Watch This! (April 2019)

This year has just been flying by, and I keep forgetting to make one of these posts. I'm glad I decided to just cut these back to whenever I feel like making one, because between work, and everything else I've had going on, I have not had time. And then the past month I have been putting it off because I said I wanted to make a new graphic for every post. I haven't had time for that either. But tonight at work, it was slow, so I decided to just go ahead and make the post, and then maybe I'll be more incentivized to sit down and make a logo when I get home.

For those curious, it took me six days between writing this post and making the logo. 😆

So to begin with, I updated a previous post with a new video, so if you are a fan of Studio C's Lobster Bisque series, then check that out, the new video is at the bottom. And if you've never seen Studio C's Lobster Bisque Series, then check out the post and watch all the videos! 😆

The Lobster Bisque Post

Next we have a video from Poppy, which is just about everything I love about her. A smidge of weirdness, a dash of fake innocence, and whole lot of biting sarcasm presented as sincerity. 😆



This video from Walk off the Earth is so good, but rather bittersweet, considering it was one of the last videos they shot with Beard Guy before he passed away at the end of last year.



Another amazing video from World Order! Side note, is this their first song in English? I feel like their songs have all been almost exclusively in Japanese up until this point, save for a word or phrase here and there. Either way, I loved this video.



One of my favorite "Genres" of Peter Hollens video is when he does Disney songs, and his villain songs are always great. This one of Be Prepared from The Lion King is no exception.



One of my other favorite Hollens genres is Middle Earth music. This one is amazing.



Postmodern Jukebox recently did a jazz version of the theme song for Pinky and the Brain, featuring the real Pinky and the Brain, Rob Paulsen & Maurice LaMarche!



In February, Mike Tompkins covered one of my favorite Panic! At the Disco songs!



Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse was one of my favorite movies from last year, and a bit of what made it so great was the music. Kurt Hugo Schneider arranged an amazing version of Sunflower to promote the home video release of the film, which I have to say, is one of the best examples of a brand integration video I've ever seen! I wish more studios would take this approach to marketing their films!



And then we got another Kulning video from Jonna Jinton. I don't care how many of these videos she makes, they blow me away every time.



This next video from Pomplamoose was one of my favorites, and it was only made as a ridiculous April Fools post. 😆



One of my favorite things is when a Muppet character shows up on a late night show, especially when it's a Sesame Street character. Oscar the Grouch appeared on The Late Show with Steven Colbert to promote his new book. And it worked. I bough a copy. 😆



We'll end on a high note, with my favorite music video so far, this amazing cover from Pentatonix.

Last Month Online (October 2018)

Yeah, this is late. I've got a lot going on. So much great music this month! Let's kick this off with Peter Hollens, doing a collab that I am kind of shocked hasn't happened before now, with Chester See!



And we'll follow that up with a video from Peter's wife! Evynne is singing one of my favorite Celtic/folk songs, and it is amazing!



I saw this next video on Reddit, and I knew I had to include it here. This is an utterly genius bit of editing work, they took Josh Groban's "You Raise Me Up" and set it to Michael Jackson's Thriller video, which features zombies. It was such a brilliant joke I about died laughing at work. 🤣

[118/118] "Thriller" x Josh Groban's "You Raise Me Up" from r/SharedBPM

Next we have a video from Pentatonix's upcoming Christmas album, which I considered saving for my eventual holiday post at the end of the year, but as you will see, the song is from Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas, and the video leans a little more toward Nightmare than Christmas. 😜



And speaking of The Nightmare Before Christmas, The Hound + The Fox covered a song from that movie this month as well!



Not every Halloween-themed video this month was based on this Disney classic though, we also got another song from Pomplamoose and Tessa Violet, mashing up The Monster Mash, with several other thematically appropriate songs. And also some really random choices, like the theme from The Fresh Prince of Bell-Aire? But somehow it all works SO well!



It has been awhile since I've shared a World Order video, but they just released a new video, and it was everything I expect from them. I just love watching them... Dance? Move? Slowly move their bodies completely in sync with each other and the music. 😜



Next we have another amazing video from Jonna Jinton, which is different that any of her videos before! I love this! It's such a great idea for a video!



Thanks to the release of a Queen biopic last month, another trending musical genre beyond the usual October/Halloween, was covers of Queen songs. (Does that count as a genre?) I picked out what I thought were the two most creative examples of the trend, this one from 10 Second Songs:



And this massive musical mashup from Peter Hollens. We'll end with this one, which was probably my favorite song all month. I have replayed it SO many times! It's just so good!

!

Last Month Online (August 2018)

We've got a great variety of videos this month!

Let's start this off with a collab I never knew I needed, Pomplamoose and Tessa Violet!



And speaking of Tessa, this dance video for Crush was amazing! I subscribed to this guy's channel immediately on principle alone. I hope he does more. 🙂



Next we got another Lucas the Spider video, and I loved it so much! I hope he does more music like this, maybe even full-length songs? 😊



I've always heard of Cher, but I've never really actually listened to her. However, this song she just put out for her upcoming ABBA cover album came across my radar and I LOVED it! It helps that I already love ABBA, but this was such a great cover. I may have to look into getting her album...



Next we have a great video from Peter Hollens, again, still haven't seen this movie, but I loved this ridiculous video. 😆



Next we have another amazing Steven Universe remix from VGR, with their cover of Ruby Rider!



Studio C has been putting out a bunch of great stuff as always, but I about died over this one, and I had to share it. 😆



And finally, I am absolutely in love with this new song from Sia! Or rather, from LSD, the collaboration project between the three artists Labrinth, Sia, and Diplo. It is so gorgeously weird and creative!!!

Last Month Online (May 2018)

So many videos this month. And so many comedy videos! Usually music videos far outnumber the rest, but this month seems a lot more even than normal! I guess a bunch of these are parody or funny songs, so they're kind of in both categories, but still, comedy has a huge presence this month. :)

The first video is another amazing song from Pomplamoose, covering an amazing song by La Roux! I was transported back in time almost a decade to 2010, when my brother Joel and I would carpool to school, and listen to La Roux's album. This was always my favorite song. :)

Next we have a hilarious, and weird, video from Studio C! This sketch was almost as if the writers of the Twilight Zone decided to try their hands at comedy. And I loved it!



And now for something completely different, this was probably something I saw on Twitter, I don't really know, all I know is that I had never seen this guy before this video, and I subscribed immediately. In case you didn't know, this is a song from homestarrunner.com, one of my all-time favorite web series'. I never knew how much I needed a vocally enhanced rendition of  Come On Fhgwhgads!



This is probably my least 'fun' video this month, but I loved it so much I had to include it. It's just a simple cover of a recent Ariana Grande song, but there was just something about it that I loved.



This video was not from May, but I discovered in in May, thanks to my cousin Mandi sharing it on Facebook, so I say it still counts. :p I thought it was hilarious, and I watched it multiple times, as well as showing it to everyone who would watch. I just don't get tired of it. It's so funny!



Okay, before you watch this next one, I just want to give those of you who might care, a dark humor warning, as the song is framed around a chorus about an adorable, but suicidal muffin, and the entire song revolves around death. So, if you think that might be too much for you, feel free to skip it. :)

This is a song by the Gregory Brothers, using lines of dialogue from Tomska's ASDFMovie series. As I said the last time I shared something from ASDFMovie, I don't share many of these because they are slightly more adult-y than my usual videos, but I loved this song so much I couldn't not include it. If you've never seen any ASDFMovie cartoons, it is likely that this song will make absolutely no sense to you, as it is comprised entirely of lines and jokes from the series. (I'm mainly including it for my future self to watch later, years after I've forgotten about it. :p)



Steven Universe, as I've said before, and even made an entire post about, has great music. In the most recent set of episodes we got yet another great song, which of course was immediately covered by a bunch of artists on YouTube. This one from Video Game Remixes was my favorite. :)



And here's another Studio C, just as weird and hilarious as the first, but less Twilight Zone-y. :p



Peter Hollens teamed up with Malukah again to bring us another amazing song! I personally have never played Skyrim, but that doesn't stop me from loving this song so much! It's just fantastic!



I don't think I've ever shared these new Mickey cartoons here, even though I do really enjoy them, however, this one really stood out to me, because it was just such a deliberate callback/loving parody/nod to Disney's Fantasia. As most of you probably know, Fantasia is one of, if not my all-time favorite movie, and this short captured the feeling of that film so well. I just loved it. :)



And finally, what might be my favorite song of the month, Mike Tompkins covering Toto's Africa, completely acapella. It is just as amazing as it sounds. :)

Last Month Online (April 2018)

I feel like the busier I get, the later these posts are going to be. They went from the last day of the month, to the first day or two of the month, to within the first week, and now it's just like, whatever. I'll do it when I have time. I've been super busy lately, so my online projects have been delayed recently. I'm planning to do a 'life update' post about why soon, so stay tuned. :)

In the mean time, here are my favorite videos from last month!

First up we have a video from animator Rebecca Parham. Normally she does animated skits and stories, but I really loved this video she did to celebrate finally hitting a million subscribers. I knew she had a great voice, but after this I really want her to keep doing animated music videos. :)



As seems to have become tradition, we have another video by Joe Jeremiah. This month it's a medley of 80's songs!



Pomplamoose is back! I haven't featured them here since January of last year, (!) but they're working on a new album, and I am loving the new songs! This video is an absolutely genius mashup, every song incorporated is one that has the word "Bad" somewhere in the title! From Taylor Swift to Micheal Jackson to Lady Gaga! For some reason this just works so well! I love it!



As Owl City's new album inches ever closer, the new, amazing songs just keep coming!



And I kow this next one isn't really a video, but I loved this song too much not to share it. I really hope it gets a video treatment in the future.



Disney seems to put together new albums every few years, featuring popular genres of music. When I was a teenager they were doing pop with Disneymania albums, then later they did a couple country ones, a few years ago they tried their hand at EDM with Dconstructed, and now they seem to have caught on that doing a capella covers of Disney songs is huge on YouTube. So I guess the obvious thing to do is jump on that trend. I mean, they own the songs after all. :) Here's the



This wasn't the only song they put out last month, they also covered Fall Out Boy's Immortals, from Big Hero 6, which you can find HERE if you're interested.

Now on to something a little more sober, as you may be aware, Avicii, one of the world's most prolific EDM artists died last month. He was one of my favorite artists of the genre, and his loss sent shockwaves through the music community, especially since he wasn't even 30 yet. As usually happens when a huge death in music occurs, online artists put out tribute videos covering one or more of their songs. I wanted to share a few here today from people I follow.







And finally we have an amazing medley from Peter Hollens, featuring guest vocals from Anna Brisbin, AKA, Brizzy Voices! In March, Peter put out a medley of music from Harry Potter, which, if you're familiar with the music from that series, it's all orchestral music by John Williams and other great movie composers.

Now, I don't mean any offense toward Peter himself, but when the video finally came out after he'd teased it for literally years, I was actually a bit disappointed. Yes, we had the great John Williams themes done in Peter's signature style, but over top of the music were lyrics incorporating a ton of internet fan theories about the franchise. And again, no offence to Peter, I just really love non-lyrical a capella music, and I had assumed that's what this was going to be. I guess that's on me for assuming. However! I shouldn't have worried, because he delivered anyway! And it was just as amazing as I knew it would be!



Okay, so, even though that was the last music video, I still had one other video from this month. However, like last months post, this video was a Studio C sketch featuring an established character that I thought you might want some more context for. So, instead of adding that video to this post, I will make a second post featuring that video, along with other sketches featuring the character. That post, plus my 'life update' post will be coming soon, so stay tuned! :)

TIIA 26 (The Internet is Awesome)

Let's start this post out right with one of my all-time favorite Pomplamoose songs, Bust Your Kneecaps. Yes, it's about exactly what the title says. :p



Evynne Hollens is back with another classic Disney song, this time from one of my recent favorites, Tangled. With her son Ashland as my favorite Disney animal sidekick, Pascal the chameleon. Too cute. :p



One of my favorite songs, by one of my favorite artists, covered by one of my favorite a cappella artists. I love it when things come together like this. :)



This I'm sharing just because it made me laugh. :p



This next song is currently a very popular song, that I don't particularly like. EXCEPT for this version by Walk Off the Earth. There's just something about their version that sets it apart from any of the others that I've heard. It's probably the kazoos. :p



A cappella science is back with another amazing science song!



In my last post I shared a weird video by the artist Poppy, which you can find HERE, but I thought maybe you'd like to see a video where she wasn't being unnaturally odd. Or at least, what she does for a career. Which is also weird in its own way. She's just weird all around. Which I'm totally fine with. :p As you can tell, she is just as much of a parody of celebrity culture in her music videos as she is in her shorter, weirder videos, like the one I posted previously.



We'll end this post with three videos from my personal YouTube trinity of awesome, Pentatonix,



Peter Hollens,



and Lindsey Stirling.

Christmas is Awesome!

I was going to title this post with my standard acronym, but then it would be something that stands for something else, and I didn't want them coming after me for stealing their acronym, so I didn't. :p

Everybody on YouTube has been making a ton of awesome Christmas content, and while I can't share it all, I did want to pick out a few of my favorites. And by a few, I mean a lot. Feel free to use this as your Christmas afternoon entertainment. :p

First up we'll kick this off with something from last year. I know I said I was doing stuff from this year, but I didn't do one of these last year, and Pentatonix did a ton of awesome videos last year. Since I'm focusing on this year, I'll only pick out one from last year, and I'm picking out the best one, Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy.



Peter Hollens finally made a video for one of his most requested Christmas songs.



Simply Three, the string quartet, made a video for Christmas as well, God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen.



Next up is a hilarious sketch from Studio C. It just wouldn't be Christmas without some dark humor, right? :p



Lindsey Stirling made a video for the song Hallelujah, by going undercover as a street performer. Yes, this is not "Technically" a Christmas song, but she made it one. :)



Even Karmin got into the Christmas Spirit by taking a song I have never liked, for it's creepy undertones, and reworking it. Turning it from a song that sounds like an uncomfortable coercion situation, and into one about an internal conflict.



One of my biggest pet peeves this time of year, are people who complain about the "War on Christmas" and vehemently decry the use of the greeting "Happy Holidays." Blimey Cow made an absolutely brilliant spoof of these kinds of people, framing it in the language of the so-called "Social Justice Warriors." I was dying of laughter through the whole thing. If you've ever had the misfortune of heading down a dark tumblr path, then you know the other group, the SJWs, that they're talking about. It's a brilliant satire of both ends of the ideological spectrum.



Earlier this year I discovered that BYU has an accapella group, and they do some amazing work. (Of course they do, they're Mormons. Mormons apparently breath music! :p)



Nataly Dawn of Pomplamoose fame, recently covered Edelweiss, which is apparently a Christmas song now. :p Either way she's amazing. :)



And since I love both dark humor and puppets, the channel Glove and Boots has been doing both in a series of Santa confessional videos. This one is the funniest one. I about died laughing at the twist ending.



Since we started with PTX, let's end with them too. They've been hard at it this year again, with two new videos, Joy to the World, and The First Noel.

TIIA 8 (The Internet Is Awesome)

One of my favorite things in the world is when someone does a Disney cover, and does it well. Todrick Hall is one of the kings of medleys on YouTube, and his latest Disney Medley is amazing. And I don't just mean amazing, I mean, AMAZING! He includes music from everything from Dumbo, to Tangled, to The Wonderful World of Color, to That's So Raven! I have never seen or heard a more comprehensive medley than this!



Another group that can rock an awesome medley is Pentatonix. And they totally rock this one.



Everything I love about Pomplamoose is on full display in this next video. The colors, the costumes, the quirky music, the singing, the humor, this video has everything.



2Cellos prove once again why they are some of the best cello players out there with their original composition, Celloverse.



From the moment I heard this next song, it immediately became my favorite Avicii song. It's been on replay off and on all day.



I never though that Justin Beiber would come out with a song that I would actually really like, but he did. However, instead of sharing the original, here is a cover by Mike Tompkins. :p



Next, here is a song by my favorite Lebanese artist, and probably the only one I know, Mika.



Lets close this down with another awesome song by the Gregory Brothers, this time remixing Hannah Hart's attempt to make jam. This song has literally been on replay in my car for a month. It's SO catchy.

The Internet Is Awesome

So, apparently I completely abandoned my blog last month, school has been ridiculous. I was planning to do more posts while I was on Thanksgiving break, but I was busy all last week too.
I started this one before I went back to Ames, but I never finished it. This will most likely be it before Christmas break. I'd promise to have more posts then, but I'm not good with those kinds of promises. I'll promise to do at least one, and we'll hope for a miracle.

So, I am changing the title of these post, again, but I think this time it'll stick. I got the name from a Pomplamoose song, see below, and it perfectly describes these posts, and will let me add non-music videos later on if I want to.

Here's the video that inspired the title!



It's such a strange video, more of a spoken word piece than a song, but I really like it. I've played it so many times I can almost 'sing' the whole thing along with her.

This next video is a collaboration between two of my favorite YouTube artists/groups, Lindsey Stirling and Pentatonix.



I loved this so much I immediately shared it on facebook, and right away I was told it was creepy. I didn't think so, I just thought it was awesome. Well come to find, out Pentatonix WANTED it to be just a bit creepy. So joke's on me I guess.

This next one is just Lindsey Stirling. It's not one of my favorite songs of hers, it has more of a country flair which I'm usually rather, 'meh' about, but it is one of her best videos.



I think I'll take back what I just said. The song must have grown on me because I just watched it again, and I liked it a lot better than before.

Now for a solo Pentatonix video.



This is one of my favorite songs from their latest album, and even though the video is really simple, I really like it. Japan is on the bucket list in my head that I've never written down.

Speaking of Japan!



Owl City hadn't released anything for way too long, so this was an awesome surprise! I already love the song, and I can't wait for his next album!

Let's finish this out with a bang! OK GO!



This is probably now my absolute favorite OK Go song. And the video is amazing. They put more work into their videos than pretty much anyone, and it shows.

As I was going through my saved music for these posts, I realized that I had more than enough for two posts, so if I get time, I will do another post. Stay tuned!

Mu$iC@ll¥ R@Nd0m

Recently I decided to do a "Random" post. I hadn't done one of those in ages, and I felt it was high time I did another. Really though, the only reason I wanted to do one was to have an excuse to post this hilarious Fish Hooks video.

It will probably make no sense to you if you don't understand the show "Fish Hooks" and how random it is, but I love it.



So after having this post languish in my drafts folder for ages, unfinished, I decided to not do a "Funny" random post, but a music video post instead. Still random, but less so. :)

This video is from one of my favorite YouTube artists, Nataly Dawn, of the duo Pomplamoose. I'm not sure why I like this song so much, I just do. I bought her whole album because of this song. I really love her voice. :)




Another favorite YouTube artist is Peter Hollens. I have both of his albums, and this is one of my favorite songs he does.




I couldn't do a music video post without including a Lindsey Stirling video. :) This is a cleaned up version of a Nicki Minaj song. Of course, this version is way better than the original. :)




And since I'm doing Lindsey, I should do one of her original songs. By all rights, I would normally hate the concept for this video, because I am so sick of the over-saturation of zombies in our culture, but I guess Lindsey can do unexplainable things to me and I don't hate this at all. :)



Finally I'll end with this song. It is by Bella Thorne and Zendaya of the show "Shake It Up." I'm sure a lot of people will find it cliche' but I love the dancing, and the message, which is basically a "Be yourself" message, which is something that I am still working on myself. As I've posted before, all my life I have cared too much about what other people think, so I have pretty much never "Been myself". There are very few people who know the real me, and even they most likely don't know everything about me. So here's a "Confession" if you will. Someday, I want to dance. That is of course not going to happen for years, but I want to learn. Though I rather doubt I will ever be able to move like the teenagers in this video. :)




P.S.

Okay, one more, this time I'm going back to just random and goofy. A music video from the sadly now cancelled show "So Random." (Guess why I miss it! :p) The song is called "Ketchup on Everything." It just cracks me up. :p