The Tube

When I was a kid, if someone asked you, What’s on The Tube? it meant What’s on Television?   You see, Younger Eyes, back in the day … as those of us with Older Eyes like to say … not only was television low definition and monochrome, the screen was based on a Cathode Ray Tube, a large vacuum tube using an electron gun to project an image on a fluorescent surface.  Get it?  The Tube?   Say What’s on the Tube? these days and I’d guess most people without gray hair would think YouTube.  Of course, using my smart BluRay player or my Roku box, I can play YouTube on my flat screen TV, so I can see what’s on The Tube on what we used to call The Tube, having it both ways, so to speak.   I told you I’m a geek.  And as part of my ongoing campaign to appear as up-to-date old geek, YouTube is the topic here on Top Sites Tuesday #212.

I found an article by Mat Honan on Wired … the Techie Geek website … titled Gangnam Style Is One Year Old, And Music Is Forever Different.  For some strange reason, I knew that Gangham Style was associated with the pudgy Korean performer that keeps slipping into my family room via commercials.  What I learned in the article was that the pudgy Korean performer is Psy and that his video, Gangham Style, has recently reached 1.7 billion clicks on You Tube.  You can watch as much of it as you can stand right here:

I remember where I was when Kennedy was shot and when we landed on the moon.  Mat Honan says, I still remember exactly where I was the first time I heard (and saw) Gangnam Style. It was at my desk, in front of a computer.  Mat needs a life.  His point, though, is  that Gangnam Style is a hit created virally on YouTube, not by the old-fashioned music industry.  The future of music distribution is you, he says.  That future has been a long time coming. But one look at Gangnam’s numbers, and it’s massively evident that it is here.   Watching a few minutes of the video, I asked myself … Thought Number One … is necessarily that a good thing?  Like most social media, You Tube doesn’t seem to bring out the best in us.  Dorky, flash-in-the-pan artists are one thing, but how many poorly edited cat-videos, awful cover versions of hits by unknown artists. and home-made videos does the world need?   It seems to be the the million-chimpanzees-with-a-million years approach to writing Shakespeare.

Buy, hey … Thought Number Two … I’m a modern curmudgeon and I like You Tube.  If I’m willing to search through the crap … something I learned to do shopping at TJ Maxx … there are really good things to be found.  I have replaced a screen on Palm Pilot (remember those?) and installed a new hard drive in my desktop computer using a YouTube video.  I’ve entertained my grandkids with countless poorly edited cat videos on my smart phone.  Recently, someone pointed me to It’s Not About the Nail, a produced for YouTube video that makes me laugh every time I see it:

And I’ve been able to watch live performances by artists I love.   I’ve discovered new artists, like Diane Birch performing with Darryl Hall on Daryll’s House.   Perhaps my favorite finds are numbers from an AOL sponsored concert by Alicia Keys, The Piano and I.  This is An Empire State of Mind from that concert (Search alicia keys the piano and i aol to find more).

Astonishing.  But for every one of those, there’s one of these.

What are your best and worst YouTube finds?  Before you answer, please push my button … gently … to make me Number One on Top Sites Tuesday #212.

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Tags: cover versions, curmudgeonly rants, entertainment, feeling older, humor, memes, music, postaday, Top Sites Tuesday, YouTube

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