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  5. I have watched the ones where people listen to songs I have liked for years – but it’s the first time for them.

    Initially quite entertaining but I begin to smell a rat when there are lots of them and the reactions are OTT every time. Where is the 6 listen rule in this world? It can take me years to really appreciate a song, so my YouTube reactions will be “Hmmm…quite good”, which will not get me up there with Mr Beast and Pewdie Pie any time soon.

  6. Yeah, I’m aware of these types of videos and after careful consideration I’ve decided they are a pox upon humanity.

    (cue Generation X moaner mode) The ability of our modern society to properly assess and criticise artistic work with balance and expertise is being insidiously ebbed away by things like Memes and Reaction Videos where there is no depth of thought, just instant and fleeting experience.

    In the real world, it’s excruciating to play a song to someone and watch them to see if they like it, and it’s equally unpleasant to be on the receiving end. So why oh why would I want to watch a video of this happening? I agree with Black Celebration – you are NEVER going to get a substantial reaction from someone hearing a song for the first time. The truly great songs take time to sink in (with maybe a handful of notable exceptions).

    All this stuff just encourages a binary system of instant gratification or rejection. “Pink Floyd = cool.”

    I don’t understand young people these days.

    (Gen X moaner mode off)

    • Tosh, ‘Slip, old flower, many a record has blindsided me, beaming, at a first listen. If I have to listen the proverbial 6 before it seeps in, it probably isn’t worth the effort. Doesn’t mean I won’t enjoy further immersions, but the first can very often be the sweetest.

  7. There’s a You Tube channel called the Charismatic Voice with an opera singer and teacher who listens to songs for the first time, as recommended by subscribers.
    Her take on Stargazer by Rainbow, with Ronnie James Dio is rather sweet.

      • Here is one where they discuss vocal technique together on Justin’s YouTube channel.

        Justin Hawkins comes across as a very honest and engaging chap. I just saw this interview with him and he’s very honest about his place in the pantheon. I still think that Permission to Land is one of the greatest rock albums of the past few decades.

  8. I have oft wondered, as is my wont, what music I would listen to and adore if I had had no history or context with which to react.
    I had to like The Beatles and Dylan because to my teenage ears they were cool and different and I, of course, was cool and different.
    But if I had woken up on Planet Earth and listened to Frank Ifield or Shirley Bassey or that Beethoven chappie for the first time would I have thought “Wow, cooler than a cool thing on let’s be cool day?”

  9. Hats off to the Charismatic Voice for revealing the possibilities of reaction videos.

    This article gives a history of the genre over in the mainstream.

    https://www.complex.com/pigeons-and-planes/2018/01/youtube-music-reaction-videos-rise-science-understanding

    They’ve been going since 2007 and there’s big money to be made both by the record company who receive enormous publicity and the blogger who can build a business on them.

    We on the AW may not know much about monetarising a YT channel. The kids do!

  11. I’m not usually a big fan of reaction videos, but this guy is completely overwhelmed by hearing Leonid & Friends cover of Fantasy. I actually sent this to a friend to introduce them to L& F rather than just the source video.

  13. I watch them – not the music ones so much, but the film and TV ones. If I don’t have the time or interest to watch a film or series but want to know what everyone’s talking about and understand the jokes and memes, I’ll watch a reaction and get through hours and hours of TV in 30 minutes or so… 😀
    I would never have watched GOT from start to finish in its full form, but I’ve seen it in reaction form! But there are an awful lot of crap reactors on YT, and even the better ones get tiresome after a while. The good ones give more than just a reaction, they analyze what they see or make funny jokes, something extra that makes you see things in a new light or bring a much needed giggle.

    • Reactions to films and TV? How does that even work – do they show you what they’re watching as they watch it?

      Sounds a bit like GoggleBox – a UK TV show you might not have heard of, where families watch TV and we watch them watching it. Sounds awful but the format actually works really well, and a lot of it is the humour and banter. A bit like The Royle Family (another UK show you might not know, a sitcom) but unscripted. They’ve done celebrity ones as well – even people like Shaun Ryder and Bez have popped up on it.

      • They don’t show all of it (except some reactors have Patreon sites where they do, for people who for some reason want to pay to see that), for copyright reasons of course. They cut bits out but generally keep the exciting bits in, so that’s why it’s a great way to “watch” a film or series quickly and get the gist of it.

        I have seen Gogglebox (it’s on YouTube…), and I used to love The Royle Family (taped it on VHS back in the day!) 🙂

  14. I think that, like most reality content, they are transparently fake and full of ludicrously OTT emoting. The reaction never seems to be one of bored indifference, which is most people’s standard response to new music. There are a couple of exceptions such as the Charismatic Voice, mentioned above, because you can believe that a conservatory-trained musician has probably never heard much metal before, and she actually has technical insight.

    What would be more honest is something like “Toddler reacts to classic kids TV shows”. Now there’s an idea…

  16. There’s one of a few American guys watching Fred Dibnah demolish a massive chimney – it seemed pretty genuine, as they expressed a reasonable amount of mild concern about the unharnessed, flat-capped chappy. Health and Safety didn’t really apply.

    The music ones are massively staged, in general. The people talk over the actual song. It’s three bloody minutes: you’d comment at the end!

    • That IS annoying, however I do believe that the stopping and starting, commenting over the music and sometimes frequent cuts are made to avoid copyright strikes, YouTube will often take down videos or demonetize them after the copyright holders complain.

  18. I got bored with reaction vids a while back for all the reasons put forward in this thread, and I decided that the Charismatic Voice lady tells me way more than I needed to know about anything. Plus she keeps going back to the beginning.

    But this guy’s enthusiasm about my favourite covers band mashing up Sweet Dreams and Seven Nation Army seems genuine enough.

  19. MC Escher says

    Bri – how about choosing another username and logging in using that? Then Lodestone won’t have to be your messenger… wanna say “bitch”, but politeness stops me… person, whenever you feel the need to reach out. Then you can just y’know, reach out whenever the mood strikes you (apart from late Friday and Saturday nights of course). *kisses*

  20. Bri, you may be gone, but you are still calling the shots on this site. Spooky!

    You’ve got me started on Reaction Videos.

    Here’s Tanya Wells, singer of Seven Eyes (whoever they might be), reacting to one of my favourite Brazilian singers, Elis Regina. Impressive.
    This is not something she’s never heard before: she’s really done her homework on the historical background and Elis’s life story. nd her Portuguese pronunciation is top notch.

    I’m hooked! Darn it!

    Bri is the Napoleon of our times. We can exlle him to Santa Helena but his legend lives on.

    Tanya’s comments make me want to dash off to YouTube or Spotify and listen to even more of Ms Regina.

    Here’s Tim Maia.

  21. I absolutely love reaction vids where it can be reasonably determined that they are spontaneous- there are definitely some rank ones out there where musical ignorance is almost total -indeed there doesn’t seem to be even any curiosity – ‘ Let me know in the comments what this Beatles band were all about’ – but conversely, it’s nice to see younger folks responding to stuff that has moved you in the past.
    My current faves are ‘Sight After Dark’ , based in hipster central, who are passionate about music & open minded about almost everything. Generally, he’s animated & she’s still & beatific until she holds forth, but this response to Wicked Wilson Pickett live in Africa clearly shows they ‘get it’.

    • So many reasons not to click into that hell hole.

      Let’s start with:

      Tears For Fears: Horrible adenoidal yodelling from the most slappable duo, like, ever. “Pale Shelter”? Give me a break.
      Those reaction faces – so spontaneous! Reminds me of Laura Dern looking “shocked and awed” at a dinosaur.
      Posted by Lodestone of Wrongness, about whom the least said the better.

  24. When I was about 40 I commented to my wife that the radio at the supermarket plays pretty good music – and it goes to show that 80s pop never goes out of style. She gently told me that this was intentional, knowing the demographic of the biggest-spending customers i.e. people my age. Oh.

    Similarly a couple of years ago I had a viral tweet that attracted nearly 100K likes. I normally get zero or on a good day, 1 or 2. After a few days of getting used to being a top influencer, I read an article that said Twitter has a built-in thing to make a tweet viral every now and then to keep users interested. Oh.

    On these reaction videos – I think there is something else afoot with these young, social media-savvy people. They are identifying the biggest acts of 40-odd years ago and purposefully reacting in an extremely OTT and positive way to the songs – why? because there’s thousands of old buggers like us that love seeing it.

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