Notes on YouTube comments
If Google is the biggest search engine in the world, YouTube is number two, and though it’s meant for videos, it’s also the biggest music streaming site in the world – something I’ve always found a bit strange seeing as you have to have something on the video screen to accompany the music. Why not just do away with the video bit? Of course, it’s free to listen to/watch, which is why it will always be more popular than Apple Music or Spotify, but most of the [full album] uploads by individuals are presumably illegal, so it’s luck whether they stay up there or get taken down. (I’m guessing YouTube Music, which no one has ever heard of, is at attempt to get people to pay for their music, and do away with the video screen; much as I love homemade videos accompanying Bob Dylan bootlegs, it’s probably for the best. There’s something annoying about that video screen – even if it’s just a shot of the album cover, I’ll end up watching it for far too long, just because, I guess, I associate the screen with the sound in a YouTube context, as in a video or a film.)
I used to dismiss comments on the internet in general, and on YouTube in particular, as nonsense; badly-written, moronic and meaningless. However, with my music collection being in storage, I've found myself listening to albums more on YouTube and sometimes reading through the comments. I’ve found them amusing and insightful, sometimes poetical and once in a while surprisingly moving and personal. There’s nothing really to compare with the emotional power of music, how hearing a certain tune can transport you back to a very specific time and place in your life.
In fact, I’ve found the comments on YouTube more meaningful than most of the self-obsessed drivel on, say, Facebook, which consists mainly of bragging. Commenting on a specific piece of music, people seem open and emotional; and perhaps the anonymity (whether they use their actual name or not, it’s unlikely to be read by all their friends) helps with being open and genuine than they otherwise would. Of course, many comments are funny or flippant or stupid or garbage. This is democracy, right? My favourite ones are the stories and memories, usually drug-related, that people have chosen to share.
This is just a few choice ones I’ve come across out of, obviously, billions. I don’t know why I’ve picked mainly jazz albums; probably because I’m pretentious – but I do like jazz.
Stockhausen: Song of the Youths
“If I die and then hear this music I'll know I went to the wrong place.”
“What the hell. I am scared to go to sleep now!”
Brian Eno - Thursday Afternoon
“I backpacked around South-East Asia for 5 months this past summer. I remember taking mushrooms for the first time in the mountainous fields of Vang Vieng, Laos. There was a mountain there that seemed to attract my attention throughout my entire trip . During the 8 hour long trip from daylight to nighttime, that mountain kept luring me in to its grassy fields as if it were pulling a string connected to my body. When I listen to this song and close my eyes, I can feel the rays of light shining brightly on my face and the rustling of leaves and the children playing in the fields and the galloping of horses nearby. And when I lay down on the grass near that mountain, mother nature manifested itself into a beautiful creature and took me by my arms and danced with me - away into that beautiful mountain. The distant yet audible humms throughout this song remind me of the mountains calling. I will never forget the serenity and tranquility of living as one with the present.”
“Listening while my baby naps beside me.”
“greetings my fellow sufferers of anxiety and panic attacks”
“i like the part that goes bloop”
“This sounds like transformers having sex or something”
Bob Dylan - Tangled Up In Blue
“Those eyes, can't get past his eyes. I'd tie the laces of his shoes.”
“To those of you who are fixated with what"‘s on Dylan's face, if you encountered Van Gogh on the street....would you bother him about his ear? Try just listening to the music.”
Max Richter - The Blue Notebooks
“i can't stand this music sometimes, it’s so good it’s like a mirror reminding me of the shortness of life, the beauty of the moment, but the tension from knowing that half the beauty is unreachable, or at best, fleeting. Months listening to richter, slept through the sleep premier, and always the same, a feeling life is capable of so much framed by a more uncomfortable feeling we can never accomplish all we set out to do. Thank you for posting, and thank you Max Richter”
“I just came here to offer a weapon”
Aphex Twin - Selected Ambient Works 85-92
“Friday nights in 92/92, getting the 18.36 Thameslink from Farringdon to Leatherhead with this on my Walkman. Beautiful.”
“Apparently he wrote “I” when he was 14. I was a complete and utter retard at that age.”
Miles Davis - In a Silent Way - 1969
“I’m old enough to remember when this and Bitch’s Brew first came out. A lot of people didn’t like it, especially Jazz fans. But that's the difference between a pioneer and a follower. Miles had such status, and street creds, that he didn't have to worry about who did or didn’t like it. I used to live across the street from him, and I could see him coming and going on 77th and West End Ave. . He was a jazz man who dressed like Jimi Hendrix, and marched to his own genius drummer. He never allowed himself to get stale. As soon as his fans thought they knew him, he would metamorph into something new. That my friends, is the definition of a true artist (think Picasso}.”
“who else is listening to this between 2 and 5 a.m.?”
John Coltrane My Favorite Things (1961) [Full album]
“I want a girl that's into this.”
“Those commercials really tie this album together.”
“When I think the world is ending, I come here.....”
“I think this record could bring peace to the middle east.”
Stan Getz & Joao Gilberto - Getz/Gilberto (1963)
“I still have my vinyl copy that I bought back in 1963 when I was 19, and living on a 50' sports-fisherman in Nassau in the Bahamas. We would play that album every day as the sun began its descent into the sea. Many friends in Nassau got to hear Antonio Carlos Jobim for the first time. Wonderful music brings back wonderful memories. Many thanks for the posting”
ST GERMAIN - Boulevard
“I bought this album 15 years ago when i was much younger. When i bought that album i also bought myself a new big glass pipe the same day. I hadn`t smoked for days. I was happy because delicious cheeba dropped that day. When i arrived at home i threw on the CD and then i was hitting my new bong and BOOM this new pipe hit me so hard that i was close to a circulatory collapse. I staggered from my couch to my bed and laid me down. I was superstoned and heard the whole album. Wow i was totally flashed by this music. This was like a LSD-Trip. I remember how that album and my new bong in combination send my outter space that day. Love this album.”
Miles Davis - Kind of Blue - Full Album
“Rain outside, hot bath, a book and Miles davis. Life is good”
“Listening to this makes me wanna write comedies about a neurotic guy with glasses in New York.”
John Coltrane - A Love Supreme [Full Album] (1965)
“this something else than music is much more than that every time i hear this i cry at some point i really cant help it if i where to listen one final piece of music before my death it would be this one and also in my funeral”
“do not pray..except to this album!”
“This album got me sober, thank you Coltrane.”
Thelonious Monk - Monk’s Dream (Full Album)
“The great thing about life is, no matter how long it’s taken you to come to someone like Monk your days thereafter can only get better - I’m looking forward to exploring more of his legacy.
You keep thinking he’s gonna fall down the stairs, but he recovers like Chaplin on roller skates.”