shallowness | My favourite things

Favorite hot drink?

Coffee with milk. I abhor tea, while hot chocolate is an occasional treat.

What's your favourite book so far this year?

I'd have to go with Mike Dash's Tulipomania, which is a nice history and a fun read. Who knew the history of tulips could be so suspenseful?

Oh, that sounds interesting - I didn't know there was so much to the history of tulips, although I knew that Holland was associated with the flowers. (I totally asked this looking for a rec.)

I know it's pinching it straight from the prompt (and ten days after you posted so possibly late?), but favourite album and/or musical genre? (I find it incredibly difficult to narrow it down to one album!)

It's never too late!

My favourite album, I think, is Midnight Snowflake by Mercury Rev. It's a bit trippy, a bit experimental and altogether wonderful. To be honest, picking a genre is more tricky for me. I like a lot, and there are good examples in most. I've increasingly got into electronica, but I love pop, indie, musicals...it would be easier to list genres I hate.

What's your favourite pop video or fanvid?

Oh, interesting! I'm not very familiar with Mercury Rev.

I know what you mean, there's stuff I like in pretty much every genre. I prefer electronica and pop but there's so much good music out there (and the lines between genres can be very blurry - I listen to the radio a lot and more stuff than you'd expect crosses over, even between XFM and the other stations).

Oh gosh. Now you're asking. I sort of consider Music Videos my One True Fandom (although I'm not fannish about them in the way other people are, I don't think, so it's sort of a fandom of one, hahaha).

One of my top ones is Confide In Me by Kylie (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSFDCmmsqEI). Also Let You Go by Chase and Status ft Mali (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBFEBeOTGXc).
I have a great fondness for Will Young's videos but particularly Hopes and Fears (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8U_qytr2We8).

There's a Chromeo video (Bonafied Lovin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGksDvKZ9ek) which is sort of a sequel to Dire Straits' Money For Nothing, using the same kind of effects (Money For Nothing is very dated now, obviously, but I think it was one of the first music videos with computer effects). Chromeo make some great videos.

Oh, and it's almost a cliche but A-Ha's Take On Me, of course. It's such an interesting technique and the video still holds up.

Anton Corbijn is my favourite music video director and is probably a lot of the reason I got so into music videos, because he did a lot of U2 and Depeche Mode videos around the time I was getting into their music. He's got a certain style that is quite recognisable after a while (just a couple of examples - Enjoy the Silence by Depeche Mode https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diT3FvDHMyo and Mensch by Herbert Groenemeyer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SG5A3PYaUs).

*typing pauses for ten minutes while I get distracted by Depeche Mode songs*

I'm going to try to restrain myself here but other artists who tend to have interesting videos include Kanye West (Touch the Sky https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkwQbuAGLj4), Kasabian (Club Foot https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lk5iMgG-WJI) and Martin Solveig (who actually had a continuing plotline going through his for a while - this is Hello https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kK42LZqO0wA).

And finally, I got emailed this link by a friend ages ago and while I love the song I *adore* the video (Sunrise Avenue, I Don't Dance https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95yFN7RkmfE).

As for fanvids (hahaha sorry, you probably weren't expecting that many links), one of my absolute favourites has sadly disappeared off the internet. It was a crack Merlin vid set to a rap song by MC Lars called Guinevere (sample lyrics: Got a sword named Excalibur/Legendary damager/Everyone knows I'm the Round Table manager) and it was amazing. Oh well.

As for vids which are still on the internet, at the moment it's basically

Like a Stone by SDWolfPup (Prison Break, Michael/Mahone) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IPOdtCNNYE because it got me shipping the pairing when I've never seen the show (also I like Chris Cornell)

Rolling in the Deep by arefadeaway (Charles/Erik) http://arefadedaway.dreamwidth.org/707.html because it's a really effective look at the whole series

Do What You Have To Do by greensilver (also Charles/Erik) for when I want to be saaaaaad http://trelkez.dreamwidth.org/546017.html

Radar by greensilver (Die Hard, John McClane) https://trelkez.livejournal.com/554116.html

Lights by Talith78 (Person of Interest, Reese/Finch & ensemble) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-DIZNH6jiE

I've just gone and looked at my Pinboard and without realising I've linked almost everything I've put there! So...I guess these really are my favourites. And also that I need to do some more bookmarking.

I think 'Goddess on a Highway' off Deserter's Songs is probably Mercury Rev's closest moment to the mainstream.

Thank you for the links! I (re)watched a couple. I was puzzled by 'Confide in Me' when it first came out and the aesthetic of the vid, but now I'm struck by how clever it is.

I've always enjoyed Will Young's videos, although I hadn't seen that one. Clever twist. Like Kylie, I get the impression he's collaborating in the videos. I'll probably be revisiting 'Your Game' soon now.

Do you think videos have lost their impact? I mean culturally, even if the numbers of hits online may be higher.

I'll watch/rewatch some more - A-Ha's 'Take on Me' is one that stands out, as you say.

Oh yes I know that one! That's the only one though.

Funnily enough there was an interesting article on Confide In Me recently:

http://chartshaker.wordpress.com/2014/08/28/1-555-confide-kylie-minogues-confide-in-me-turns-20/

(TWENTY? Christ. I don't remember it being that old, as I didn't really get into current music until we moved back to London, but I must be wrong about this one as the release date is right there!)

Yes, I think Will Young has a lot to do with the content of his videos, which is why they're so good and also occasionally a bit of wish fulfilment (the Blue Peter one, I think). He's actually one of my favourite artists, which usually surprises people after I've pushed a bunch of electropop on them. I think it's a combination of his voice and his videos.

I have been thinking about this recently, and I'm not sure they have lost their impact(because they've never been counted towards chart positions). I think for artists they're still a big thing - in the way that going on TOTP was a big thing when it was still on - and a lot of them still want to make something interesting (Iggy Azalea seems to have started doing movie pastiches, first with Clueless and now with Kill Bill). Although it's a bit of a joke that MTV doesn't show music videos anymore there are usually a lot of subsidiary channels/alternatives. Alright, probably because it's a cheap way to run a channel (hardly any of them have presenters) but a lot of the radio stations have diversified into music video channels. I think for some artists it's a will-this-do kind of thing, but you can usually tell (Michael Buble comes to mind for some reason!).

I think for older groups they might have lost their impact - I think I've seen one DM video from the last two albums actually on a music channel - but they're also out of the demographic for most of them and the style for all the rest. Then again, older bands like that don't really need their videos to be shown on the channels.

Not that this matters to me either way, now that I've moved and no longer have Sky *mournful sigh*.

Also, you get big artists releasing lyric videos now - obviously this is because everyone wants everything instantly and it's a placeholder while the actual videos are being made, but some of them could function as the actual video. Lady Gaga's lyric video for applause must have been made while the video *was being filmed* (based on what she's wearing).

I'm not a Katy Perry fan, but if you compare the lyric video and actual video for Roar, I don't really see what was worth the wait or why the lyric video wasn't enough - I'm sure for some other artist it could have been.

Lyric - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9SeJIgWRPk
Official - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CevxZvSJLk8

Doing the personal maths, I can believe it's 20 years. Interesting article.

I will always heart Will Young for being such an intelligent pop star, especially for coming through a talent show route.

I think I must be moving into the older demographic, and the fact that videos aren't on easily accessible Freeview channels (I think I've lost 4Music and Viva, and they were rarely airing music channels anyway). I can count the number of videos I've paid much attention to this year on one hand - I didn't even know about the lyric video phenomenon!

I forgot Ok Go!

Here It Goes Again is probably their best known video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTAAsCNK7RA) but they seem to really love making inventive music videos so anything by them is worth a look.

I'm really going to stop now, hahaha.

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