Remixed Timber

Try Matmos:

Apparently you can’t embed Youtube in comments, though autopreview suggested otherwise.

Chemical Brothers-Let Forever Be

That Chemical Brothers video is one of the best ever.

By the 0:30 mark I was thinking, sure looks like it inspired that mesmerizing Beck video. OK, the technical wizardry behind the transitions are more sophisticated in the Beck video, but surely it’s derivative? In a sense I was wrong completely: it’s the same guy…

Hard not to think of Busby Berkeley’s “Lullaby of Broadway” when you watch “Let Forever Be.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZws4r7IQPk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gGVryQDvv4&feature=related

Not the best that Berkeley did, but worth a look.

The same one, better quality.

Cripes, I can’t compete with this. I’m putting up videos every Friday morning these days, and I’m happy to be stuck in nostalgia mode while doing it, posting cool and cheesy and perfectly disposable pop stuff from the 80s mostly. That Beck video, though, is simply astonishing. Is that where videos have gone over the past couple of decades? Man, compared to that, my stuff–or even XTC’s best effort–just doesn’t rate. I feel embarrassed now.

Oh, c’mon. Everybody knows that if it doesn’t have Chris Walken dancing it can’t be the Best Video Ever.

Well, okay, since we’re abandoned the found-sounds-video-clipping entirely and have veered into Fatboy Slim / Christopher Walken territory, let’s go completely canonical and link to the Gnarls Barkley video: the best misuse of Rorschach the world has ever seen.

I think Pinker Tones accomplished the exact diametric opposite of Hexstatic and Coldcut. But this “Timber” was truly fun stuff: anyone have anything else along those lines? Found-sounds-oriented, yet with some direction and thematic sense, and not completely musically tone-deaf, with a fairly interesting music video?

Techno Overlay Theorem: Any two of these rhythmic-heavy found-sounds type songs will sound pretty not-terrible when played simultaneously. Pretty good, even. Right now I’m running Pandora on “Coldcut & Hexstatic” and letting whatever comes on play right over the top of Timber. Haven’t hit an unlistenable combination yet, and usually it’s been something of an improvement over the song on Pandora.

The overlay with Let It All Out (Tigerstyle) on Hybrid Present Y4K, whatever that is, has turned out to be truly incredible. The Y4K song is about twice as long, so all you have to do is click “play” again on Timber…

That’s what I was trying for with Matmos

Indeed, great find – I thought their “Stars & Stripes Forever” was especially fun.

even XTC’s best effort—just doesn’t rate.

Yeah, but even Pop Song ’89 had a better music video than Pumpkinhead. (Ironically, I can’t seem to find the censored version, that made the video so famous, online, though the uncensored version’s apparently mild enough to be hosted on YouTube – I imagine Stipe would be pleased.)

Anyway, today’s directors have affordable CGI and can realize visual transformations that wouldn’t have been possible in the 80s (or at least not affordable). That kind of technological change will inevitably correspond to a change in the dominant aesthetic, if not at the fringes. Etc. But if it reassures you any, the conventional wisdom is that one of the Top Ten Music Video Directors of Our Time is the guy that directed this mess. It has cute animals! It must be brilliant! Also, this depressing failure, which is only satisfactory from about 0:55 to 1:25, and 0:00 to 0:04…

>if it doesn’t have Chris Walken dancing it can’t be the Best Video Ever.
Meh.
Needs more cowbell.