Epic videos

[petronia]

I'm supposed to be studying for my stats midterm, but you know. XD

Fall Out Boy - A Little Less Sixteen Candles, A Little More "Touch Me": linked on this thread of worldserpent's, wherein I gripe pathetically that it was not the albion_fic/slacken_ties generation that got "mainstream" media slash fandom interested in bandslash. XD; Though then I went home** and thought about it some more, and now figure it might have something to do with... wholesomeness? Maybe? Approachability? That's the constant factor, from the original popslash to JE to the MCR-gen bandslash (I don't really draw a line between the Western and Asian variants when I think about them, though they don't seem to intersect on my flist). Libs fandom was always going to be better in theory than in practice, because in practice the Pete'n'Carl saga appealed to uhh segments of the fangirl population unlikely to write with rigour. And indie-ists have a quality of intimidation, like they're two steps ahead of your lit-theory-based self-justifications. Alex Kapranos most certainly is. XD;

(With respect to Patrick Wolf I figured it out mere days after that comment, in accordance with the subreality principle Charmian always invokes. It came to me without warning--

--Neil Gaiman. DESHOU.

*is sporked by helvetius*)

I know someone who used to write fanfic about Blur. It's an odd way of framing things mentally: while reading Phonogram I thought, what if Livejournal had existed in Richey Edwards' time. In Ziggy Stardust's time? Everyone still fresh from the Monkees fandom and everything.

Back to the music - Cis is right, My Chemical Romance's cover of "Umbrella" is definitive, a proper release is urgent+key. That video is a wretched tease btw because the whole point is you are waiting for the guitars to DROP LIKE VICTORIA FALLS. I never believed in "Umbrella" as R&B anyhow. XD Even when I listen to the original I keep expecting massive guitars on the chorus, a la Kelly Clarkson, and I'm not in the habit of hoping songs will sound more like Kelly Clarkson. (Or the Cranberries, because isn't that the "ella, ella, eh, eh" bit when you get down to it?)

EDIT -- I should mention that the Fall Out Boy video contains vampires; not a spoiler I think. TEARS. TEARS IN MY EYES.

New Order - Crystal: famously fulfilled its own prophecy by inspiring The Killers to existence (who promptly turned around and rendered homage with "Somebody Told Me"). The joke only gets funnier as time goes by - I ARE SERIOUS VIDEO delivery and all. To put it into perspective, the "Crystal" single came out in mid-2001. No one'd heard of Franz Ferdinand or Interpol or The Rapture or even The Strokes. Hedi Slimane had just begun designing skinny suits for Dior. "Haircut indie" didn't exist as a concept, which apparently wasn't enough to stop New Order from parodying the future.

(Which sounds like New Order. XD Believably, what with Barney Sumner's ageless voice.)

New Order - Krafty: one of my impossible writing goals is to recreate with prose the effect of the camerawork in this PMV (which IMO is one of the most beautiful extant).

Lucky Star does Initial D: I think this just sold me on the series.


** Metaphorically, I was sitting at the kitchen table.

Comments

[arboretum]

Oh man, the bandslash commentary went completely over my head, but then, I've never really figured bandslash out to begin with. I remember that Ini-D parody though! My little brother is really into Lucky Star... I find it really hilarious in small doses, but it's literally impossible to make me watch more than 1 episode at a time. Actually, it's probably best 5 minutes at a time... (though in general Lucky Star holds my attention better than Azumanga ever did, Azumanga being the only other 4-koma based anime I know of.)

[petronia.livejournal.com]

The worst thing is I don't even really read bandslash! About 95% of the time it doesn't do what I want it to do, namely act as a form of music criticism/pomo exegesis. With h0tt s3xx as warm chocolate syrup garnish on the sundae and no more (though no less). XD

I used to like embitca's Eminem fics. Before she went and locked them.

If it's meant to be watched 5min at a time it's a perfecto match for my current attention span. orz

[arboretum]

*g* if you need uploads, I can provide up to around ep12 or something, will have to check to be sure.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

I would love uploads, actually. XD ♥

[arboretum]

which host(s) work best for you? can do whatever is convenient...

unfortunately, I've looked and I seem to have only eps 1-4, then 8-11, with a mysterious hole in the middle. fortunately, chronology is anything but important in lucky star, so it really doesn't matter, and if I can find the missing eps later, I'll upload them for you then? ♥

[petronia.livejournal.com]

As long as it's not rapidshare, the 2-hour wait between free downloads really kills. XD; Thanks so much for this!

lucky star 1-3

[arboretum]

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=BDXM0QA0

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=DZ7S605I

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=5OF4BCV4

found the missing eps!

[arboretum]

lucky star 4-6


http://www.megaupload.com/?d=BKLSS9RJ
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=5Q5VFO4Y
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=C5T0GSC8

Re: found the missing eps!

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Thank youuu! Am downloading, slowly. XD

[arboretum]

which is perfect as I am uploading very slowly as well :D


7-9
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=IP4ZQIZT
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=0JE8U1YV
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=W1YIUZ8H

and here's the last of them...

[arboretum]

lucky star 9-14 -- I had more than I thought I had! :D

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=AVHZ3677
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=BMFNE1K9
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=BS7B466F
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=KMLDGJGA
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=93571Z4V

[sub-divided.livejournal.com]

That's a parody? It's...exactly what was in Initial D! Only with the parts reassigned -- makes you wonder why they didn't just recycle the audio like in those movie trailer parodies.

Neil Gaiman

*dies*

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Being my brain's retarded shorthand for "I bet Neil Gaiman would like this music." orz

It's aniparo, I guess? With the drawing style. That's the comedic value by me.

[cis.livejournal.com]

my running theory for why indieslash doesn't work the way popslash does is that indie fans just take indie too seriously to write good fic for it. I always forget, but popslash was a total revelation because the quality of the writing was so good - and if you read the popslashers' old fic, be they in the sentinel or sports night or wherever they came from, they're not a patch on the stuff produced in the nsyncslash heyday, it was an incredibly fertile extended moment. Obv, positive internet energy being nomadic and all, some of it was sheer lucky accident and some of it opportunism, but... at the core, you've this group of twenty-somethings, thirty-somethings, who are pretty strongly aware that they're writing fic about, you know, a boy band, whose awesomeness and whose lameness are fairly closely tied together. I don't want to call it irony, but-- they're capable of more separation, they have a more complicated relationship. And all this eyeliner-emo/pop-punk stuff is pretty heavily flagged in all our heads as 'for the teenagers', no matter the actual emotional impact it has on us: it occupies the same position that nsync used to in our collective ranking of music. I'm not sure you can ever become totally unselfconscious about it -- and I think that ambivalence is what creates the really great fic, the vibrancy of the fandom. Popslash fans aren't as precious about their leading players: they love them just as much, if not more, but they don't take their leading players at face value in the same way. Also, they skew slightly older - they've been through indie-cred (or an approximation thereof) and come out the other side.

I dunno, I suspect that there's a fairly fundamental uh 'fandom objective correlative' that comes into play-- the media that attracts the best fandoms isn't generally the objective 'best' (although it's not the worst either: it's the good that sometimes falls short).

[cis.livejournal.com]

this also ties into my running theory that slightly-lame music is more emotionally affecting because you don't take it seriously and therefore let your guard down. ...also that Great Art is fundamentally unlovable, but this is where i lose people. :(

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Taking it too seriously, YES. And that is why the only good Franz fics were jantalaimon's drabbles and that rentboy one featuring Morrissey.

I sort of toyed with the idea of the Weiss Kreuz Principle, you know, what if it needs to be bad so that fandom can make it good? But that's unfair, I don't want to say that the music is bad because it often isn't bad, baggage aside. XD; If it has something to do with fan attitude... I'm ambivalent about pretty much everything I like, so maybe that's why. XD;; I think the fact of liking anything embarrasses me; I have to struggle on a daily basis not to mercilessly mock the things I enjoy, because it skews the picture. And is a transparent ploy besides.

Though I'm never going to grok how the music isn't prioritized in all this. XD; Like I was saying to Bing below, it's not that I don't get the appeal (I think), it's that music aside there's no impetus for me to hop onto the factoid-interview-videoclip funride (self-sustaining once on).

Would have more to say but I'm falling asleep. orz

[cis.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think... I think the WK principle would be taking it too far, but I think there has to be something unsatisfying in it that becomes your hook. Whether it's 'but there's so much more they could be doing with the superman mythos' or... whatever. For the girl writing Manics fanfic it's straightforwardly true that Richey is a genius and an angel and tragically broken and everyone who matters knows this: she has nothing to prove, nothing to justify.

It's possible that I overstate the importance of 'being ambiguous about the things you love' because I too am kind of embarassed about liking anything, so I'd like to believe that it counts as a strength somewhere.

And, yeah, as you and one_if say, a strong element of the appeal is that it's a 'normal life' sort of thing, that they exist in the same world as we do even if parts of their lives are more glamorous. So you get recurring motifs in popslash and bandslash like 'bumming around on the playstation' (final fantasy seven in popslash, guitar hero in emopopslash); and they have to cope with the ambiguity about their own cultural value, just as the fans do. But maybe that comes a little secondary: the first impetus, as far as I can tell, is some mix of 'music' and 'sweet physically affectionate dudes who love what they do'. Plus 'easy to objectify' (there's another thing: in (emo)popslash you can objectify and empathise but idolise not so much).

The great thing about doing Daft Punk would be doing, like... Bangalter/Falcon instead. MESSING WITH THE OTP oh yeah.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Yeah, you can't write a story about a character just to say he's a beautiful genius, that goes for any fiction really... So I suppose what I want is for someone to engage critically with eg. the Manics' legacy, only through fic.

Put like that it sounds boring, though. XD (Compared to the endearingness of... speaking of which, I have to say the number one thing that endears me about the entire scene is how Pete Wentz being pouty and sullen and half-naked is clearly supposed to be teh funny.)

two_if Cathy has just made me see the light: it should be Bangalter/Kanye.

[cis.livejournal.com]

basically you want that lptj axl rose+eminem short!

I can't really imagine successful manics fic? Mostly because the cult of richey looms so large in my imagination (msp are also one of those FF-type pomo'd-you-out-already bands, "all rock'n'roll is homosexual"; "my idea of love comes from a childhood glimpse of pornography / but there is no true love, just a finely tuned jealousy" DISCUSS), and there's that sad teenage voice inside me that insists New Manics have betrayed the Old Manics just by existing, and how can someone write out their slump into epic glurge and keep it sympathetic? (possibly the reason why i have the manics on the brain is because a friend of mine accidentally found some je fic where members of kat-tun were manics fans and clearly this is the greatest idea ever, i kind of need a kame icon that says 'choice is skeletal in everybody's life'.)

if pete wentz being pouty and sullen and half-naked isn't funny, I don't know what is. (actually i'm still kind of in the phase where he creeps me out a little. i dunno, i also have ideological problems with ryan ross and his whole 'we never set out to write catchy tunes' thing ugh pls 2 realise yr catchiness is yr strength.)

haha omg. with flashback Bangalter/Busta!

[one-if-by-land.livejournal.com]

re: approachability in popslash/bandslash, it's much easier to fic and speculate about a group of people who appears to you as completely human, who you adore and want to succeed not necessarily because of their musical talents but more in a way that you'd want a friend or relative to achieve success than-- a band whose music you find pretentiously but startlingly brilliant. there's definite crossover though, because I can envision radiohead slash just as easily as nsync but the music isn't similar at all. but radiohead comparatively would be different than sayyyy. . . . thievery corporation, dying.

re: new order's crystal, I never thought of that! how the music video is completely in front of the hip curve-- it was before scenesters lost credibility; before scenesters even existed. incredible! I love that song/video, though; I am willing to forgive the 80s for everything because it produced new order♥.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Ahaha omg tell me about the Radiohead slash. XDD Seriously - yeah, I figured something like that, and it's where I depart from the norm (as proven by the fact that I'm not and have never really been in any pop RPS fandoms). I actually do get the appeal but it's not enough to make me want to read/write, because it is sort of like ficcing about Just People. I need some kind of larger-than-life hook, I guess. XD

Thievery Corporation. *dies* Pose too little of a challenge to be interesting, actually, in the way of Seigaku's Golden Pair all DJ duos ever. It's like, who else are you going to slash them with? But if you're going that route may as well do Daft Punk. STRIVE FOR THE TOP. OF THE PYRAMID

[one-if-by-land.livejournal.com]

laughing, I think the hook has to be some kind of musical politics-slash-drama; aesthetics and superficiality were why I fell for Johnny's, but the industry really is fascinating in a trainwreck kind of way. Johnny Kitagawa took the concept of legitimately selling boys' talents to a completely higher level. and with blur where was the ~epic falling out~ and technically radiohead was a high school band that formed at an all boys boarding school (I think you know where I'm going with this~). In comparison thievery corporation (or daft punk, DYING DYING) are like the mr and mrs smiths of fandom. (UNLESS YOU CREATED AN AU WHERE THERE WAS LIKE.... A DJ SWAP..... AND DUOS SWAPPED PARTNERS FOR A LIMITED AMOUNT OF TIME.... alksjdf I've been watching too much trashy TV)

[petronia.livejournal.com]

I won't lie: when I think about Johnny's, besides the Kinki Kids or Arashi numbers or whatever, I think of polemic on Neomarxisme (http://www.neomarxisme.com/). XD Close to the last entry there is a Johnny's rant, again! Neomarxisme's paradigm appeals to me because if were expressed through fic, the JE fandom would consist of yakuza thrillers. And by yakuza I mean Asami Ryuuichi.

I didn't know that about Radiohead. XD Learn something new, etc.

I was at a conference today about sampling and digital rights management and so on, and someone mentioned that we're living in a "remix culture". That ought to be the title of your story: "Remix Culture". XD

[jantalaimon.livejournal.com]

I probably won't get to watch these all with your commentary till this weekend at least, but I want you to know I love you all the same after reading all this. XDXDXDXD

[petronia.livejournal.com]

XDDDD It's sad, but I think I could blog about music videos forever.

[helvetius.livejournal.com]

:O

[petronia.livejournal.com]

I APOLOGIZE FOR EVERYTHING. Will try to take some decent pictures tomorrow night to make up for it; if I don't make it back it'll be because Patrick Wolf's fangirls have eaten me.

(Srsly, so terrified. GOING IN WITH A POSSE.)

[absenceofmind.livejournal.com]

forget that, imagine BEATLES fanfic. the john/paul OTP crowd, can you imagine?

"some day, we'll be kings."

"i thought we already were."

"some day, they'll name a pope after us."

cue the stoned laughter.

or the beach boys.

[cis.livejournal.com]

there is beatles fanfic! i have met (on the internet and even in real actual real life) at least one person who has written it!

[petronia.livejournal.com]

See, that is the thing - I can imagine the Monkees ficcing fandom, it would be exactly like every other fandom I've ever seen involving cute boys from an arguably fake band being dorks at each other! The Beatles would just be off the map, in the sense that HP is - you can't apply the tenets of HP to other fandoms or vice versa because it's just so damned big it's operating by a completely different set of rules.

I have now given this topic WAY TOO MUCH THOUGHT.

[serendip.livejournal.com]

I really need to listen to music that is not SuJu or Kpop. Actually, I sort of like Korean indie too and sometimes I even like some Korean rap, just not most of the mainstream stuff. Underworld is coming out with a new album and I'm going to go stare at an indie blog now XDDD

(It still really bothers me how much you like later New Order, you realise XD)