Weird Titles
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 ส.ค. 2023
- Tumblr: www.tumblr.com/solarsands
Second Channel: / @solarsands2
Patreon: www.patreon.com/user?u=3356654
Sources:
Mona Lisa
www.theguardian.com/books/200...
slate.com/news-and-politics/2...
Great Wave Off Kanagawa
• Better Know the Great ...
Vermeer
slate.com/news-and-politics/2...
A View of Delft: Vermeer Then and Now. Anthony Bailey. Page 156.
Untitled
www.artsy.net/article/artsy-e...
Title History and Rene Magritte
Yeazell, Ruth Bernard. Picture Titles. Princeton University Press. Kindle Edition.
www.jstor.org/stable/44030202
www.jstor.org/stable/4140228
God
philamuseum.org/collection/ob...
Art Titles Getting Longer
culturalanalytics.org/article...
Book Titles
Why not Catch 21?: The Stories Behind Titles Gary Dexter. Page 200-203. Page 62.
Reddit
/ the_meanings_of_rdjs_t...
/ xtal
/ most_normal_song_title
Autechre
www.soundonsound.com/people/a...
Museum Exhibition Titles
www.artnews.com/art-news/news...
Duchamp Title Quote
enseignants.lumni.fr/fiche-me...
Detailed Sources: pastebin.com/jARQXa9h
Music in Order of Appearance:
Aphex Twin - Z Twig
Haircuts for Men - 実行しないと、彼らが来る
Kevin MacLeod - Samba Isobel
Coleman Hawkins - Body and Soul
Inner-Vation - Movements (1999)
Weatherscan Music - Track 20
Moseni Lotus - Yume 2kki (Jazz Arrangement)
• Moseni Lotus - Yume 2k... @nullifi
Montage - 8_40 - Ace Combat 3 Original Soundtrack
Yume 2kki OST - The Ceiling
What True Self, Feels Bogus, Let's Watch Jason X by Chris Zabriskie is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. creativecommons.org/licenses/...
Outro Music:
• first to cry
#art #arthistory #videoessay - บันเทิง
To be fair, "The Nightwatch" generally just rolls off the tongue a lot better than... "Militia Company of District II Under The Command of Captain Frans Banninck Cocq".
Brevity was not a priority for titles of pretty much anything before the later 19th century, as is alluded to by SS in the video.
But the nightwatch is very misleading
@@DrunkenHotei still isnt on some places
Japan especially is infamous for long titles
@@valletas nah Japan just got the same Internet titling trend of naming something filled with straightforward tags and terms that people can easily search plus understand at a glance that this video mentioned.
Webnovel titles got so long and descriptive because most people has started and tends to read something that they for sure know want to read in the first place, people got tired of "trying things out" just from the sheer amount of works available; it's practically TH-cam thumbnail and title game but for Webnovels.
Before the age of Webnovel, Japanese works has normal and not very long titles.
@@shira_yone Also book titles used to be much longer in the past as well. Like with the full title of Robinson Crusoe they used to serve as basically a short summery of the work to inform the read what they were about. Titles got shorter when book stores started being a thing and we started putting summaries on the back while trying to make the front as impactful as possible so that it'd stand out in a bookstore. However in some cases like Japanese light novels you might just see them in a list with maybe the front cover displayed, they're either brought by mail order or online and might not even have a physical version so most of the information gets put in the title. This isn't the case for everything though, I think it's mostly the case for what you'd usually call "genre" works, stories that stick pretty strictly to the norms and conventions of a genre and aren't really trying to do anything new but just provide the reader with more of that thing, in that case it just makes sense to have a very straightforward title so the reader can more easily find it. However light novels that actually want the reader to think about them more and which want to stick out will have shorter and more impactful titles like "86" or "Regarding Sayaka".
I can’t for the life of me remember the artist, but I once saw a painting of a girl looking at a dinosaur skull at a museum entitled “Two Earthlings”. The painting itself was nice, but reading the title gave me a weird existential jolt. Definitely made me like it more
I also thought of that when he started talking about titles that elevate a piece of art!
Artist is John Brosio
Had something similar when I was a kid lol, was watching a superhero show, when an alien captured a gorilla in a zoo and called it an earthling. Pretty weird feeling for a simple realization.
You can just google the title of the painting if you don't remember the artist
@@jalbaugh24 thank you :D
“I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream” Beautifully and terrifyingly simplistic
Talking about terrifying simplicity: Dalí not only had long titles, but sometimes his titles provided quite a deep view. Like "The Enigma of Desire, or My Mother, My Mother, My Mother".
... or maybe he was just trolling, who knows.
That story always scared me.
@@lonestarr1490i love the idea that he's just trolling future generations and came up with those titles whilst being drunk
Dude, I have the book, and it's incredible each time I read it
I always liked the name of the old Nickelodeon cartoon "Ahh! Real Monsters." I liked how you have to say an exclamation as part of the title when you say it out loud, which people do, but in weird ways because it's such an unusual thing to have to do. Often it's all kind of slurred together, like "when I was a kid, my favorite shows were Cat-Dog, Goof Troop, and Ahrealmonsters."
People give things impossible-to-say names all the time, like some of the music tracks you mentioned, but I like the idea of giving a children's show such an unorthodox name just because the creators would have known the name would have to be said aloud frequently, among children and on TV ("coming up next..."). It gives it an intentionality I find delightful.
thinking of impossible to pronounce titles, death grips "you might think he loves you for your money but i know what he really loves you for it's your brand new leopard skin pillbox hat" always comes to mind for being so ridiculously long and tedious to say
certainly gives the track a reason to be remembered
Glass Key is more than likely dry humor. What is more precarious than a key made out of glass? The painting is the answer, a mountain sized boulder perched on the spine of a mountain.
Perhaps an eye-opening, masterful video perched upon an algorithm of consistent inconsistency?
The key to it, is something invisible.
This was some exquisite trolling for its time
This reminds me of the Bravil archery shop guy. Pretentious Bosmer fuck.
I like your pfp, the hyena with and ancom flag looks cool as hell.
One of my favorite titles is John Brosio's "Two Earthlings", the painting is of a person and a skull of a Tyrannosaurus rex in what is very likely a museum, nothing conceptually out of the ordinary, but the title really hits a chord with me.
Absolutely! This title has also stuck with me. Brosio had already painted a dinosaur-bones-in-museum scene which was called Predecessor-but he must have realised that Two Earthlings was a way better title. There’s also another Two Earthlings by Brosio that precedes the skull one, which I think also does the title justice: It depicts a bloodied dead shark on a pier, and a human towering above it, casually holding some drink.
"the month of the grape harvest" is probably one of my favorite titles, it seems so unrelated to the artwork but at the same time not contradictory enough that you'd think it was purposely mismatched. It has an eerie, sort of indie horror feel to it that way
I had a very different reaction to that piece! Although I adore it as well...
That piece with its title made me laugh SO hard, I found it quite funny: it felt like unintentional comedy. I imagine all the men outside the window are very patiently waiting for the commencing of the grape harvest. It seems surreal in the silliest way. (I mean it most respectfully to the work itself of course!) It is a great piece, and the title makes it so much better.
I find it so mundane yet interesting that the reactions to that piece can be so vast. I can totally see the indie horror thing, though...
they're giant monuments, because they don't have perspective
@@official-obama what do you mean?
@@rei6en the ones in the back look the same size as the ones in the front
I find it hilarious, i imagine the POV as someone who just woke up late and everyone is waiting for him "come on, get out, we dont want to start the grape harvest without you"
Another one for c418 is off the first minecraft soundtrack album, the song is called "Intro" and is the last song on the albums lineup, it's also not even included within the game... c418 says the meaning is that it's the intro into the real world after quitting the game. Tonally the song is very melancholic and introspective so the meaning for me personally is also about growing up.
All the C418 song titles are so creative.
Dead Voxel, I Glove Thy Fob, 11, and so on.
On David Bowie's 1977 album Low, he has an instrumental song titled "A new career in a new town" where he plays a harmonica throughout the song. On David Bowie's final song, on his last album Blackstar (2016) he has a song titled "I can't give everything away" that samples the harmonica on "A new career in a new town" from 39 years prior. David Bowie died 2 days after the release of his album Blackstar.
I always loved his song "A new career in a new town," but sometimes I wondered if the meaning I got from the song was obscured by the title. Maybe the instrumental song would have a completely different meaning if not for the title? Then when I listened to Blackstar and heard the harmonica, in the context that Bowie knew he was going to die soon from cancer, it gave an even greater meaning to both songs and Bowie's thoughts on death. A new career in a new town.
Blackstar also isn't the title of Bowie's final album, its official title is ★. Just the symbol of a black star.
Weird coincidence, I just listened to Low for the first time today
Wow, your explanation makes sense. I always thought Bowie referenced "A New Career in a New Town" because simply for nostalgia.
Yes! The first time I heard the harmonica line for New Career in Blackstar that's exactly how I imagined it. He knew he was about to die, and that's how he saw it, that he was off to have a new career in a new town. I didn't see any reviewers pick up on this but I'm sure others have made this meaning too.
Low is Bowie's masterpiece, don't forget to praise Eno and Visconti too!
Jokes on Bowie, I'm using dark mode on TH-cam, something he should have foreseen. The star is white
I think the use of titles for copyrighted art is fascinating. In 1996, James Cameron announced he wanted to make a flim called Avatar. In 2004, Nickelodeon had to rename their animated show to Avatar: The Last Airbender because Cameron owned the rights to the single word title. In 2009, when the film Avatar was finally released, it was marketed as James Cameron's Avatar to help distinguish itself. Production companies and marketers fight to establish their brand recognition with a simple common word, but at the end of the day, we still say, "oh you mean with the blue people?"
it's wacky for sure.
and today i learned that ATLA was original just "Avatar". Feels wrong yet also perfect to not have the subtitle (which is a bit funny since everyone calls it Avatar lol).
ATLA owns the streets
The blue people would cry if they heard Aang speak in the Avatar state.
@@vizthex It depends on location, in a lot of countries the "Avatar" part was actually dropped entirely so people just refer to it as "The Last Airbender", this is the case in Germany.
Something similar happened with "Sid Meier's" and "Tom Clancy's" they somehow became trademarked titles and have nothing to do with whether said person was actually involved in the game. Sid Meier hasn't worked on a Civilization game for decades and Tom Clancy is literally dead, and only had minor involvement in the first Rainbow Six game.
Goosebumps author R.L. Stine once held a contest where students could submit a title and the winner would have that title turned into a novel. The winner of the contest submitted a title nothing short of engrossing: "Dead Dogs Still Fetch". It'd a title that seems to contain an entire story within its few words. Its a title I think about often
I've read that the titles are always the first thing Stine came up with for story premises, and worked backwards to fill them out. He said that without a title there was no story
Thank you for reminding me of that! It is an amazing title!
Slime Doesn't Pay ....
bro submitted a title for a story about hector
Great comment 👍
A glass key is a questionable construct. If you put a glass key in a keyhole (a key's intended function is to go in a keyhole and turn the lock mechanism) it can shatter, as it is made a glass. In this scenario, the key has been precariously placed for it's function. That is, it's meant to do something, but the slightest thing can destroy it. A giant oblong boulder that is barely balanced in an unlikely and questionable way, is also precarious. Especially precarious for its presumed intended purpose, as a rock formations presumed purpose is to endure. And the ability to endure, is the very thing this that's in question for this rock formation depicted.
You didn't mention the Aphex Twin album (Selected Ambient Works, vol. II) that used a collection of abstract images rather than words for the titles of its tracks.
After it was released, fans had to agree on a verbal description for each image, just so they could refer to specific tracks in normal human language.
Oh my god I didn't know that, that explains a lot.
The band Twink did that! They do cutesy toy piano electronica, and one of their albums, the titles were all ASCII/unicode faces.
@AlexReynard yet another reason to love twinks I guess
@@scribeslendy595 As if we needed more... ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
@@AlexReynard Nifty.
Fun fact on that matter: "The Scream" by Edward Munch translates to "Fright" in the original translation and the guy isnt even screaming, he is hearing an expressional scream of nature and is in shock. The thought that the figure is screaming comes mostly from the faulty translation.
The norwegian title is “Skrik” which translates to “Scream”, but you’re right about the “scream of nature” part. “Der Schrei der Natur” was the original german title, and he also described it in a diary. He also painted “Despair”, “Anxiety” and “Sick Mood at Sunset, Despair” with a similar background but different figures.
I learned that when reading Between Shades of Gray (the one about the USSR). Very very spooky indeed
I always viewed it as the subject's reaction to the titular scream, I never really thought about it as them screaming
What's a “scream of nature”? Like the wind sounded scary and it shocked him?
@@SamuIise The "scream" in the phrase "scream of nature" is the metaphor. I would say in substance similar to "it hit me" as in "and then it hit me, how beautiful and terrifying nature is"
Magritte is probably my favorite artist of all time. His insane reasonings for his odd titles makes me just love him more
Helmeted sausage ^^
Your channel is a great example. I love the name Solar Sands, it is what caught my attention at first. Doesn't need to have, or i dont need to know, the meaning, i just like that combination of words.
I'm a big music fan and the title of a song can make it just that much better. I'm a sucker for cool, interesting, or just weird titles.
It shows from your pfp
Stop advertising your music. Advertisements and copyright are part of capitalism. There are a finite number of short titles. The titles are deflationary and unsustainable like coal.
@@menjolno what? go away
@@menjolno no bitches
Honestly I would've never listened to King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard's music if not for their strange band name
Now, Omnium Gatherium is one of my favorite albums
Whenever I hear someone mention King Gizz or Psychadelic Porn Crumpets or any other strangely named bands that I adore, I remember how important titles are, and similarly how they impacted my listening
And it makes me happy
I'm surprised Everywhere at the End of Time wasn't mentioned here. I feel like the names used in that project are such a huge part of the impact of it, as if they'd been too direct or too vague it would have shifted the tone out of the sweet spot the work hits between esoteric artsy chaos and an easily understood yet brilliantly concise commentary on dementia.
I listen to a lot of that musicians (Caretaker's) work, and a large portion of their titles (if not all, although I'm not certain) are based heavily off of the sampled pieces!
While the titles of the songs often remain very similar to the sampled tracks, possibly using lyrics from the tracks as well, the music is much different.
The original song, usually a vintage track with loving or jovial undertones, becomes extremely distorted, becoming repetitive and unsettling; the distortion and repetition of memory... it can become distressing or disturbing in nature despite its possible positive connotation. Like a parody of the past, memories can often evoke a lot of discomfort that was never present in those moments.
While I have never researched the musician or the title/song meanings, this is what I gather from them (and what they mean to me of course). While the music is great in a sleep playlist, listening to it while thinking can bring out some rather... discomforting feelings, especially in relation to the project you mentioned.
Solar Sands has a video about that album called "Can You Name One Object In This Photo?" Really cool video
Solar, I appreciate the fact that you're not the kind of youtuber who cranks out a new video every week or every few days, but rather that you take the time to put together really thoughtful video essays that are always worth sitting through and often a rewatch or two. Keep up the good work, sir.
One of the most haunting titles in art's history has to be the John Brosio's painting of a woman looking at the fossilized skull of a T-rex in a museum. The name of the work? "Two Earthlings".
"The Mountains Are Learning, and I Must Run" is a unique statement I blurted out and then I realized it sounds like a really solid title for a creepy pasta. Same for "My dad died 3 months ago, and now I have to fight him".
Sounds like a demon used you as a temporary vessel to speak for a second
That's beautiful.
And it makes sense of considering the mountains are learning. After all, we and our computers need minerals to think. And those minerals come from nature, found in quarries, and mines in mountains.
And as both us and A.I evolves. Those minerals will be thinking more and more, and such progress is reaching scarry speeds, at least to some. I am just excited.
Still one might try to run from it, but few are the things that can outpace the march of progress.
Maybe only if you could outrun the march into the future, by getting into the future first at your own terms.
@@andrefilipe9042 without question you nailed my first thought, my second was if the mountains are huge old god flesh beasts and personally want me dead for provoking them.
@@SolarSands wouldn't doubt it. Wouldn't be the first time.
@@FayeHunterThen do like Warrior Poet Vivec and the Swiss Psychologist Carl Jung and place a stone above your head and stand above a huge rock and say to yourself - I am in between this stones, I am made of water and earth, and earth is a stone, thus I am stone, I am the mountains. And all I can fear is just myself, for I am this which is me. I am that I am.
Insane that you did a video about the value of titles and didn't once touch on Japanese pop media and its use (or abuse) of the english language.
"Infinite Undiscovery", "Metal Gear Rising Revengeance", "Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time", "Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days", "Blue Gender", "Ergo Proxy", "Godzilla Minus One".
The list goes on and on. I realize that part of it is the fetishization of english as a visual medium. And part of it is the raw translation of Japanese into English, but it's still very amusing to me.
Also the thing with titles being super long and descriptive is totally a trend with modern manga. jrock and jpop are notorious for playing a lot with capitalization on their English titles too.
"Evangelion" is such a nice title for anything. What a pretty word
THIS.
Oh God
Some of this definitely what you said. English as a decorative element is VERY common in Japan. Japanese people don’t speak English as well as you’d expect. Eventhough it’s everywhere
And sometimes it feels like revenge.
For using Japanese words completely out of of context and any semblance of grammar
😅 as a German person the slaughtering of our language by anime is quite wild
@@kiricappuchin Jojolion comes from the same greek suffix, but there everyone just asked where the jojo lion was...
Heck yeah. Some more ridiculous Japanese English titles I love:
- Sket Dance
- Myriad Colors Phantom World
- 「C」 THE MONEY OF SOUL AND POSSIBILITY CONTROL
- R.O.D. THE TV
Yo Solar, this is so cool to see. Legitimately an interesting video I can learn a lot from!
I've been watching since the Deviantart days, back when I, myself, was an "edgy, angy teen". Then I got cancer and mellowed out just a little bit, and it's so gratifying to come back and watch you upload these long-form, well thought-out video essays with so much heart and intrigue poured into them. Not only that but seeing the tremendous amount of support and thoughtfulness these videos invoke in the comments is really fantastic. I'm just so stoked.
Looking forward to seeing more content that makes you happy.
"I Can't Even Remember My Own Name" by Frums is probably my favourite Title. Frums definitely has weirder titles like 24eeev0-$ or Mdrnqxtagon, it's not even one of their most unique songs. But I feel the combination of noise, the calming melodies paired with the title just make this song something special. For me it feels like someone who's experiencing an ego death, and also experiencing true tranquility. The most terrifying thing, the realization of one's death, juxtaposed with, the realization that even dying can't prevent you from inner peace is just nonsensical and also beautiful to me.
Frums is goated. "Undiscardable" has got to be my favorite track by them, though the title doesn't inspire me that much. "XNOR XNOR XNOR" is a real interesting title though. "theyaremanycolors" is a good one too.
Solar Sands doesn’t upload frequently, but when he does, it’s a blessing.
Very few if any can trump his ability to demonstrate the value of quality over quantity, substance over style, and all without ever resorting to clickbait. He's truly in a league of his own.
but when he does, it's bussin.
He uploads frequently and consistently.
If you think daily content is frequent then look at the quality of the creator's work. It's probably subpar
@@pappi8338 Seems like most people have come to take the phrase "frequently uploads" to mean "saturates their channel with mediocrity."
🤖
One of my favorite titles is “Finnegans Wake” by James Joyce. It refers to the Irish song “Finnegan’s Wake” in which a man falls off a wall and dies and at his funeral is resurrected when someone spills whiskey on him. The title leaves out the apostrophe as if Joyce is tells all of the Finnegans in the world (the common man) to wake up. Finally if you break the title down you get “Finn” which means end, “Egan”which sounds like again, and wake which can refer to the wake at a funeral or someone waking up or Finnegan waking up from his own death. This encapsulates the whole book which is itself a dream and a circle, representing the circle of life, death, and history. It was also one of Anthony Burgess’ favorite books.
terrible book for pseuds
@@j.2512who
@@j.2512filtered
I know it's best to let sleeping dogs lie, but I think the other commenter is alluding to "pseudo-intellectuals", and I would guess they are saying:
" 'Finnegans Wake' is not a book for the arrogant or the upstart"
I have not read the book in question, but I can almost see what they are saying here, since Finnegans Wake, purportedly, has many layers, and if you don't do your due-dilligence, you may think you know all there is to know, but in reality, you've only walked up half a staircase.
Of course, even if I did agree, I wouldn't have just said "terrible book for pseuds" even if the spirit of the sentence may actually apply to a book as allegedly dense as "Finnegans Wake"
(Sorry for the wall!)
Nice video, but you've missed such a wonderful example of weird titles when you've mentioned Aphex Twin. He's notable for using ambiguous titles with seemingly random numbers and letters, that's for sure. He even used to name tracks with old Scottish words. But the peak of his naming always would be his second album under his alias Aphex Twin - "Selected Ambient Works pt.2".
There he named every track from the album with *pictures*. There is no official verbal titles for this album's tracks, everywhere they titled with their index numbers or with what the person, that described tracklist, saw on these pictures.
I mean, Twin's famous track "Stone in focus" isn't originally named that way. Its name is a picture of stone-like surface with parts of it blured and part of it in focus. The track "Tree" is named with a picture of a tree. And only "Blue calx" is named verbally: its picure is blue rectangle with words "blue calx" written in bottom-left corner of it.
12:54 I wholeheartedly agree. There is a difference between us standing on the shoulder of giants and us leaning on them.
My mom titled me "disappointment" and I think that's a wacky title
titles are evil and capitalists because they are protected by copyright. Stop covering the evils of capitalism with jokes.
Do not use jokes to sugar coat capitalism and copyright.
It is a whacky and an ironic title. Impressive work from your mom!
@@menjolnoI saw a similar comment from you in the comments section. You seem to imply that titles are inherently capitalist and therefore bad. Could you elaborate on that? Like I get that titles are an important tool in commercializing art, but I don't see how any mention of titles is capitalist.
@@menjolno 🤓👆🏻
I used to write fanfics and I always found it the most difficult to find a title. It depends on your standard for finding a title. I used to try to find a title by condenscing the overall theme of the story but that made it so I had to wait til the story was finished to get a full picture and my fans waited for my weekly uploads lol. So I started titling my stories based on the characters' personality trait plus the setting.
i once read a fic in class that had me holding back tears titled "Fragile" and to this day im so glad i bookmarked it. it had to have been like 4 or 5 years ago i think- i know i'd be fighting for my life if i had to look it up now.
I never really published my fic, but my process for title-ing stuff has always been kinda weird. I'll imagine some random scenes until I've got enough to consolidate into a story outline- come up with a title to capture the vibe of those scenes- then explore the other meanings behind that title and ways I can twist them to contain even a tiny fragment of the title's essence. As such... they usually end up either being fragments of existing quotes, dumb puns, or even... the dreaded one-word title. (I know why those exist now. LMAO.)
At least, when they aren't using "placeholder" names that end up becoming their real names after I couldn't think of anything better. Thank you, "Wombo Combo".
@@problemsfan4132 What fandom was it for and where can I find it?
I find that titles that are specifically one or two simple words are interesting.
Like my story I’m writing about Manifold Garden has very simple chapter titles like “Loop” and “White Sky”, that are both easy to come up with and have a way of over-summarizing what the characters experience in this world.
@@RTRC_2012 I'm in the process of writing a Transformers fic. Any chance I could come to you for naming advice when it's ready to be published?
I'm so glad you brought up C418's work! I've always felt drawn in by many of his song titles. Some titles are fairly straightforward or only take a little bit of thought to piece together, but plenty also have a strange, esoteric quality that feels like you _should_ understand what it means but can't. The odd titles are short and simple enough that its not just a random mix of words, coherent enough to not get lost, but still manage to evoke all sorts of feelings that you can't quite place.
13:10 the movie Cinderella Man is a good example of this. the only reason for the name is that in one of the last big scenes, the main character is called Cinderella Man with no context.
Art titles and uncertainty behind them were sometimes a nightmare in art school, especially when they were translated not once, but often twice, from the original language to english and then from english to language the school was teaching in. Finding some of the paintings after classes was just straight up impossible, they turned out to be different pieces or the translations everywhere on the internet were so different, that finding anything in my native language was... Hard. I remember well when the class was studying for the tests after impressionism and it could get really stressful, because you need to know around 2000 certain pieces for the standardised test at the end of high school, some of which you can't find ANYWHERE.
So you need to know names of paintings... In order to have a degree in art?
I thought the whole point of learning art was to know how to feel it, express it, and make it.
Memorizing stuff, for memorization's sake doesn't feel a requirement in that process rather, it feels like a mentalization of a process that should be felt, not thought.
@@andrefilipe9042I had a non-major music appreciation class where the tests were just writing down the title and composer of the piece being played. Well there was also terminology and history questions, but you get the gist. Academia can't handle art
"if you were to get what you deserve, you would know what the bottom of a tire tastes like" is my favourite
20:10 I cried. I don't normally do that but the idea touched me so deeply.
"when those worries change, you'll know that that chapter of your life has ended maybe forever"
hit me hard
20:15
C418's Minecraft tracks are so emotive i often find myself trying to imagine the music describing a story about the title
Like if it was the soundtrack to a movie, changing mood depending on the current actions displayed on screen
Especially the track "Mice on Venus", "Cat" and "Sweden"
To me, "Cat" has always evoked the image of a tiny kitten on an endlessly vast, open grassy field, seen from above; completely oblivious to the sheer isolation it finds itself in, and how tiny it is compared to the landscape.
Well, considering how they were designed for Minecraft, in a sense they _are_ describing a story. The story that you are in the process of creating. The meaning changes depending on what exactly you are doing, yet somehow, _somehow,_ the tracks always describe it perfectly.
My favorite example from C418 is "Ballad of the Cats". Based on the name alone, you'd assume the song would have a pleasant vibe, similar to Mice on Venus or Cat. Instead, it has a very dark and unnerving tone, very moody and tense. There's a reason behind the name, yes, but if you don't look it up, you get to make your own interpretation, which makes the name very interesting to me. These cats have a very creepy ballad, and we can only guess why.
I always interpreted "Cat" to just be named after their own cat.
I don't really mind longer titles, but I see why some people might not want to remember such a long title.
Stop justifying advertising and copyright. I thought solar sand fans were communists.
@@menjolno What?
@@menjolno There's something fundamentally wrong with you. Worms in the brain.
@@kiricappuchin titles are protected by copyright in capitalism. small titles are especially protected because there are a finites number of small titles. justifying titles are in favor of capitalism
@@menjolno ...Okayy lol
Personally a big fan of the way Will Wood titles his songs, too. They seem to be the perfect balance of absurdity that you really have to dig into to understand, and something that can give insight and meaning before you even listen to the song. Some of my favorites are "Marsha, Thankk you for the dialectics but I need you to leave", "I/Me/Myself", "Mr Capgras encounters a secondhand vanity" and "The First Step". They all give you something to think about, like an easter egg in the song without actually being part of the song
Not Really
4:22 "Giving birth astride a grave" is reference to Samuell Beckett's play Waiting for Godot, that we glimpse consciousness for but an instant before we're back in nothingness.
There’s a joke about titles you might appreciate.
There was this guy walking down the road when he noticed a night club ahead. He went in, went up to the bar and asked for a drink. The bar owner, who was tending bar, said, "I've never seen you in her before."
The guy says, "Yes, I'm not from around here. I'm just passing through on my way to find a job."
The owner asks, "What do you do?"
The guy says, "I write music and play the piano."
The owner, looking excited says, "REALLY! I have an ad in the paper looking for someone to play my piano. Please sit down at the keyboard and play for me if you're interested."
The guy does and as he plays the piano the owner is in awe of his talent and musical abilities. The owner says, "You play the piano more beautifully than anyone I have ever heard! What is the name of that song?"
The guy says, "I wrote that song and the name is Two Lesbians Fucking Their Brains Out."
The owner gasps and is taken back. He says, "My gosh, that's a terrible name for such a beautiful song. Do you know any others?"
The guy smiles and plays again. Once more the owner is astounded by this guy's talent and musical abilities. He's almost afraid to ask but he does ask what the name of the song he just played.
The guy answers, "I Fucked Her All Night Until She Couldn't Take Anymore."
The owner again was shocked. The owner says, "OK, you play beautifully and the songs you have written are incredible. I will hire you, but you have to promise not to tell the name of your songs to the patrons." The guy agrees.
That night the guy was playing the piano and the crowd was just as amazed as the owner was with this man's musical abilities. After playing two songs the crowd stood up and applauded. The guy was really pleased and stood up to take a bow. When he stood up and faced the audience, it was apparent that his zipper was open and his dick and balls were hanging out.
One of the patrons close to the piano says, "Sir, do you know your dick and balls are hanging out?"
The guy smiles and says, "KNOW IT, I WROTE IT!"
lmao what 😭
I gotta tell this to my fucking dad lmfao.
🤣🤣🤣
Those songs he wrote were bangers
this is made 500% funnier by the fact that it's a comment on this particular video which primes you to think it's gonna have something deep and insightful to say about the nature of titles lmao
I'm hard-pressed to find another channel that can get me immediately interested in a topic within literally the first minute of the video. You really need to write a book, my man.
The Canadian post rock band Godspeed You! Black Emperor has some really creative titles. Some of my favorites are “She Dreamt She Was a Bulldozer, She Dreamt She Was Alone in an Empty Field” and “Cancer Towers On Holy Road Hi-Way”
My personal favorite is from one of their side projects called "13 angels standing guard round the side of your bed"
14:29 ah yes the original Isekai novel
Father sands has blessed us with enough sustenance to survive another month
I’d kill to see you do a retrospective on your channel. See what made you shift interests from laughing at cringe art to sharing educational essays that are down to earth.
Probably just grown up.
It's a great escalation of character development. I'm not going to say their previous videos had no value, and they were, in a way, an important part of my art journey, but seeing the growth has inspired my growth as well.
Reminds me of Vsauce
@@lyxthenI agree completely. I grew up watching this channel and seeing changes in both myself and the channel throughout our time is just quite neat.
15:27 The [163.97] at the end is the tempo.
Solar Sands acknowledging Jacob Geller in his video is something I didn't think I'd see, but I'm so happy I did. Collab when?
It seems that both modern art and isekai Light novels have one more thing in common now, that thing being the sheer LENGTH of their titles. Those writers must've taken inspiration from Dali when deciding what to name their fantasy/post-apocalypse books.
New LN just dropped
The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner: Who lived Eight and Twenty Years, all alone in an un-inhabited Island on the Coast of America, near the Mouth of the Great River of Oroonoque; Having been cast on Shore by Shipwreck, wherein all the Men perished but himself. With An Account how he was at last as strangely deliver'd by Pyrates. Written by Himself.
that neither is real art
I Got Run Over By A Tuk-Tuk And Now I Am The Emperor Of Falala And Also My Mother Is Three Years Old And Also A Hermit Crab!?
@@Source_of_Sanctuary title of the sequel series just leaked:
_The Farther Adventured of Robinson Crusoe; Being the Second and Last Part of His Life, And of the Strange Surprising Accounts of his Travels Round Three Parts of the Globe. Written by Himself._
Homestuck predicted this way back
The usage of titles in Midwest Emo music has always fascinated me. Many artists in the genre tend to use absurd, humorous, often lengthy titles that make frequent reference to things that might sometimes invoke nostalgia through their references. I always thought that this enhanced the music, as it made the works appear jovial and fun on the outside, when in reality they are more often than not quite sorrowful and depressing. I always thought this served as a good metaphor for the people the music is intended for, as the demographic of Midwest emo fans tends to be people who bottle depression and present an outwardly quirky or joking self to mask their insecurities.
Easily one of the most entertaining channels I’ve found on TH-cam. Everything is so thoughtful and real. Keep doing it
One of my favorite examples of titles in music some might consider weird are the two tracks in the band Pet Symmetry's debut single "Two Songs About Cars. Two Songs with Long Titles.", which obviously describes exactly the two titles; incredibly long, extremely wordy, and highly descriptive. They play a huge part in adding to the idea that these two songs are about incredibly specific times and events in the artist's life, captured in pure nostalgia that bleeds throughout every part of both songs. This nostalgia is so intense that even if you have no personal relation to either described event or stage in life, you will still likely catch a large portion of it. This single holds an incredibly special place in my heart exactly because of all of this: its unique, its weird, and its a feeling captured like lightning in a bottle.
These videos always leave me with such a deep feeling of sadness, but also hope, it's something I don't really feel anywhere else.
I’m really surprised that no one here has mentioned will wood and the tapeworms! They have crazy long and intriguing titles that take a hot second to scroll across the screen. My personal favorite right now is Mr. Capgras Encounters a Secondhand Vanity: Tulpamancer's Prosopagnosia/Pareidolia (As Direct Result of Trauma to the Fusiform Gyrus)
And, the title of the song (surprisingly) directly relates to the content of that song 🙂
So glad to see you doing art history again! I hope one day we can talk about art together.
I once noted during a Bach performance (Matheus passion), that the titles of the peaces preformed, where just the first sentence of the lines sung. It was quite hilarious once you noticed it. Later I learned, that the pieces preformed had no real title, but it is just a way for the preformers to distinguish between them. 😅
A lot of religious hymns do that as well
Classical music usually doesn't have titles in the traditional sense, their titles are more like categorizations like "Dvorak: Symphony No. 9 in E minor, 'From New World' - Allegro con fuoco". An entire symphony might have a title, but symphonies are simply too long for modern music tastes so usually they get split up and occasionally individual parts might get a colloquial name.
I love how this is the only legit cool art channel on TH-cam. You learn more from Solar Sands thab any Art teacher or Wikipedia page.
usually these types of comments are lies but i took art for 4 years and this is so fucking true
I would disagree. Interesting factoids to give us food for thought isn't the same as learning the history and techniques. The videos are fun but they won't give you the concrete experience needed to grow as an artist. Just my 2 cents
@@Lenno94 I dont think he means making art, just learning about art
I think it would be weird for an art teacher or wikipedia to basically be philosophizing about art.
School usually gives you the boring foundation of a topic on which you can build more interesting things upon. That might apply to wikipedia as well.
@@WanderTheNomadthat's absolutely not my experience; as an art student... just about every art teacher teaching past a high school level is gonna philosophize about art, at least to some degree. and some of them will happily do it for entire class periods... lol
Sometimes coming up with titiles for my music/art work is the hartest part of the piece. Haven't come up with too many profound things but some of my favorites I made were
Heartworm
Neptune street
The march of many crustaceans
Love to the coward
Beached jellysish
The world is ending, and I couldn't be more happy
Dummies don't feel pain
Nightmare carousel
In ten thousand corners
Brain matter
Nothing beyond our shores
Let the puppets dance
kill the dreamer
even down here the flowers still bloom
The treussure in your heart
all the sunflowers are dead
And what I'm currently working on "these aren't your memories"
hope I didn't toot my horn too much, I just thought I'd share
Genuinely excited when I saw you posted a new video
Time for our monthly dose of quality entertainment
People on twitter hate him apparently
@@TheDude8008is it because of his stance on ai?
@@what-br1ub Maybe, but Imma guess it's more because Twitter's gonna Twitter (even if you call it "X" like a degenerate).
my body is ready
Another video. What a treat! ❤
not a bot comment, btw lmfao
@@VIK_1903 That second comment sounds like something a bot would say....
As an independent musical artist, I find the sentiment of the video's subject quite moving. Giving meaning to something before even beginning to take in its contents. To be frank, I've had my eyes opened. Thank you.
Thanks for the video and for new musicians to listen to
4:30 pair of winged dragons on a candlestick shaft is such a profound title.
Cant wait to see you again in a month to bless us again
How tf do you comment on so many videos?
16:05 Type O negative also has a few bizarre (and in some cases long) song titles (especially on their earlier albums), but ones that generally actually do make sense and are tied to the subject matter of the song.
Black No.1
@@4Azr That one isn't that long or complicated (maybe in the future when that cultural reference is no longer relevant or understood it will be), but I was talking more about stuff like "IYDKMIGTHTKY (Gimme That)", "The Misinterpretation of Silence and Its Disastrous Consequences", or "Gravitational Constant: G = 6.67 x 10⁻⁸ cm⁻³ gm⁻¹ sec⁻²" considering how long, complex, and bizarre they are
I think it's more impressive that despite their length or strangeness they are actually relatively straightforward and tied to the song/lyrics instead of being meaningless or gibberish like some song titles mentioned in the video
The way he pronounces “foliage” 😂
Loved the meditative note you ended the video on. Thank you for this
My favorite thing about my own art is chosing the tittle, sometimes giving a name that gives It extra meaning, or Just a gag based on the art
Dude I was literally thinking about this channel today, like all day.
What’s your favorite Solar Sands vid? Mine has got to be the one about the artist that no one likes
@@medaman15ableI personally love monumentality. I just vibe with the pacing of the whole thing.
This is an absolutely excellent video. Thank you!
Awesome video. Thanks for getting me to listen to In Rainbows, I am loving it so far.
Wait until this guy learns about anime light novel titles. I think that would be an interesting case of weird titles that wasn't talked about in the video.
I submit to you:
Camellia - Superluminal Absolutely EXTRA-TONE-ordinary "Bumpy Ride" (Shredding Whole Your Belonging Space-Time System At The Speed of 1,600 Times the C_0)
and
Camellia - Tentaclar Aliens' Epic Extraterretterrestrial Jungle Dance Party Inside Of A Super-Ultra-Mega-Gigantic U.F.O. (It Maybe U.U.F.O.) Silently Flying Over Illinois St.
Unironically, Camellia is my favorite artist and one of the few who extends their existing songs and then elongates their title, adding in a related phrases. For example: Camellia - # 1f1e33 (# 00102g version) and Camellia - LOST TECHNOLOGIE ("Data scraper" Long ver.)
Matatabi Sound System & Kobaryo - FXで有り金全部溶かす人の曲 (仮想通貨Mix)
or "Song of the person whose [pocket/spending] money all disappears into effects (Virtual money mix)"
Kobaryo - もしもハードコアがホテルの従業員だったら
or "What it would sound like if hardcore was a hotel employee"
Camellia feat. Nanahira - じゅーじゅー?焼肉の火からフェニックス！？～再誕の†炭火焼き～ -Ver. 《真》-
or "Sizzle? A phoenix rising from the fires of Yakiniku?! ～Charcoal grill of † rebirth～ - 《Truth》 version -"
Camellia feat. Nanahira - 「はい」って言ったら常軌を逸して速くなる曲
or "Every time [I] say "hai" the song will become crazy fast"
My friend you have no idea what your videos mean to me. I have sat and just listened to you with such intent. I truly love your videos and listen to them quite often. Keep up the fabulous work!
This was an amazing video!! I love learning new perspectives I didn't have about art
//Woo Nero's Day t Disneyland! She has the strangest track names.
Words and pictures convey different things, whether you title art or not, it becomes a piece of the picture (or at least to me). Even an untitled piece conveys an air of silence. So naturally my favourites are those like Magritte's titles as they add another interesting element the painting which makes you think.
Another beautifully created video! Great work as always, Solar Sands
i come back after two years to watch solar sands, and hes out here with yet another one of the most self reflective, artistically inspiring, thought provoking videos ever. we love your videos! please keep it up!
Thanks you for this video, it definitely helped me see how my titles could be structured in a way I haven’t thought of before
I really loved this video, might honestly be one of my favorites that you have produced!
Same
I'm a little late to this one, but i just wanted to say great video.
ive played in bands since i was in high school and i always did a majority of the writing. my favorite part was coming up with the titles. It could something about the song, something going on in my life during that time, something from a book id been reading during that time or even just something i just thought sounded cool.
a solar sands upload day is always a good day
I really like this video. I like all your other videos, but this one… I connect to it a lot.
you know the video essay was hitting when it made you open your notes app and journal some thoughts. well done solarity sander
One of my favorite art titles was a metal sculpture that looked like a hand flipping you off named something like "the anger of a farmer" but if you looked at the sculpture from the other side it was holding a teacup and had another title "teatime in the garden"
I think you hit the nail on the head with your commentary on autechre and rdj. I really like that aspect of their naming schemes.
gotta give a mention to "a quick one before the eternal worm devours connecticut" by have a nice life because damn, that song sure does feel like you're in connecticut as it is about to be devoured by the eternal worm, and you know that this is the end. as every anxiety goes away.
it's definitely an amusing title but the song itself is quite beautiful and relaxing, the title adds a haunting undertone despite how surreal it is. it even adds more meaning. from your perspective, your death is the end of the world. to you, nothing exists. your friends, your home, your prized possessions, all gone. like it was devoured by an eternal eldritch worm god. and there's definitely other ways you can read into the eternal worm as well. for example, earthworms are decomposers, so it could be representative of the body being returned to nature through the process of decomposition. i think it's likely related to death given that the album title is "deathconciousness"
...anyways google "jerboa" if you need something to help with the existential dread
0:47 So the ridiculously long names trend found on modern mangas and animes were already a thing
7:14 NEURON ACTIVATION
Great writing work with this video! I thoroughly enjoyed watching!
This is so good 😢
Thank you for your research !
When I did High school trivia competitions, we had a fine arts category that usually tasked us with saying the painting or artist’s name when given a physical description of a painting. There were so many famous works I literally only knew by name and description, without a visual mental image. This rote method inadvertently made the title the most impactful part lol
thank you so much for shining a spotlight on c418's more obscure works. that album in particular has such an interesting backstory
Solar Sands you got me hyperfixated on these topics yet again. Well done with another amazing video man.
cannot state how much I love your content, thank you for your work 🙏
4:12 « L.H.O.O.Q. » is such a funny title from Duchamp, if you say it quickly in French it basically reads as « Elle a chaud au cul », which means « She is hot in the ass »
James Ferraro has some amazing titles for his songs. They’re a mishmash of buzzwords, slogans, and phrases crammed together in a way to illustrate the absurdity of modern advertising’s almost desperate attempts to get our attention.
Banger of a video as always solar sands
love the art history related videos!
Surf's Up by The Beach Boys is great because the song isn't actually about surfing, it's like the phrase "the jig is up." It's a perfect reflection of the midlife crisis kind of slump the group was in at the time which is also reflected in the music on the album: Activism, nostalgia, whatever Feel Flows is, unemployment, and very thick depression. (Feel Flows is really just a song about nothing, the words are just supposed to flow nicely for this cool kinda psychedelic atmosphere.)