The Velvet Zebra

i’m a purist

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by

The Velvet Zebra
in

For the most part. I don’t like colorized movies. If something was filmed in black and white, I want to see it in black and white. I’ve seened old movies colorized before and they stink.But when I say I’m a purist, I’m usually refering to music, which I believe was made for the ears, not the eyes. The ears, and the imagination. Music speaks to all of us, but it has something completely different to say to each person who hears it. You and I might both love the same song, but the mental picture we get when listening to it – the feelings it evokes – the things that music says to us are going to be as different as night and day.

That’s just how it works.

And that’s why I don’t like music videos. It’s fine that the artist, or as in most cases, the video producer, want to show us what that song said to THEM – but it’s not what that song says to me. So seeing a music video often frustrates me and can, in extreme cases, ruin a song. If the image in my head is vastly different than the video, every time I hear that song I’ll be frustrated. It won’t hold the same allure, because my vision and the music video are so completely different.

And you’ve all see it – videos that basically had nothing to do with the song, but damn, they sure looked fine! The artist wanted to fulfill an acting fantasy, or the director had “vision”. I remember when Queen finally got talked into making videos, they were saddled with a director who didn’t even know their music, and the subsequent videos were horrid. (Yes, this was back in the olden days, kiddies).

I love music, like most of us do. And I had a friend who loved music videos, and never understood my distaste for them. But really this isn’t about pro or con music videos – purist or forward-thinking. Newfangled or old fashioned.

No, this is just about a cool song, that’s happily and currently stuck in my head, but I couldn’t share it with you without linking to one of those dreaded music videos – so if you’re like me, and don’t really care for visuals that have little or nothing to do with the lyrics or the message – check this out with the volume up, and your eyes closed:

Psycho

If you like quirky videos and cute little homages to slasher flicks, go ahead and watch while you listen. And if you just plain don’t like Puddle of Mudd, well phoey with you 😀

Comments

3 responses to “i’m a purist”

  1. Shadow Ferret Avatar
    Shadow Ferret

    What was it, video killed the radio star?

    I can think of any number of groups, songs, that benefited tremendously from a video because the song itself was awful. I know because when MTV was in its infancy, and actually playing videos, there were a number of albums I went and bought based on the strength of the video, only to play the music and find out there was nothing there. Without the visuals, the music couldn’t stand on its own. Extremely disappointing.

    However, I guess I don’t get an image of a song in my head. Not like when I read a book and I get images of the characters, scenes, and stuff. Music, to me, is about feelings, emotions, it becomes a soundtrack to your life. When I listen to music, especially music from my youth, I get feelings of nostalgia, I remember events and people that I knew, things that happened when I listened to those songs.

    So, when I listen to music, I don’t get images in my head. I don’t see a movie of the song playing out in my head. In fact, I get nothing visual, therefore seeing a video doesn’t ruin a song for me, or even enhance it. There’s the song. And then there’s the video. After I’ve seen the video, I don’t start imagining the video when I listen to the song.

    In fact, I think those two processes are totally unrelated inside my brain. If I’m watching a movie, I hardly ever notice the soundtrack. People have always said that “Conan the Barbarian” had an excellent soundtrack and yet, despite having watched that movie a dozen times, I can’t think of what the music was like. There is some sort of disconnect in my mind between sound and vision.

    (And to be honest, I’ve heard of Puddle of Mud but never heard anything by them before. To me, this was a case where the video was the best part of that song. :p)

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  2. Shadow Ferret Avatar
    Shadow Ferret

    Oh, and as I thunk on this more, I realized that there is a video track to my music. Not actual images. But I used to listen to a lot of music as a teen while I read a lot of books. Now when I listen to Black Sabbath I am reminded of Robert E. Howard’s Conan. When I listen to Deep Purple, I am reminded of the Doc Savage pulp stories. When I listen to Jethro Tull, I’m reminded of Edgar Rice Burrough’s Tarzan. Each group, each album, is associated with some novel or series I read when I was younger. I don’t necessarily have images, but I have memories.

    And I remember when Ted Turner first started colorizing movies. It was horrible. Someone would have this red hat and as they walk, the color danced along with the hat, sometimes in the hat, sometimes next to it, as if the color was floating free of the object. They soon perfected that, but to be honest, I can’t think of a single colorized movie that I prefered to the original.

    I can see a use for it though. I know many people who will never watch a black and white movie because it is “old looking.” So it if gets these chumps to watch a classic, then it has it’s purpose.

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  3. mymidnightmuse Avatar
    mymidnightmuse

    I suppose, but I think these chumps need to watch some classics and get some culture! I’ve seen some colorized stuff that looked like a 2 year old had been given a crayon. A travesty.

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