All posts tagged OK Go

Dance on YouTube: Final round-up of OK Go

I know I haven’t written a regular post in a while, but I felt the need to wrap up my little series on Ok Go dance videos before moving on.

After I covered two of the band’s infamous dance-infused music videos, A Million Ways and Here It Goes Again, OK Go released the most creative and dance-embracing video of them all – a collaboration with Pilobolus Dance Theatre. If you didn’t hear about this or see the video, now’s your chance. You can read more about it from the New York Times and Ok Go’s blog and check out the official Times debut and slide show. But basically the two performing groups came together with blue unitards and a camera situated beneath a glass floor to create a visually stimulating music video for the song All Is Not Lost. Here is the basic version of it on YouTube:

But it gets way cooler. By teaming up with the crazy folks from Google, they created an interactive version of the video only available on Google Chrome. It does require that you download (the free) Google Chrome, but I’m telling you it’s totally worth it. Not only is the video itself much cooler, but you can actually customize the video by typing in your own word or phrase, which then gets spelled out in the last part of the music video. You can even download a special screenshot of your phrase to keep for posterity, like this:

So before I say any more, go, download Chrome, go to www.allisnotlo.st, and enjoy the magic.

dum-dee-dum-dum …………..

Are you back now? Pretty cool, right? Now, if you still don’t love this band as much as I do, I have one last video to show (well, at least until their next dancing extravaganza). This one is not really a dance video, but still totally fun. Apparently OK Go was summoned recently to do a version of The Muppet Show theme song, complete, of course, with a music video with the Muppets. With references to a bunch of the band’s well-known videos and your favorite Muppets characters, the end result is pretty great. Check out the video below and also a fun behind-the-scenes video .

2 Comments

by Meagan Bruskewicz on October 21, 2011 • Permalink

Posted in Dance on YouTube, Pop culture

Tagged A Million Ways, All Is Not Lost, dance, Dance on YouTube, Google Chrome, Here It Goes Again, Muppets, music video, OK Go, Pilobolus

Posted by Meagan Bruskewicz on October 21, 2011

https://languageofthesoul.wordpress.com/2011/10/21/dance-on-youtube-final-round-up-of-ok-go/

Dance on YouTube: 5-year anniversary of the treadmill dance

Happy anniversary!! That’s right: 5 years ago this month the band OK Go released their huge hit music video for the song Here It Goes Again. And if you were somehow hibernating at that time and missed out on the hullaballoo, it is literally a choreographed routine with treadmills performed by the band members. And it is brilliant.

My first post highlighting online dance videos featured OK Go’s first ever zany dance music video, A Million Ways – the silly backyard dance that started it all. One year later, OK Go majorly upped the ante with Here It Goes Again. In just 6 days, over one million people had watched the video. One million! Which is even more impressive when you consider this was back in 2006, when YouTube was still young and before we even knew what Twitter was. To date, the video has accrued over 50 million views. It also received the 2007 Grammy award for Best Short Form Music Video as well as the 2006 YouTube award for Most Creative Video.

Personally, I loved the video from the first time I saw it, blown away by the musicality, precision, and creative use of treadmills. But I also remember it fondly because it was used by a college professor of mine for our Dance History final exam. She played the video for us then gave us a prompt to write about, which I believe had something to do with discussing dance in pop culture. I also believe I was quite impressed that my professor was so in-tune to current technological trends. In any case, I want to send a special shout out to my professor as well as, of course, the members of OK Go and the choreographer for both routines, Trish Sie (the lead singer’s sister). And I would be remiss to not also alert your attention to the stellar song that the treadmill dance is done to, advising you to check out the band’s website for even more stellar songs.

Lastly, although it’s not a dance video really, you should also check out OK Go’s video for This Too Shall Pass, the Rube Goldberg Machine version (as shown below). It’s impressive in a completely different, high-level engineering sort of way. Just insane:

Update: check out my third and follow-up post on OK Go dance videos here

6 Comments

by Meagan Bruskewicz on July 5, 2011 • Permalink

Posted in Dance on YouTube, Pop culture

Tagged A Million Ways, dance, Dance on YouTube, dance video, Here It Goes Again, music video, OK Go, This Too Shall Pass, Trish Sie

Posted by Meagan Bruskewicz on July 5, 2011

https://languageofthesoul.wordpress.com/2011/07/05/dance-on-youtube-ok-go-round-2/

Dance on YouTube: OK Go

Dance can be fun. Not that anyone was unaware of this fact. Because of course, along with being poignant and powerful and expressive, dance can also be downright fun. And in that spirit, I’ve decided to do posts every now and then that highlight a YouTube video that features dance in some way. From funny, to weird, to “how in the world are they doing that,” there are oh so many wonderful videos to share and enjoy.

For the first video, I start off with a classic, of sorts. I’m sure many know of OK Go’s more infamous music video with the treadmills (perhaps a follow-up post). Or maybe you’ve seen one of their more recent videos like “This Too Shall Pass” or “End Love.” But I would like to start with the dance that came before them all. The music video for “A Million Ways” was OK Go’s first venture into zany dance routines. It debuted in 2005 and became an internet sensation, becoming the most downloaded music video ever by the following year. It’s so simple – just a silly dance in someone’s backyard. And yet that’s why it’s so brilliant. Who wouldn’t want to watch a group of goofy guys do a choreographed dance routine, complete with jazz hands and slow motion fighting? Without further ado, here’s the OK Go music video/dance that started it all: