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kunlun_shan
Mountain climber
SF, CA
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Since Captain...or Skully posted this song, I've listened to it so many times.
Thanks, Captain! The best recording and version I've heard!
[Click to View YouTube Video]
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Byran
climber
Half Dome Village
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Nov 13, 2016 - 04:42pm PT
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Brilliant example of metamodernism in music.
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Edit: For anyone who's not up to speed on art movements, here's a quick (maybe not so quick) rundown of metamodernism, and why I think the SNL video is awesome.
First, one must consider "classic art" which is all about the artist's subject. The focus is on the story, the characters, the melody, the beauty of a scene, whatever it might be... classic art is fully committed to the "subject", and it tries to represent that subject as honestly as possible. For example:
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Postmodern art betrays the legitimacy of the subject by drawing attention to the medium. The breaking of the "4th wall", the subversion of our expectations, the erosion of genre norms, the pastiche, the self-aware, everything being delivered with a wink and a grin. Postmodernism is the bane of the modern world. All the reality TV shows, "ironic" selfies, internet memes, Hollywood remakes, zombie movies, it's all saturated our culture with a sense of the unauthentic. For example:
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Or consider this ridiculous car commercial I just saw in my facebook feed:
[Click to View YouTube Video]
(fyi, Sailor Moon was a kitschy anime from the 1990's)
So basically we live in a world where subversion is the norm. Metamodernism can then be thought of as the next level of subversion. The post-post-modern. So bringing us back to the SNL video: the idea of a comedian, dressed up as Hilary Clinton, singing Hallelujah as tribute to both Leonard Cohen (who died a week earlier) and to the Clinton presidency, it all has a strong element of farce which is only reinforced by our expectations living in a postmodern world. But instead of farce and irony, the performance hits you with uncompromising honesty and faithfulness to its subject. This comes as a total shock to everything you expect, and makes the delivery all the more poignant.
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