Wednesday, June 18, 2008

The Evolution of Videos, or, I eat my candy with my Pork and Beans

Three weeks ago, Weezer introduced the world to the first single off their highly anticipated "Red Album," entitled "Pork and Beans." While I'm now old enough to say that I've know Weezer since the Blue Album, rocked out to "Buddy Holly," and remember them from way back when I was in 4th grade (about 9, 10 years old), I must say that this music video, in my opinion, can be looked at as one of the defining videos not only of 2008, not only of the Millenium, not only of the last 10 years, but can be looked at as one of the most pivitol videos in music video history.

Yes, I'm prepared to put them on par with Hendrix burning the guitar on stage at Woodstock, Aha's "Take On Me," The Buggles "Video Killed the Radio Star," Fatboy Slim's "Praise You," and yes, even Michael Jackson's "Thriller." Blasphemous as it may seem, this video tells more about our culture and generation than many may think. If you don't believe me, check out Mike's commentary on the video.



I can hear you all through the computer: "Yeah, I remember him, yeah, I remember that, I got that in a forward, etc." But this video does much more than just give us a few laughs. This video will be considered immortalized because it's more of a social commentary than a funny video.

If we were to look at it from a cultural aspect, it's groundbreaking. We, as a society, have become enamored with YouTube and this concept of Web 2.0, where we interact more with the web than (sometimes) with each other. Amazingly, this goes all the way back to the infamous dancing baby, which made the rounds back in 1996.

We've become a society that makes it much easier to get our 15 minutes of fame, and in some senses, our 15 minutes of infamy.

If this video isn't a great cultural commentary that will be preserved much like Thriller, I don't know what is...

4 comments:

Mark Rosario said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...

Hey Brandt, you do know that your video doesn't work anymore, right? Or are you trying to make a statement? ;)

brandt said...

I'm making a statement...

check the video now, it should be up and working

Anonymous said...

Yes, but South Park beat them to it.