There was, apparently, somebody called Rocker 13666 on Reddit who created a list of the worst music videos uploaded to Youtube ever. I learned about this on GeekBeat but could not find the original post on Reddit, so, in order to preserve this list for posterity, I record it here:
The music of the German band Rammstein is not – I have to admit – one of my favorite types of music. I might just be too old for that, even though some of the comic elements in their art are appealing to me. Maybe it’s just that the mood in their songs is just too dark for me, or maybe simply that I don’t want to jeopardize the good hearing I still have. – – Boy, do I sound like my parents when I started to listen to the Beatles or the Stones!
I case you don’t know what I talk about, here is an example…
Now, what made me talk about Rammstein is not Rammstein themselves but the fans – and not just any fans, but those fans that are very young and active. So active in fact that they not only listen to their music, but also play it themselves…
I just wonder if the kids understand what they sing, but as they are homeschooled, they probably do.
I wonder if there is something built into this video that hypnotizes me…
There is nothing really worth seeing – OK, the girl is cute, but that is not that unusual – still, I could not stop watching until it was all over.
Maybe somebody could go over the video with a fine-tooth comb and find the hidden subliminal message – watch – stay – don’t move – consume!
UPDATE: On one of my repeated (mesmerized) views of this video, something caught my eye. I first could not believe it – had to rewind – watch it again – rewind – screen-capture it – and here is what I saw…
A duck with a crown of rifle cartridges?? – Now I am really curious what this video is all about.
Flemming introduced me to the violin-playing of Vanessa Mae.
Give me a break – the violin must be the most conservative and boring instrument of them all, and I get stuck on YouTube watching all kinds of videos about her music?
This is how violin playing is supposed to look…
and not like this…
And then play music like this…
I mean – this IS cool violin playing! Made me think about what makes cool cool?
I told my son, who is now at the age where he thinks that accessorizing with cool things will make him cool, a story from the days when I still tried to find what would make me cool…
It was the days of our first cars at the end of high school. I personally certainly had the un-coolest car you could get, but it was all I could afford. In our class, we had one guy who was just the coolest, Mike. He had, at that tender age, traveled the world on a shoestring budget. He was so cool that he did not even give in to female attempts to reel him in. How cool was that – something I dreamed of – he just shrugged off!
Once, a few of us planned to go on a social visit to our favorite teacher. Only a few of us had cars; my car was too small for all of us, so Mike offered to drive us and got the car from his dad, and thus was our designated driver.
You might have to learn a bit about car culture in Germany at that time to grasp the gravity of the following.
For example, you could not drive an automatic – you would be considered a grandpa – but those cars were too expensive anyway, so that was never an issue amongst us. At the top of the uncool list, right after the automatic, was a station wagon with the shifter at the steering wheel and a single bench in the front.
And that was exactly the type of car Mike drove up in to pick us all up that evening to visit Hartwig! But believe it or not – that car did not make Mike uncool; instead, his coolness rubbed off on the car, and it became totally acceptable to drive a Taunus or Ford station-wagon.
Applying that lesson to myself took many years, so I don’t necessarily expect my son to understand when I tell him this story, but for me, this example of the violin of Vanessa Mae reinforced the lesson for me.
She just did not let the uncoolness of the violin rub off on her; instead, she made the violin cool.
During my first few semesters at the University of Dortmund, a breakthrough in album sales happened. While at the regular record store you had to shell out over DM 20 (that’s Deutsch Marks for all you young kids, the currency they had in Germany before the Euro) for a 30cm album, some entrepreneurial students started to sell those same albums for DM 14.95 or less in the entry hall of the mensa (Latin-German for cafeteria).
This is where I got pretty much my whole collection of albums I still have after so many years. Some of the early and important items in this collection are records from the Doors. Sure, we knew Jim Morrison by name, but the other members of the band were more or less faceless and nameless.
Until today, when I found the great video site called L-Studio (Edit 2026: no more). L must stand for Lexus, as this site is hosted on a subdomain of Lexus.com. And why not – BMW sponsors TED, why should Lexus not have its own video site with – I have to say – excellent videos.
Some of these videos are with and about Ray Manzarek, the creator of the Doors’ characteristic keyboard sound. Hear him tell about the Doors’ beginnings …
… and then look through the other video for more Ray Manzarek and try not to miss the series of Web Therapie with Lisa Kudrow. (Edit 2026: again, no longer a write-off item for Lexus, but you can find Web Therapy easily on YouTube. A must-see if you like cringe-worthy comedy.)
UPDATE: just ran into the new video of Weird Al Yankovic – ‘Craigs List’ – where he pays homage to the Doors – in his own special way. And the great thing is that Ray Manzarek actually plays the keyboards in this spoof of the Doors! No wonder that Yankovic version sounds so authentic…
For reasons of variety – not that this is any better than the Hinoi Team – I would like to pass on another find…
Watching these Japanese videos – and other Japanese TV clips on YouTube – I notice that most of the girls really look like girls, don’t they? I mean, in contrast to women.
I can not imagine that these girls are really as young as they appear to (western) eyes, so I am wondering if the Japanese culture has bred its women to look so young-girl-ish. There seems to be an ideal woman type that is noticeably different in different cultures. How else could you tell, on first glance, that this is a German woman, the next one is from Mexico, and yet another girl (!) is from Thailand?
But maybe we don’t have to think too much about this, as over time McDonald will make them all the same – I noticed that when hanging out at the Thai temple – that more and more young Thai girls look like the good Big Mac-fed American girl. Any insights…
