Source #4 - Postmodern Music Videos
- Big Nerd
- Apr 3, 2020
- 4 min read
Updated: May 6
Keep Going! Be sure to include live links.
As you Listen/View each iconic work of Postmodernism, consider these points:
Intertextuality/Pastiche - Look at how the work draws from established literary traditions and tropes, "samples" them - mocks them in both a literal and figurative sense.
Metafiction/Poioumena - Find the different ways the artist/author turns the camera back onto hirself, becoming part of the narrative zhe tells. At what point does zhe blur the lines between artist and audience, between creator and consumer?
Fabulism/Magical Realism - Recognize where the artist/author creates an ecosystem that is uncomfortably uncanny, magical, yet utterly photo-realistic.
Minimalism v. Maximalism - Find examples of the stripped down aesthetic of Postmodernist art and literature, then compare it to the sometimes baroque overindulgence of 21st century societies.
Any other element from your KF - you know the drill!
Ramona Falls "I Say Fever" (5 pts possible)
The Strokes "Reptilia" (5 pts possible)
Gotye "Somebody I Used to Know" (5 pts possible)
CN: Nude male torso
David Bowie - "Space Oddity" (6 pts possible)
Cody Jinks, "Loud and Heavy" (6 pts possible)
OutKast" Hey Ya" (7 pts possible)
CN: Expletive use (but bleeped)
Ylvis "What Does the Fox Say" (7 pts possible)
Tenacious D "Tribute" (8 pts possible)
CN: Expletive use (but bleeped)
Radiohead "There, There" (9 pts possible)
Nnamdi - "S Club 27" (9 pts possible)
Radiohead "Pyramid Song" (9 pts possible)
Gorillaz "Humility" (10 pts possible)
Angine de Poitrine "Sarniezz" (10 pts possible)
Tool "Schism" (10 pts possible)
CN: Graphic animated imagery (body horror)
Here's Ima Nerd's Model Response
Funniest comment I've read: Billie Eilish: Where do we all go when we dream? Little Kids: That's deep and weird. Tool: Hold my EAR.
IMA NERD
COMMENT #4 - Postmodernist Music Video
Model Response
Ramona Falls, “I Say Fever”
Here are the lyrics to the song:
Beyond the absolute weirdness of the video, what jumps out to me are the patterns in the lyrics. On the surface they appear to be a chaotic mess, but maybe that's the point? Like lots of math rock, there is an underlying pattern.
The woman in this song needs adoration so badly, she purchases what looks like a love potion. But, the love potion reduces everybody to animals.
This is "Human and Animal," part of Chimera Serie by Aurore Lephilipponnat
The jumbled, fragmented imagery in the surface, the blurred motion, the jumpy shifts from scene to scene, the paper cut-out characters from 19th century lithographs, distort time. The Postmodernist temporal distortion ironically makes linear time unnecessary. Instead, it becomes cyclical. The through-line is the number five, our "code to decipher."
According to our favorite archetype guy CG Jung in his book, Synchronicity, archetypes are the math of human existence. They are the underlying equation that manifests in the symbols of our stories. The number five, repeated often in "I Say Fever," is a representation of that algebra. Archetypally, 5 symbolizes the human being for a bunch of reasons beyond the dead Swiss dude's theories. Human beings typically have five fingers on each hand, five toes on each foot, and five appendages (if the head is included). It is also the number of systems in the human body.
We use our five senses to understand the world and our place in it. That's why Biblical symbologists see the number as a an image of God's grace ("The Meaning of Numbers in the Bible").
According to Encyclopedia Britannica, there is also a long history connecting the number five to womanhood. The Babylonians worshiped the moon goddess Ishtar and associated
her with five phases of the moon: new, crescent, gibbous, full, waning ("Number Symbolism").
This is due to a few factors, most notably a woman's menstrual cycle's connection to the lunar cycle. It links our senses and bodily functions to the cycles of nature. This makes the song lyrics about waiting five years seem awfully sinister, like waiting for a girl to reach menstrual maturity.
The visuals of the young woman inhaling the fumes of the potion, then having others inhale the fumes reminds us of the fundamental sensory experiences that tie us to one another and the animal world.
However, it also smacks of Eve convincing Adam to partake of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil:
"Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die..."
Is that the story behind this? Woman's original sin?
It reveals this song to be a Postmodernist commentary on the Cultural Hegemony that persists in British society, just like American society: the idea that women are somehow carriers of sin. It emanates from women like miasma.
This reminds me of another Postmodernist music video about original sin, although it's not British (she's Icelandic).
Here is Björk's "Human Behaviour" (1993)
Whadaya think?
To Post:
1. Use your digital alias & class period to post on this site.
2. Identify video/song you intend write about. Comment on one or more of the Postmodernist elements above. Identify yourself by your alias, identify the text or detail you intend to discuss, then offer your comment.
3. Add your reaction to the work, including applications of the messages to your own experience (do not be too specific if it is a personal anecdote - again, privacy) and other works that this reminds you of (use hyperlinks here), and how they compare/contrast.
4. Include in your reactions:
embedded videos
headings & subheadings
GIFs/images
Respond to one of these works in the Nerdy comments. Once you finish this...
In the 2003 music video for "Hey Ya!", André 3000 plays every single member of a fictional band performing on what looks like a 1960s Ed Sullivan-style variety show. It's complete with screaming girls, matching suits, the whole shebang. It is wholeheartedly one of the most purely joyful music videos ever made. It is also a song about a relationship falling apart in slow motion. That tension is deeply postmodern, specifically through Pastiche and Anti-Convention Paradox.
Pastiche
The video is a pitch-perfect imitation of the Beatles-on-Ed-Sullivan moment: the hysteria, the camera cuts, and all the colors in the background and outfits. This is pastiche. It's a deliberate borrowing of a cultural form to smuggle something new inside it. By wrapping a…
Intro:
Pyramid Song by Radiohead almost makes you feel like you're hallucinating. The music gradually builds and layers as the video slowly introduces you to the scene, which would be, if you can't tell from the title of this post, the watery underworld. Radiohead uses metafiction and fragmentation to create a disorienting, yet meaningful, setting.
Click here for the lyrics: Pyramid Song
Metafiction:
Radiohead uses metafiction in the form of poioumena, which even sounds like it fits the song. Poioumena is pretty much just creating a different world within the narrative. The lyrics "all my pasts and futures" really show us that this is a different world, one where all versions of himself and everything in his life coincide. We…
Introduction:
In Ylvis’s, The Fox, they turn a normal kids song into a nonsensical source of noise pollution.
Postmodern elements
Fragmentation - This song jumps from calm verses to literal noise pollution that make no logical sense to add chaos I guess.
Irony - This song almost acts educational for a little bit, but it eventually turns into a grown man shouting gibberish.
This song kinda reminds me of Spongebob Squarepants. Both of them seem childish, but they are so outlandish that everyone can get laugh out of it too.
Introduction
Hello, I am Fortnite6 and I can officially say I am better than prime Peterbot. Anywho, I just got listening to this banger of a song, “Humility,” by Gorillaz, and if you’ve ever felt like you’re just a character in a “picture” while the real world passes you by, you should probably check this one out. This is a perfect look at postmodernism because it uses intertextuality, as it samples old school “lonesome trail” tropes, and it also has some irony as a laid back summer beat hides a lyric about being “chained” to isolation.
Postmodern Element Goodies
Intertextuality:
Gorillaz uses intertextuality by referencing the “lonesome trail” and the “hunter with a rifle,” which are classic tropes from old…
2D in a 3D World
Analyzing Gorilaz’ “Humility” by Austen Young
Gorillaz was a pioneer for virtual bands with fake personas making good music. Their first, self titled album released in 2001, and ever since they have rapidly become a global phenom. Created by Damon Albarn, former lead singer of Blur, and Jamie Hewlett, the man behind all the animations.
I grew up on Gorillaz, they were the first band that really got me into music, and because of this I spent a LOT of time watching their music videos. Their music videos are a large part of the magic of the band, whether it be the “Stylo” video where Vin Diesel chases the band in a car chase, or…