YouTube Depression Theatre: The Image Factory
A new series about videos that might quell your anxiety.
Hello, and happy* new** year from Duque's Delight! It's been a minute since I've shared anything fun with you—maybe been a minute since "anything fun" felt good in the context of a tough year for so many so far—but I'm changing that with a new feature I conceived while I was away.
Like many millennials, I occasionally have a tendency to let bad emotions get the better of me, and I often numb the anxiety the best way I know how: distracting myself on the Internet. Over the last few decades I've cultivated a bank of videos that often get me out of a spiral; they're inspiring, humorous or just plain interesting. I'm going to share them with you under the heading I call "YouTube Depression Theatre," and you can put them on if you ever need to feel something.
* I hope so, anyway
** it's still January, so it counts
NBC has gone heavy on celebratory material for the 50th season and eventual half-century anniversary of Saturday Night Live. Their streaming service Peacock has assembled a quartet of interesting one-hour documentaries on various aspects of the show, including casting, writing, the specific impact of the "More Cowbell" sketch and even a deep dive on show creator Lorne Michaels' challenging first season back after a five-year absence which ended in 1985. The crown jewel of this celebration—at least, until whatever they cook up for a special episode airing next month—is Ladies and Gentlemen...50 Years of SNL Music, a two-hour documentary on the series' history of musical guests and more co-directed by Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson of The Roots. (It's Quest's second documentary credit after 2021's Oscar-winning Summer of Soul; his third, a feature on Sly Stone, just premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and will broadcast on Hulu next month.)
This is the trailer, which is not the same thing as the clip I'm going to show you later.
Watching the uncensored program on Peacock (it aired Monday night on NBC) was like hanging out in a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame museum exhibit for two hours: fun, near sensory overload on a fruitful topic that can be approached a lot of ways. Ladies and Gentlemen, for its part, addresses the tightrope acts of live performance, the relationship of music enthusiasm and occasional performance within the show, the series' status as the first network show to air a hip-hop performance, the gold-star challenge of performing and hosting, and nearly every notable performance in the show's history, often with fantastic behind-the-scenes footage and audio. There are some things I'm surprised they didn't mention—chiefly The Replacements' intoxicated appearance in 1986 or the presence of longtime SNL band stalwart G.E. Smith—but any quibble is pretty minor in the face of what is achieved. (It's here that I'd like to publicly, finally concede the worst fight I've ever had with my wife, a COVID lockdown debate about whether SNL or The Muppets had a bigger cultural footprint. Try that with someone you love!)
Shortly before its airing, Questlove shared the seven-minute introduction to the film, a breathtaking and nostalgic mini-DJ set of more than 50 SNL performances, sequenced, cut and cleared over a period of 11 months. If this doesn't quicken your pulse enough to pursue the rest of the film, I'm not sure what can. And more importantly, it reminded me of another one of my favorite mash-ups. No, not Girl Talk's Feed the Animals, though that album rips. I'm talking about The Image Factory.
In 1991, another great tool of pop revolution, MTV, celebrated 10 years on the air. Along with a special and retrospective documentary, this four-minute mash-up was broadcast on the channel. (There is, in fact, at least one other edit, which is in my opinion not as good.) I could probably list you 75 percent of the videos edited into the clip, but that might obfuscate the thrill of recognition and nostalgia that gets me every time. I often find myself rewatching it not just to feel better, but to gain inspiration about my writing. (I shared as much at an old workplace—an arts business, mind you—where my team was made to bring in "content we've been consuming." Nobody was particularly impressed. None of them work there anymore, including me.)
I don't ever want to sound like a "things were better then" guy, but there is something nice in thinking about when concepts like "music videos" or "pop music that really defined generations" felt new, or at the very least, new to you. I think half my enthusiasm about archival arts lies within this idea: trying to capture that sensation of discovery and preserve it so that someone far removed from an era can enjoy it anew. I would certainly appreciate a documentary on MTV's four-decade plus evolution from a standpoint of creating videos (2019's worthy I Want My MTV, based on the essential oral history of the same name, took more of the network's behind-the-scenes approach).
Also, some of these songs just rock. How many songs or videos therein do you know? Share some of your favorites and we can keep the party going, perhaps.