Song choosing

[hazelk]

Thinking about how song choice affects people’s reactions to vids (because bradcpu  was talking about it earlier this week, or was it last week, I have no sense of time).

Most vids I don’t know the song beforehand or even if I do having visuals make the experience a little like hearing it for the first time. A good example would be Handlebars by the Flobots which I first encountered on YouTube and was quite underwhelmed by. I’m not sure why because the official video is actually pretty awesome in a “Two Little Boys” kind of way but I think I switched over to something else before the song had a chance to build. Then kiki_miserychic  made a BSG vid to Handlebars, which was wonderful and made me fall in love with the song because now I could see what it was all about and what S4 was about and it was smart and funny and hit you in the gut with its (with hindsight) completely inevitable ending that I still did not see coming. Coming out of Vividcon there were two more Handlebars vids, which didn’t have the advantage of surprise but as it turned out the song was big enough for all three of them because they all make slightly different points. They’re all about hubris but in the BSG version it’s humanity’s pride before a fall; in the Iron Man version it’s one man’s journey to playing god and in the Dr Who version a god who plays at being a man - the journey is in the viewer’s perception of him.

So in conclusion I suspect most songs have more than one vid in them, or can be made to have through visual manipulation of their audience. That sounds like I’m saying that the visual aspect is completely dominant but I don’t mean dominant in a master-slave way. More like a dance where one partner leads but the success of the dance depends on how they work together. I think problems arise with songs that for some people come with so much emotional/political baggage that they’re leaders not followers. Then instead of a Rogers/Astaire coupling you have two virtuosos battling it out (if anyone’s ever seen the movie he did with Eleanor Powell you’ll know what I mean). Trying to come up with an example of a song with that kind of specificity, I think the best description is an article I read in the Guardian last year, in which Caryl Phillips traces his history with the Billy Holliday standard “Strange Fruit.” It’s got nothing to do with vidding but I think the point is a wider one and worth reading.

Comments

[bradcpu.livejournal.com]

in the Iron Man version it’s one man’s journey to playing god and in the Dr Who version a god who plays at being a man - the journey is in the viewer’s perception of him

That's a great way of putting it. I think you're right in that vidders can craft many different narrative journeys from a single song. That's another reason why I think it's important to have lots of different voices in the vidding community.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

Absolutely - even for non-attenders VVC is a big eye-opener. I probably wouldn't have taken a look at the DW and almost certainly not the Iron Man vid if they'd just been posted in the usual way.

[kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com]

I love watching vids to the same track (if it's done well). There's something that each vidder brings with them and there's something that each fandom brings too. There's room for many vids, especially Handlebars because there's such room in that song for exploration and invention. I think all three versions are different and say their own thing.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

Definitely, although it's hard not to get possessive of a song while you're actually vidding it :-)

[dualbunny.livejournal.com]

I quite like that analogy about the dancers. Very fitting for my experience. :)

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

That's reassuring:-) I think it doesn't quite work if you push it too hard but vidding and dancing *feel* like similar things in lots of ways to me.

[daybreak777.livejournal.com]

I was pointed here by a friend and I'm glad I was. What thoughtful observations. I do think songs can have more than one fan vid in them. Everyone has such unique vision. I've seen the same song used in the same fandom and it still had different means depending on the subject matter and characters.

I find great songs through watching vids! Songs I would have never found on my own. When you say some songs come with emotional baggage, it's true. It's also interesting how a song can have baggage to one person and be a completely clean slate for another.

Thanks also for linking to the article. I like the idea of some fan vids being as brave as Billie Holliday singing that song. It's really masterful when someone takes the song's emotional baggage and uses it.

Wow, this post really has me thinking thinky thoughts. I like that!

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

Hi! It's always good to hear from new people.

I completely agree about finding new songs from vids - they're probably my main source of new music these days. Having the visuals really makes you hear a song through someone else's ears. It is a little wierd though, as a viewer I can see one song have very different meanings depending on the vid but when I'm making a vid myself it does feel as if there's only one true meaning and the further you get into the process the more specific that becomes.