Several weeks ago I was sleeping in my recliner as I often accidentally do. My trusty DVR had begun recording the triumphant return of “Beavis & Butthead”. The sudden change in programming woke me up. The familiar opening guitar riff of the show accompanied by the guttural grunting laughs of the two idiots from my teen years soothed me in a strangely joyous manner.
I needed soothing as I awoke with a feeling I am all too familiar with. The feeling of something going wrong in my lungs. A sensation I have difficulty describing but not a pleasant one I can assure you.
After the video, I dragged myself to bed. You can imagine how going to sleep with this video in your head can affect the way you sleep.
The next morning I found the video in its entirety and immediately felt the need to break it down and share with the world how I felt about every second of the video. While such a task is impossible (as I have discovered) I did my best to cobble together as many of my thoughts as possible and present them to you.
Combine all of the above with the state of my musical collection during my last blog and the birth of my interest in this song was quite strange indeed.
I will start by saying little has changed in the world of “Beavis & Butthead”. The two idiots remain mostly the same all these years later. The only change seems to be in the way in which their show is presented.
Instead of only making fun of music videos between their various adventures they also make fun of the various lame and I would argue culturally damaging shows like “Jersey Shore”, “Sixteen and Pregnant” and “True Life”. Still Beavis and Butthead take the time to make fun of the occasional music video on their show. I think it’s the only time that music videos are shown on the network. I know that may seem like a sarcastic exaggeration but I think it’s closer to the truth. The entire “no music videos on MTV” joke/rant/hipster upheaval has been done and re-done so many times by so many people I won’t do it here.
Originally I thought it important to hear the song before watching the video, but I have since reversed that notion. Still, I think it important to see the video in it’s original condensed form (sorry, the link has since been removed on YouTube) the same way I did, after midnight on a show that seems to have delightfully not changed much since the 1990’s.
I love Beavis’s “Shouldn’t have sent that kid to Hogwarts” comment.
And now the entire version, which I had to dig up after my strange first encounter with my song in the early morning hours.
A good video needs several elements in order for it to live up to my standards of a great video, I’ll list them below and discuss how “First Of The Year” measures up.
1. Good Song: This is an obvious one, but arguably the most important, if I can’t stand the song then the video has little to no shot of stopping me from not even finishing it let alone counting it among the best. Obviously this song makes the cut (more on that later).
2. The song has to enhance the video and vice versa: This video does an excellent job of this. The video provides the grim setting while the song makes the little girl’s actions seem more epic and powerful.
3. No band performance: Most videos, I’d say at least 90% either have a band playing the song or try and cut back and forth between the band performing and whatever the video is trying to develop on its own. This is a big pet peeve of mine. It can be done, but it’s very difficult. Lucky for this video, we’re dealing with a techno band here. I think it’s not a coincidence that some of the best mind bending videos I can think of are done with techno/industrial songs. After all, not much performing to show, unless you’re into watching guys push buttons on a mixer behind a mountain of stereo cable.
4. Video should mesh with the music: This is what I think this video does best. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a video do such a good job of matching with the video. Every force field blast, ever musical twist and reverb is matched with a similar action on screen. Even different segments of the song match the musical tone, from the little girl skipping down the street to the beat of the happy tune at the beginning of the song to the antagonists broken doll laden nightmare, to the song’s climatic black monster ending....the list goes on and on.
5. Don’t be too obvious: I’d almost say this is the only thing the video doesn’t do well. Normally I don’t like to be hit over the head with the meaning. I’m not stupid, you don’t have to spell it out for me. For the most part it is blatantly clear what’s going on in this video. The twist about half way through the video helps save things a great deal. The Viewers entire concept of what you think is going to happen is changed with the songs juxtaposed cry of “CALL 9-11 NOW!!!” So it works in that respect. I also think the end of the video where the last hash mark is added,.......I don’t think that means what everyone else thinks it means, and I’ll keep my little theory to myself....After all, having your own personal secret theory only adds to the mystique of this song.
On top of everything else this video came into my life around the time the Penn State scandal was breaking. A story so prevalent in the news and all other forms of media I won’t bother to link things here. The timeliness of this work added to the sweet revenge aspect this piece has and increased the already surreal nature with which I saw it for the first time.
Timing with current events aside, as I mentioned above one really can’t have a good video without a good song and there is plenty to love with this song.
I love how heavily percussive the song is. I’ve always felt a deep connection to percussion, and the complexity of this songs percussion is simply mind blowing to me. For most, probably too much is going on, especially if they are simply listening to the song and not watching the video.
I may regret saying this later, mostly because it will never happen. But I enjoy this song because it sounds like the type of music I would aim for if I ever was able to create music of my own. A lifetime dream I’m almost guaranteed to never fulfill. The fact that I have tried makes the technical achievement that is this song all the more impressive.
I threw around the term ‘music’ a lot above, after listening to the song I think a lot of people would take issue with that. What they hear is simply a car crash of noise, blips and bloops. The fact that most would not appreciate this kind of song makes it more personal, and therefore more special to me. I would go as far as to say that my editor wouldn’t like this song either. If I were to say such a thing and if such a statement were true, it would add to my enjoyment of the song. However in this hypothetical scenario the fact that I would’ve said that would cause him to say he liked the song/video just to be difficult,...so therefore, I say nothing of the sort here....
I love how the song builds up, especially after you’ve listened to the song before, you know the explosive “CALL 9-11 NOW!” is coming. Therefore the song gets better the more I listen to it, instead of tiring itself out like other songs I fall in love with do.
Love is a strong word, but I also love how this song sounds like a song from the future, like how a song was supposed to sound like in the year 2011. If someone had played a collection of recycled pop music crap and then this song for me when I was growing up in the 80’s I would without a doubt mark this song as how I thought music would sound in the mystical far off 2010’s. So to me the song is like music from a different version of the present. A present where music continued to evolve and grow instead of regurgitate itself every year in search of cash.
Lastly, I feel the song stands on it’s own quite well. First off, the song is a lot longer than the video version and completes in a nice neat package working it’s way gradually to the happy melody of the beginning of the song.
Another aspect keeping this song standing on its own two feet is that I am able to picture a separate mental image despite my countless views of the video. This is a bonus as normally this is not the case. I recall Lars from Metallica commenting once that before videos it was more fun to have your own mental image of a song, then with the advent of videos he argued your vision is replaced with something else. While this is true for most songs that become singles and therefore videos, most songs on an album do not, leaving room for songs like NIN’s “Reptile” painting a very vivid picture in my mind. I’ve even thought of writing a blog on how I would shoot the video for that song.
I don’t like to throw around the word “Epic” and tend to despise those that do, but in this case I truly feel that song and video combined “First of The Year” is truly epic. Perhaps that’s why I had such a difficult time completing this blog. I felt the need to make the accompanying blog epic as well, or at least worthy of its subject. Perhaps I failed there, or perhaps I didn’t. I do however know this, I’m glad I happened upon “First of The Year” and happy I happened upon it in such a deliciously strange atmosphere for my first viewing.
Follow me on Twitter: @TheSmittyBlog
I needed soothing as I awoke with a feeling I am all too familiar with. The feeling of something going wrong in my lungs. A sensation I have difficulty describing but not a pleasant one I can assure you.
After the video, I dragged myself to bed. You can imagine how going to sleep with this video in your head can affect the way you sleep.
The next morning I found the video in its entirety and immediately felt the need to break it down and share with the world how I felt about every second of the video. While such a task is impossible (as I have discovered) I did my best to cobble together as many of my thoughts as possible and present them to you.
Combine all of the above with the state of my musical collection during my last blog and the birth of my interest in this song was quite strange indeed.
I will start by saying little has changed in the world of “Beavis & Butthead”. The two idiots remain mostly the same all these years later. The only change seems to be in the way in which their show is presented.
Instead of only making fun of music videos between their various adventures they also make fun of the various lame and I would argue culturally damaging shows like “Jersey Shore”, “Sixteen and Pregnant” and “True Life”. Still Beavis and Butthead take the time to make fun of the occasional music video on their show. I think it’s the only time that music videos are shown on the network. I know that may seem like a sarcastic exaggeration but I think it’s closer to the truth. The entire “no music videos on MTV” joke/rant/hipster upheaval has been done and re-done so many times by so many people I won’t do it here.
Originally I thought it important to hear the song before watching the video, but I have since reversed that notion. Still, I think it important to see the video in it’s original condensed form (sorry, the link has since been removed on YouTube) the same way I did, after midnight on a show that seems to have delightfully not changed much since the 1990’s.
I love Beavis’s “Shouldn’t have sent that kid to Hogwarts” comment.
And now the entire version, which I had to dig up after my strange first encounter with my song in the early morning hours.
A good video needs several elements in order for it to live up to my standards of a great video, I’ll list them below and discuss how “First Of The Year” measures up.
1. Good Song: This is an obvious one, but arguably the most important, if I can’t stand the song then the video has little to no shot of stopping me from not even finishing it let alone counting it among the best. Obviously this song makes the cut (more on that later).
2. The song has to enhance the video and vice versa: This video does an excellent job of this. The video provides the grim setting while the song makes the little girl’s actions seem more epic and powerful.
3. No band performance: Most videos, I’d say at least 90% either have a band playing the song or try and cut back and forth between the band performing and whatever the video is trying to develop on its own. This is a big pet peeve of mine. It can be done, but it’s very difficult. Lucky for this video, we’re dealing with a techno band here. I think it’s not a coincidence that some of the best mind bending videos I can think of are done with techno/industrial songs. After all, not much performing to show, unless you’re into watching guys push buttons on a mixer behind a mountain of stereo cable.
4. Video should mesh with the music: This is what I think this video does best. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a video do such a good job of matching with the video. Every force field blast, ever musical twist and reverb is matched with a similar action on screen. Even different segments of the song match the musical tone, from the little girl skipping down the street to the beat of the happy tune at the beginning of the song to the antagonists broken doll laden nightmare, to the song’s climatic black monster ending....the list goes on and on.
5. Don’t be too obvious: I’d almost say this is the only thing the video doesn’t do well. Normally I don’t like to be hit over the head with the meaning. I’m not stupid, you don’t have to spell it out for me. For the most part it is blatantly clear what’s going on in this video. The twist about half way through the video helps save things a great deal. The Viewers entire concept of what you think is going to happen is changed with the songs juxtaposed cry of “CALL 9-11 NOW!!!” So it works in that respect. I also think the end of the video where the last hash mark is added,.......I don’t think that means what everyone else thinks it means, and I’ll keep my little theory to myself....After all, having your own personal secret theory only adds to the mystique of this song.
On top of everything else this video came into my life around the time the Penn State scandal was breaking. A story so prevalent in the news and all other forms of media I won’t bother to link things here. The timeliness of this work added to the sweet revenge aspect this piece has and increased the already surreal nature with which I saw it for the first time.
Timing with current events aside, as I mentioned above one really can’t have a good video without a good song and there is plenty to love with this song.
I love how heavily percussive the song is. I’ve always felt a deep connection to percussion, and the complexity of this songs percussion is simply mind blowing to me. For most, probably too much is going on, especially if they are simply listening to the song and not watching the video.
I may regret saying this later, mostly because it will never happen. But I enjoy this song because it sounds like the type of music I would aim for if I ever was able to create music of my own. A lifetime dream I’m almost guaranteed to never fulfill. The fact that I have tried makes the technical achievement that is this song all the more impressive.
I threw around the term ‘music’ a lot above, after listening to the song I think a lot of people would take issue with that. What they hear is simply a car crash of noise, blips and bloops. The fact that most would not appreciate this kind of song makes it more personal, and therefore more special to me. I would go as far as to say that my editor wouldn’t like this song either. If I were to say such a thing and if such a statement were true, it would add to my enjoyment of the song. However in this hypothetical scenario the fact that I would’ve said that would cause him to say he liked the song/video just to be difficult,...so therefore, I say nothing of the sort here....
I love how the song builds up, especially after you’ve listened to the song before, you know the explosive “CALL 9-11 NOW!” is coming. Therefore the song gets better the more I listen to it, instead of tiring itself out like other songs I fall in love with do.
Love is a strong word, but I also love how this song sounds like a song from the future, like how a song was supposed to sound like in the year 2011. If someone had played a collection of recycled pop music crap and then this song for me when I was growing up in the 80’s I would without a doubt mark this song as how I thought music would sound in the mystical far off 2010’s. So to me the song is like music from a different version of the present. A present where music continued to evolve and grow instead of regurgitate itself every year in search of cash.
Lastly, I feel the song stands on it’s own quite well. First off, the song is a lot longer than the video version and completes in a nice neat package working it’s way gradually to the happy melody of the beginning of the song.
Another aspect keeping this song standing on its own two feet is that I am able to picture a separate mental image despite my countless views of the video. This is a bonus as normally this is not the case. I recall Lars from Metallica commenting once that before videos it was more fun to have your own mental image of a song, then with the advent of videos he argued your vision is replaced with something else. While this is true for most songs that become singles and therefore videos, most songs on an album do not, leaving room for songs like NIN’s “Reptile” painting a very vivid picture in my mind. I’ve even thought of writing a blog on how I would shoot the video for that song.
I don’t like to throw around the word “Epic” and tend to despise those that do, but in this case I truly feel that song and video combined “First of The Year” is truly epic. Perhaps that’s why I had such a difficult time completing this blog. I felt the need to make the accompanying blog epic as well, or at least worthy of its subject. Perhaps I failed there, or perhaps I didn’t. I do however know this, I’m glad I happened upon “First of The Year” and happy I happened upon it in such a deliciously strange atmosphere for my first viewing.
Follow me on Twitter: @TheSmittyBlog
No comments:
Post a Comment