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Guiltless Pleasures
Jan. 25th, 2011 08:42 amYouTube has brought me great joy this week.
First,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rm's blog post on Miss America introduced me to Raise Your Glass by Pink. In the context of that post, it made me actively bawl. It was a good thing, and I needed it. Freak flag ahoy. [Note: video contains some fetishy imagery, not nudity but NSFW sexualized visuals.]
I showedgarillama, who riposted with an It Gets Better dance video. I will never look at Scrooge McDuck the same way again. [Note: visually SFW, but the adorable butch lead is swearing a blue streak.]
I've been listening to them back to back every time I need a hit of joy, and showing them to everyone. When I showed them tocinnamonteal, she showed me something that indulged my shameless obsession with improbable covers of pop songs*: Smooth Criminal on dueling cellos. Emphasis on the dueling. [Totally SFW.]
I subscribed to one month of a $5 streaming music service branded as Napster. (R.I.P. actual Napster.) I don't think I'll keep it, just because the interface is too much of a steaming pile, but with use it's growing on me so I may weaken on that. It exactly matches my listening style, which is to go on comprehensive jags, want to hear the entire Tom Waits catalog, right now, and then Are You Out There** for an entire day straight, and then drop it for best of 80s power ballads. Buying it song by song is unworkable and Pandora doesn't give me the level of on-demand I crave, so I ended up going to YouTube like everyone else.
This is simpler, higher quality, lower bandwidth, and pays the licensing fees. It seems to be a dying model, which is too bad, because it's letting me get back to productivity at work while giving me access to every ridiculous song cover I can imagine. I can also make playlists for things like geeking out about my writing, and know some of the tracks won't disappear out from under me. The only real weak point is that frickin' frackin' Lars Ulrich has locked down the entire Metallica catalog to buy-only. No Black Album for me.
Edited to add: And today RM's friendslist comes through with random research! 30 seconds from "I remember this very genderqueer glamorous advertisement" to this Campari ad.
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* So about the improbable covers of pop songs, they are one of the only points on which I absolutely agree with T-Rex. Inspired by the fan rendition of the Cheers theme on synthesized steel drum and theremin in this news post,arjache has started on a cover of Dragostea Din Tei (the Numa Numa song) rendered in accordion, theremin, and some hammered instrument that goes ching ching ching. We'll let you know how it turns out.
** Are You Out There by Dar Williams is another freak flag song with wild energy that knocks me on my butt and sometimes makes me cry. Anyone familiar with the history of Seattle-local NPR show The Swing Years and Beyond knows why. [YouTube link, audio-only with a static image, SFW.]
First,
rm's blog post on Miss America introduced me to Raise Your Glass by Pink. In the context of that post, it made me actively bawl. It was a good thing, and I needed it. Freak flag ahoy. [Note: video contains some fetishy imagery, not nudity but NSFW sexualized visuals.]I showed
garillama, who riposted with an It Gets Better dance video. I will never look at Scrooge McDuck the same way again. [Note: visually SFW, but the adorable butch lead is swearing a blue streak.]I've been listening to them back to back every time I need a hit of joy, and showing them to everyone. When I showed them to
cinnamonteal, she showed me something that indulged my shameless obsession with improbable covers of pop songs*: Smooth Criminal on dueling cellos. Emphasis on the dueling. [Totally SFW.]I subscribed to one month of a $5 streaming music service branded as Napster. (R.I.P. actual Napster.) I don't think I'll keep it, just because the interface is too much of a steaming pile, but with use it's growing on me so I may weaken on that. It exactly matches my listening style, which is to go on comprehensive jags, want to hear the entire Tom Waits catalog, right now, and then Are You Out There** for an entire day straight, and then drop it for best of 80s power ballads. Buying it song by song is unworkable and Pandora doesn't give me the level of on-demand I crave, so I ended up going to YouTube like everyone else.
This is simpler, higher quality, lower bandwidth, and pays the licensing fees. It seems to be a dying model, which is too bad, because it's letting me get back to productivity at work while giving me access to every ridiculous song cover I can imagine. I can also make playlists for things like geeking out about my writing, and know some of the tracks won't disappear out from under me. The only real weak point is that frickin' frackin' Lars Ulrich has locked down the entire Metallica catalog to buy-only. No Black Album for me.
Edited to add: And today RM's friendslist comes through with random research! 30 seconds from "I remember this very genderqueer glamorous advertisement" to this Campari ad.
----
* So about the improbable covers of pop songs, they are one of the only points on which I absolutely agree with T-Rex. Inspired by the fan rendition of the Cheers theme on synthesized steel drum and theremin in this news post,
arjache has started on a cover of Dragostea Din Tei (the Numa Numa song) rendered in accordion, theremin, and some hammered instrument that goes ching ching ching. We'll let you know how it turns out.** Are You Out There by Dar Williams is another freak flag song with wild energy that knocks me on my butt and sometimes makes me cry. Anyone familiar with the history of Seattle-local NPR show The Swing Years and Beyond knows why. [YouTube link, audio-only with a static image, SFW.]
