole video is essentially an introduction to the band members. It’s like a white version of J.D. Salinger’s Seymour, an Introduction.

We start with a literal introduction to the band in the form of their logo:

Little known fact: The second Cheap Trick is silent.

Then we see the band in silhouette.

I learned from Websnark that a good cartoon character is recognizable by silhouette alone. Can you recognize these dudes? I can’t. Too dark.

Let’s shed some light on the situation.

Okay, here they are. We don’t really know too much about their personalities yet. We can mostly just see the guy in the stupid hat with all the buttons.

At this point the band starts playing.

I love a good point.

The drummer is absolutely amazing. He is like a somehow schlubbier Dan Akroyd.

That mustache! And he always has his cigarette pointing down for maximum sad times. And he’s doing all this while playing some pretty rad fills.

While the drummer is a quiet masterpiece, the guitar player is trying way too hard.

He didn’t want to look good, so he wore stupid clothes and clashing patterns. He went so far into irony, though, that he somehow came back full circle to just looking bad.

The singer and bass player are still pretty bland at this point. A lot of singing.

The singer gives us a little something when he whips his hair back and forth.

He has a carefree, no-attention-paid-to-haters-type attitude.

The guitar player suddenly becomes sinister.

Throughout the video he gets suddenly angry looks on his face. I think the fun-loving exterior is hiding something terrifying.

During the guitar solo, something happens that I really like. Usually, guitar players try to show off during the solo. “Look how fast I can play!” They shout. “Mom! MOOOOOM! You’re not looking!” The guitar player, though, slows it down and does this lumbering walk while playing a slower melody. Sweet.

It’s hard to hear his guitar playing over his pants, though. Ouch.

Now we get down to brass tacks. The video cycles through each band member using a woman’s hands to show their personality and also showing a shot of the band member as dream police officer.

First there is the drummer.

Naturally the woman’s hand provides a cigarette.

Then we have the guitar player.

The woman’s hand places a button on him.

Then there is the bass player.

The woman’s hand does something to his face. What is that?

Ah, it was a stamp of a woman’s lips with red lipstick. Apparently he is something of a ladies’ man.

Then there are a bunch of kiss stamps.

Whoa! He is really a ladies’ man! Wait, why am I assuming those are lady- kisses? I’m terrible.

Finally we have the singer.

The woman’s hands straighten his tie. I guess he is very concerned with his appearance?

Then the band plays us out.

I love this video, even though it has the stupid introduction thing before the song starts. We get a good sense of all the band members and they seem cool! Especially the drummer. This makes me like Cheap Trick even more and that is what a good music video does. Ideally it turns “Cheap Trick. Aren’t they the band that shot Gerald Ford?” into “Cheap Trick. I really like how they shot President Ford.” It certainly has for me. I support all of their gun-related decisions.

-PTD

I like to give artists the benefit of the doubt. This means that I assume that if something happens in a music video it is for a reason. I’m sure bands will frequently just put a bunch of crap in a video that they think is cool or funny or whatever. I try to ignore that, though, as an aspiring New Critic (note: if you are ever saying “New Criticism” out loud you have to specify the capital n and c immediately afterwards for maximum-pedantic-asshole effect) and do my best to find meaning in everything. Sometimes it is hard, though.

The Universal by Blur:

This video is filled with implied significance. There are golf ball shaped speakers.

Blur is sitting in a bar that is an homage to the bar in Clockwork Orange. The singer even has one fake eyelash.

See how the wall behind them looks like the outside of the speaker? That must mean something. Maybe the band is inside the speaker? Maybe the speaker lulls you into a magical world of Clockwork Orange bars?

The band certainly does not seem excited about being the entertainment.

The bass player is leaning against the wall and the guitar player isn’t even standing up.

The singer seems happy, but not animated.

Suddenly he springs into action.

What does all of this mean? Was the band transported into the speaker or are they a part of it? The speaker stands there: monolithic and mysterious. The band seems to be monolithic and mysterious, too. They are powerful, but slow to move. They are also in all white just like the bar. I think that they are part of the speaker and must provide entertainment.to those sucked in.

Who are these people they must entertain? There is a group of be-suited and -bowtied men around a single woman.

There is a man with a priest.

There are two people having this hilarious exchange:

There’s a man kissing two red women.

There’s two old people who might be identical twins wearing red goggles.

This is what the world looks like to them.

Here we get a shot of people outside the speaker, including one of the red- begoggled twins.

This supports our theory that people are pulled mentally into the speaker, but the space inside the speaker is more theoretical than consisting of tiny people. This is good.

Things start to get weird as the priest and the other guy get drunk. The priest whispers something to the other guy.

The other guy is shocked while the priest laughs.

The singer reveals that, as a British celebrity, he can have bad teeth.

And then the priest kisses the other guy on the mouth.

So… since the video doesn’t really make sense I assume that the interaction between the priest and the other guy is the key to the whole thing. What does it mean?

Honestly, I don’t think it means anything. Everything seems like it means something, but ultimately it doesn’t. There’s the hint of something bigger but no substance. Ultimately, it’s just a collection of, “Wouldn’t it be cool if…”

Oh well. At least we get a priest kissing a man on the mouth.

-PTD