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Old February 18th, 2021, 07:09 AM
Total Noob Total Noob is offline
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Join Date: Sep 2007
Posts: 578
Good news, bad news.

Marshall McLuhan famously said "The medium is the message." Fair enough. I think there's a whole bunch of messages in the medium I'm referring to.

There's a relatively new sub-sub-genre of criticism known as the music reaction video. The format is that a reviewer who has ostensibly never heard a particular work suggested by his or her audience is going to give a snap review posted to youtube based on a first hear, typically a music video previously posted to youtube.

It is all very informal. The age of a particular piece of music doesn't matter. The age and experience of the reviewer doesn't matter. It doesn't even matter if the reviewer knows anything about music, although many of them do and some are even trained and paid musicians.

The review itself consists of a full screen video of the reviewer sitting and watching the music video on his own screen as it simultaneously appears in a small box on your screen, and you at home take turns watching the underlying music video and watching the reviewer watch it. There are occasional breaks in the copyright music to avoid blocks inflicted by youtube's AI.

So now let's move into the sub-sub-sub genre I'm addressing. Almost invariably, the reviewer is a Black Millennial, usually male. He will have a subscription base in the hundreds of thousands, mostly white people who are a full generation older and more who have favorites they suggest for review, not so much to win over the reviewer but for validation of their own choices made many decades earlier.

And the videos will invariably go something like this.

"Thanks for joining me today. I have new music. Remember to like, subscribe and hit that notification bell. You all know I'm giving an honest reaction and giving my all here. Thanks again for your thousands of suggestions. I'm picking the ones that I get the most. You know I grew up only listening to hip hop and R&B and that this has been a fabulous journey for me with your help. I've never heard of these guys before today, and I hope I'm pronouncing their name right and the name of the song right. Hope the audio is decent and that I won't get copyright blocked by youtube. Remember to put your suggestions in the comments below. And now, without further ado, let's listen to...




The Doors or
The Grateful Dead or
AC/DC or
Pink Floyd or
The Rolling Stones or
Queen or
Led Zeppelin
And so on and so forth.

Now I don't doubt for a second that the reviewers indeed have not heard of the Doors or the Grateful Dead before today and that their reviews (almost invariably positive because they are listening to thousands of suggestions of epic songs from epic bands from their older audience) are genuine and heart felt.

And I don't doubt for a second the genuineness of these guys shaking their heads and ruing the notion they had no idea about any of it until just now.

So in unpacking this, I give kudos to guys getting out of their comfort zone and exploring the world around them. It's a paid gig but I don't know how much and putting together the videos is pretty labor intensive so I don't know if they are making anything at it.

But not to have heard of the Doors or the Dead or Pink Floyd in between 20 and 40 years on the planet? How did that happen? And does it not start to explain the polarization in the US and elsewhere? If there's no common frame of reference with respect to the giant cultural phenomenon of music, how can we be in agreement on other kinds of history and science? What does it say about our media, our school systems, our parenting choices?

I'm providing an example. This guy has one of the largest followings. In fairness, it is mesmerizing to see the light go on as he finds the joy of comfort music I have heard a gazillion times, but still somewhat frustrating that he is in his 40's and only now getting the first earful of stuff I cranked up years before he was born.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m07E...xbmRb&index=37

Any comments appreciated.

Last edited by Total Noob; February 18th, 2021 at 04:42 PM.
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