I would like
to introduce my subject for this post. The subject is viral videos in music production.
I want to investigate some of the attributes of videos that have gone viral. This is an area that used to be the domain of TV production, but now is done through your computer. The authority of control has changed from the TV executives to those who hold the mouse. The mouse has become the largest beast in the forest.
Let me start by saying there may be certain factors that we can point to in
these videos, but I want to make it clear that I don’t believe there is a way
predict or manufacture one of these from a formula. If you look at the history
of the most watched videos on Youtube, there is no way to make a pattern of it.
The Pakistani man in the London fish market singing “1 pound fish” to become an
international celebrity goes beyond my ability to explain such things, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETSl8gWsFZ0. The story goes that the man’s boss insisted
he yell to the customers to get their attention; he didn’t want to yell so he
sang his song instead. In doing so he became an international internet
celebrity. He was greeted as a hero when he returned to his home country. Go figure!?
Beyond the unexplainable, there is some true
star power at work in this arena. Let me qualify what I am about to show you. I
am an observer, not a fan. So these assessments are trying be as objective as
possible and not an attempt to convince you that you should watch these. I am
not pushing these, but they do seem to be pushing the wave of public attention,
so let’s look at some of them.
In a study of most watched videos on Youtube you can’t go far without running into Lady Gaga. She has become a chameleon that changes appearance almost as often as most of us change shirts. The number of views she has amassed over the last several years are astounding. I stopped counting at 1 billion views. Yes that’s a “B” for billion. Her most watched video is “Bad Romance” with 508 million views.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrO4YZeyl0I Bad Romance 508 million.
Summary Gaga Is pulled out of container, stripped and has
some kind of drink forced down her throat. Later she is thrown in front of a
group of men.to dance and sing about wanting bad romance with them. Later she struts
toward one man sitting on a bed waiting for her. The camera shoots from behind
her as she walks up and pulls off her top. The scene shifts and shows her
standing in front of a bed that is ablaze as she sings. The final scene shows
her sitting on a bed that is completely burnt and charred with a burnt skeleton
lying beside her. She has no damage on her from the fire. Obviously the bad
romance had no effect on her.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wagn8Wrmzuc Judas
161 mil
Summary The next video is one called Judas. It has religious overtones and
references that mock what the Bible has to say. Without getting into that analysis
too deeply let me just quote the lyrics she sings at one point in the song, “Jesus
is my virtue; Judas is the demon I cling to.” That’s pretty self-explanatory
without over analyzing on my part. She sings throughout the song that she
loves Judas and want s to wash his feet, which is done in the video. Strange
stuff, but it has been viewed 161 million times.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVBsypHzF3U Telephone 160 mil
Summary Another interesting entry is one called Telephone which also includes Beyonce.
Here Gaga is dragged into prison, stripped and thrown into cell. This seems to
be a recurring theme in several of her videos. Later after she is released from
prison she gets in a truck with Beyonce and they go to a diner in the desert
and poison a dozen people. One guy seemed to be a target of Beyonce and the
others were collateral damage.
The last one
I would like to look at is not one with the most views but it might be the most
reveling in many ways. It is a duet with Mick Jagger on one of the Rolling Stones
biggest hits, “Gimme Shelter” She was a guest of the Stones at their concert, but she comes on stage and takes over. It only
has 354 thousand views since December.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWvVzxvkioQ
Gimme Shelter 354k
Summary Gaga dances on stage in 8” heels. She floats
around the stage, up and down stairs and never misses a beat. Mick watches her
to see watch she will do next. I have seen Mick on stage in many concerts with
many Divas, but I have never seen him upstaged like he was with Gaga. It was
interesting because with the heels she was actually taller than Mick. I wonder
if that was planned? The thing that stands out to me is that she was in charge,
I have never seen that before. I know the Stones are old and past their prime,
but the fact that they are still doing this says a lot.
To try to summarize her popularity is difficult.
Her videos often show her being pushed and shoved into prison cell and often
stripped and thrown down by others that seem to be in control. That seems to be
a way of attracting sympathy to her is my guess. The videos combined with her
public appearances show that most all of what she does is so truly outrageous
that it is planned to attract as much attention as possible. If that is the
goal, it has certainly worked. For instance, she appeared at one public event
wearing a dress that was covered in sliced raw beef. What did that mean? Was
she against animal cruelty? No one knew, but they talked about it for days and
weeks afterwards. To the best of my knowledge, she never made a public
statement about it. It seems what everyone made up was better than anything she
could say. All those opinions were also competing with each other as well. Can
I explain this star that has eclipsed the rest of the music world? No. Do I
enjoy the lyrics and images, not really. But I do have to admire the phenomenal
impact she has had on the entertainment world. She recently injured her hip
while in the middle of a huge tour. She was forced to cancel the remaining
dates on the tour because she will be forced to have surgery. A long list of big
cities was Included in that tour. Seemingly out of place on that list was
Greensboro, NC. I am not sure how we rated such a superstar. I wish her a
speedy recovery back to her journey through the music world.
Just as a
side note, Lady Gaga’s Facebook had 55 million likes. https://www.facebook.com/ladygaga?fref=ts
Lady Gaga’s concert announcement. http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/14/lady-gaga-cancels-tour-because-of-hip-injury/
Michael Edwards
Thursday, February 14, 2013
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