Youtube reactors

[Seven_Islands]

Not sure if others here have caught on to the new genre that is youtube reactions, but in lockdown I've been sifting through a fair few of them - my favourites are Andy and Alex who dive into all sorts of classic rock (but they don't really cover singer-songwriter's so no Gord from them so far) and give much more intelligent/in-depth discussions of the tracks they're hearing afterwards than most (too many reactors just go, oh, yeah, that was great...erm, tell us something we don't know!)

Anyway, there's a few for Gord if you go looking for them - mostly of the same 3 songs (you know the ones) but a couple that rise above the rest for me are Justin's reaction to (the original) CRT:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FityQeeWYfk

And a bit different, not a straight reaction as such, but a father and son reviewing all of Gord's Gold on a track by track basis:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXzyPMwSx-w

Always nice to see Gord getting discovered for the first time by people who never knew what they were missing. :)

[formerlylavender]

Very cool...thanks for posting!

[paskatefan]

Great to see this on Youtube! They've got a good start, but I hope they will continue to discover so much more of his repertoire!



Gail

[Andy T.]

I've thought about creating a post about this trend of YT reaction videos.

Generally, unless you are talking about a few groundbreaking videos from the mid 80s, I don't like watching people react to video presentation, because they are judging the video and not the audio.

As for Gord, his heyday was before promotional videos, so a lot of songs up on YT are of fan made clips or some rare live recorded performances back in the day, so reaction videos based on these are usually all about showcasing the music, which is fine.

Reactioners seem to want some kind of image playing when they view, and the "lyric video" of Wreck works really well for this. But I'd like them to jump back a few years and react to "Yarmouth Castle" which I think I recommended in the comments on one such video, but the clip on TY of that song is just a playing of the Sunday Concert track... and that's "borrrinnng" I guess. Even if the song is not.

[Seven_Islands]

Absolutely, which is why the few reactors I have actually subscribed to are those who are all about the music first and foremost - they also tend to be the ones who are genuinely interested in discovering new music this way too, rather than many others who are more interested in being seen themselves it seems (ick).

[Martyn Miles]

I have never seen the CRT performance for Canada Day ‘92.
Thanks for making it available.

Martyn Miles

Oxford
England.

[Andy T.]

I guess not all reactions are created equal. Did you catch this one? These are two people who probably should not have bothered with "Wreck". Even though this is a vid that has two reactions in it, the first one was WotEF and I think every comment is feedback about Wreck. Ouch!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkOVUhDTJcU

[paskatefan]

^ Wow! They are so clueless! I'm glad to see the many comments in defense of Gordon & the song.



Gail

[Martyn Miles]

I thought the Father & Daughter comments very thoughtful and balanced.

[Andy T.]

Yeah, they said what they thought from their perspective, I won't knock them for that. My take was said above, "Wreck" is a song they should not have even bothered with. I still remember the first time I really listened to that song, on the radio, as a teenager in the mid 80s, (and this pre-dated my fandom of Gord), and I was drawn in by it and thought it was a powerful narrative, and I knew nothing of the backstory. I'm not sure if these peeps would have had that reaction even if they researched it beforehand.

[Mike Dixon]

^ Wow! They are so clueless! I'm glad to see the many comments in defense of Gordon & the song.



Gail

Play them CRT ... they'd be too dim witted to get even that

[paskatefan]

Play them CRT ... they'd be too dim witted to get even that


I bet you're right about that!



Gail

[Seven_Islands]

Since I posted the above Trey and Shawn at Reactions to the Classics have reacted to a couple of lesser-heard Lightfoot tunes, one at my behest (if you're a genius you'll work out which!):

Drink Yer Glasses Empty - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PR6oNbBlYro&t=165s

Seven Island Suite - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztvH6ksnnhA

[paskatefan]

^ Thanks for those links! I loved listening to their assessments of the songs. Hope they'll do more of Gordon's songs. I made some suggestions for them in the "Drink Your Glasses Empty" comments.



Gail