WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

1
00:00:00.250 --> 00:00:03.550
Lyric videos are all over YouTube like a rash.

2
00:00:03.550 --> 00:00:05.060
Record companies love 'em.

3
00:00:05.060 --> 00:00:06.060
And for good reason.

4
00:00:06.060 --> 00:00:08.180
They're very cheap, compared to a full video.

5
00:00:08.180 --> 00:00:11.380
They can be released earlier, which means
there's more than a static picture for the

6
00:00:11.380 --> 00:00:14.770
many people who mainly listen to music through
YouTube.

7
00:00:14.770 --> 00:00:18.980
And they separate the official release from
all the unofficial fan videos that inevitably

8
00:00:18.980 --> 00:00:20.640
pop up.

9
00:00:20.640 --> 00:00:22.590
Lyric videos are older than that, though.

10
00:00:22.590 --> 00:00:28.350
There's an argument that Bob Dylan's 1965
Subterranean Homesick Blues counts as one.

11
00:00:28.350 --> 00:00:34.430
In 1987, Prince's video for Sign O The Times
was perhaps the first proper lyric video.

12
00:00:34.430 --> 00:00:39.140
Just pulsing shapes and moving words, complete
with the slightly dodgy punctuation and abbreviations

13
00:00:39.140 --> 00:00:41.120
that you'd see from an amateur video today.

14
00:00:41.120 --> 00:00:46.840
And in 1990, George Michael's "Praying for
Time" just had classy white text on a black

15
00:00:46.840 --> 00:00:48.080
background.

16
00:00:48.080 --> 00:00:51.469
That wouldn't look out of place if it'd been
put together a quarter of a century later

17
00:00:51.469 --> 00:00:53.120
in Windows Movie Maker.

18
00:00:53.120 --> 00:00:59.750
The modern, professional lyric video can trace
its roots back to kinetic, or dynamic, typography.

19
00:00:59.750 --> 00:01:03.920
Inspired by, among others, the movie titles
of designer Saul Bass, there was a YouTube

20
00:01:03.920 --> 00:01:08.070
trend for taking famous scenes from films
and animating the dialogue.

21
00:01:08.070 --> 00:01:12.280
Jarratt Moody's dynamic 'Pulp Fiction' scene
stole the show here.

22
00:01:12.280 --> 00:01:18.290
That led to a trend through 2010 for animated
lyrics - most notably a gorgeous and painstakingly-animated

23
00:01:18.290 --> 00:01:22.369
video for Jonathan Coulton's Shop Vac uploaded
in November 2010.

24
00:01:22.369 --> 00:01:27.979
But by then, Katy Perry's management had started
releasing simple lyric videos - just subtitles

25
00:01:27.979 --> 00:01:29.450
on a photo background.

26
00:01:29.450 --> 00:01:33.850
These were to compete with the fans, who'd
been putting up unofficial ones for years.

27
00:01:33.850 --> 00:01:38.380
These unofficial videos often had inaccurate
or mispelled lyrics, and in some cases - to

28
00:01:38.380 --> 00:01:42.610
get around YouTube's automated copyright systems
- they'd speed up the music slightly, mangling

29
00:01:42.610 --> 00:01:45.030
the original track just so their lyric tribute
could survive.

30
00:01:45.030 --> 00:01:52.560
In 2010, Cee-Lo Green made the first mainstream,
dynamic, and massively popular modern lyric

31
00:01:52.560 --> 00:01:56.740
video - for the song that middle America knew
as 'Forget You'.

32
00:01:56.740 --> 00:02:00.229
And suddenly, everyone had to have one.

33
00:02:00.229 --> 00:02:03.670
Some of them are amazing feats of design,
and have brought the art of motion graphics

34
00:02:03.670 --> 00:02:05.860
back into the public eye.

35
00:02:05.860 --> 00:02:08.060
Some of them... are terrible.

36
00:02:08.060 --> 00:02:10.950
But as long as YouTube's around: well, they're
here to stay.