Posted by Who needs mash-ups when you can create you own style of music video based on something already popular?
Whether you’re a child of the eighties or not, A-ha‘s video for the song, ‘Take On Me’, is widely regarded as one of the pop music videos that helped pushed the genre forward and gave it some semblance of legitimacy as an art form.
The world changes. Technology changes. People get creative. YouTube lets anyone (and everyone) become their own little MTV.
Check out this re-done version of the song ‘Take On Me’ in "literal" form. It’s funny. It’s irreverent, but more importantly, it demonstrates the power of creativity in the face of knowing that it will only appeal to very small and select niche.
YouTube – Take On Me – Literal Video Version:
What other videos get you thinking differently about what mass media TV was about and what places like YouTube represent?
(hat tip Stephen).
Never another podcast episode or article 
If you didn’t know the original song or music video, you might be hard-pressed to determine whether this was the original. The sound editing and text subtitles were professionally integrated. I think this is truly what video is moving to. Original content is difficult to create. But if I had the ability to use an existing video and frame it in a different context with a few overlays and nifty editing, it’s definitely something you could repackage. It’s like telling a different story and the number of tools out there to make this happen quickly and easily is further proliferating the power of the audience over content generation.
Some hip-hop videos are very cheeky and artful about being literal (see Missy Elliot and some Busta Rhymes).
Ooh, this looks hilarious. Will see it soon! 🙂
Mitch – thanks for sharing – this is brilliant. it must be on my part of the long tail…. ;-P