You Tube: The New Jukebox

               

You Tube is a twenty-four hour a day open mic. It will relativize exactly what it means to play music “professionally” and it will give a chance for young and willing artists to share their work with the world for free. Since major label artists are going to have to rely on this for promotional material as well the playing field has been leveled. But those with more acquired music tastes will also have an easier time with commercial pops dominance. My examples for showing this are through two versions of two songs. The Savage Garden song “I Want You” and its cover by Matthew Gaydos, as well as the Katy Perry song “Firework” and its cover by Pearl and The Beard.

When watching a classic rock band playing on You Tube the comments are often of nostalgia, The Smashing Pumpkins at the Metro were so great, boy do I wish I could go back. What this person fails to see is that they can go back anytime they like, while enjoying the good artists in today’s era and being able to escape the Justin Biebers for a sound that is more authentic. As great as being able to see a good underground show back in the day, means that they would have had to deal with the Michael Boltons of the time and wouldn’t be able to drown it out in a manner of seconds. The relationship between commercial pop and underground movements has always been cat and mouse. Now it is more intertwined since independent bands and DIY artists are both covering and surpassing the million-dollar machine music in both quality and authenticity.

            An underground movements would start up, usually in a major city, and it would gain a loyal following and take the exclusivity of that following to appeal to the masses before that art form has been disbanded. Pearl and The Beard are a hipster’s dream come true. They are a three member band out of Brooklyn, in bad sweaters and the classic dark-rimmed glasses, who bring out a beautiful choral set of songs over an acoustic guitar, stand-up bass, single snare drum and an array of other instruments that will help them occupy any performance space, whether it be in an ally or the Vic Theater opening for Ingrid Michaelson. They are gaining immense popularity on You Tube and are rightfully praised for their inventive and joyful songwriting. But they have some pop influences and admit a liking to Katy Perry.

While Katy Perry‘s song “Firework” will make the lovers of organic music scoff at both the sound and message, it might be easier to swallow after hearing Pearl and the Beards version. “Firework” is a song with a message that builds up letting the listener know what every other modern pop song wants them to feel: there is a little something special inside of you. What is so unappealing about this song is that it is marketed to young girls and gives them the unhealthy message that this could be you. You could be onstage rocking out to all of these people, you just have to believe. In Perry’s version the music is very dramatic and sounds very big, which takes away the believability of the song.

            The music has had millions of dollars spent on it to make it sound “perfect” and the message of you too can do something special will have its eyes rolled at because you don’t feel like there is any risk in Perry’s song. She was chosen, mass marketed and even though she wrote the song, someone else like her would come by with a similar song. When Perry turned twenty-seven Pearl and The Beard wished her a happy birthday and did so by performing “Firework” along with independent ukulele songstress Sophie Madeline as a tribute. Most Pearl and The Beard fans wouldn’t give this song the time of day. This band fits every Brooklyn hipster’s ideal and the scene where Pearl and The Beard came from would normally feel betrayed in earlier times but You Tube helps Pearl and The Beard pull it off. They start the song in a very low key way and make the build-up to the chorus sound so much more natural when done in a low-budget way. With just three instruments and one singer they managed to put on a show that justifies and personalizes “Firework”, disarming the cheesiness of the lyrics. Their innovation in playing music was a great part of feeling the song’s gushy message.

            Pop songs will die when their believability runs out and that usually happens when the key listeners reach a certain age. Pearl and The Beard will always out do the sound of Katy Perry. It is risky, raw and powerfully instrumental. Perry will blend in with the other temporary corporate machine artists.

           

Savage Garden is a sinth-pop band from Australia. They dominated the charts with catchy songs well-crafted by a computer. They are gel-haired pretty boys with sunglasses and tight black shirts. They are a now dated and phased band in the archives of You Tube. Their song I want you though carries an indie appeal. They fast paced verses of the song and the rounded chorus can still catch the ear in a good moment and bring out that light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel feeling you get when anticipating someone’s affection.

            Most twenty-two year-olds living today will remember the good old days of whatever commercial pop they were into and want to temporarily re-live it, hence the Ravinia Festival selling out with the Backstreet Boys’ two night stint. But the sound will no longer affect the minds of these now-grown up fans. Matthew Gaydos is a young tattooed college student broadcasting on You Tube from his dorm room with an acoustic guitar covered with stickers of the Sex Pistols and Yes. This shows a great range of diversity and open-mindedness to his sound. The Sex Pistol’s “Fuck Everything” attitude and Yes’s love saturated pop.  He has an eighteen song album for only five dollars and promotes it by covering an old pop song, taking requests and then giving us one of his songs immediately afterwards.

So when he played Savage Garden’s “I Want You” he brought back old memories of grade school, but he also adapted the song for older and slightly more jaded ears. The verses in “I Want You” are hard to understand, minus the line “Like a cherry cola”, and they lead up to the direct and cuttingly catchy chorus. But on Savage Garden’s version the song is backed by a pulsing drum machine and the vocals are auto-tuned. These effects on the song will make it drop out of the psyche of old listeners once they reach a less susceptible age.

Gaydos strips it down to just him and his guitar and his version brings out a drive that will make someone who never liked the original version in the first place nod right along. In his you tube video he asks his viewers to ask him to do more “unexpected” acoustic covers. “Songs that everyone else isn’t covering on You Tube” as he puts it. Seeing “I Want You” covered this way was unexpected and much more enjoyable. Before the world of You Tube Gaydos wouldn’t stand a fighting chance against the corporatized Savage Garden. He would be playing his version of “I Want You” at open mics and while his version may be well received by the small crowds it wouldn’t be on such a level playing field.

Savage Garden’s version isn’t terrible, but the sound of the song, even live, is so artificial and the grown up fans and former fans of Savage Garden are going to resonate more with Gaydos. His version represents where that song is going: covered acoustically by kids in dorm rooms and around campfires.

Gaydos’s album is an 18-song original work and has a punky cleverness in his lyrics. His punchy playing on the acoustic guitar drives that cleverness even further so his ironic cover of a pop artist is fitting to his character.

With both Gaydos and Pearl and The Beard performances dismantling the polished nature of Perry and Savage Garden this means a lot for those who try to avoid pop music. While You Tube gives them the option of avoiding the mediocre art they can swallow it down a lot easier and find it more tolerable now that artists who are more up their ally will present art like it to them in a way they want to hear it.