One more post in the spirit of ’80s Rock Day:
Among the technological archaisms I’ve had to explain to the Tuned In children–what a “record” is, why they call it “dialing” a phone, the fact that, once, you couldn’t rewind TV shows–is the fact that, a long time ago, musicians used to make little movies of their songs, and people would watch them on TV. (Yes, I know videos still exist, but as we’ve discussed here, good luck finding them.) YouTube never forgets, though, so in my spare time I’ve been searching for evidence, such as this video of Tuned In Jr.’s current favorite They Might Be Giants song.
All of which has got me thinking: if YouTube is such a treasury of music videos–really, you can find just about anything–why not turn it into music television? Would it be that hard to set up software that randomly streams music videos, maybe selected by tags or search terms? Sure, part of the fun of YouTube is actively searching and browsing. But this is America! My passivity must be indulged!
It’d be a sort of Pandora for YouTube music video. Maybe it’s impossible, for technical reasons I haven’t considered. (Or for copyright reasons–although we’re talking YouTube here: nobody said the effort had to be legal.) Or maybe it already exists, in which case feel free to inform this technologically challenged blogger. I mean, I still haven’t gotten rid of my turntable.