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AdAptAtion in the Age of MediA ConvergenCe
Introduction
In 2012 Walk off the Earth (WOTE), a rock band based in Canada uploaded
on YouTube a video of their cover of the hit single “Somebody That I Used to
Know” by Gotye. The playful combination of the vocal and musical abilities
of the band members and their staging in front of the camera (five musicians playing one guitar) as well as the deadpan performance of one of the
members of the band (Mike Taylor, also known as the Beard Guy) made the
video go viral within days. The same arrangement was later presented on
The Ellen DeGeneres Show. However, the replication of the same arrangement
in a TV studio was awkward in many ways. The transference of the WOTE
arrangement from the Between two Ferns-like décor of their do-it-ourselves
(DIO) cover to the larger stage of the TV show inevitably restricted their
otherwise novel and globally celebrated YouTube video to an old school
variety-like act.
WOTE’s TV appearance was simply “non-televisual” when compared to
the staging – fully utilizing the studio’s spatial and technical possibilities – of
other bands appearing on the same show such as the Thirty Seconds to Mars
“Do or Die” performance or the adaptation of the official music video of Sia’s
“Chandelier.” 1 WOTE’s TV presentation of their YouTube cover remained
faithful to the original staging of the musicians’ bodies simply because
the “five-musicians-playing-one-guitar” arrangement is the basis of the
cover’s success. The less “confident” TV adaptation of the same arrangement
reaffirms that the deliberate use of limitations and possibilities featured in
WOTE’s no-budget cover video can be “better viewed on YouTube”; in other
words, the key characteristics of the video are examples of how YouTube
enables a type of creativity, which is not fully prescribed by gatekeepers.
The key reason I am introducing the “five-musicians-one-guitar” video is
because it has become a paradigmatic case of a YouTube cover song video;
a cover that according to Mosser’s 2 classification of covers has become a
1 Sia talks about the specific performance in an interview she gave to Dazed. Sia states that
her “fantasy at the beginning of this process was to marry reality television with Nordic arthouse
cinema.” During the performance Sia is positioned on the far back right corner of the TV set
(which is a direct reference to the dilapidated apartment in the music video) and sings the
song facing her back facing to the camera, while the young dancer Maddie Zeigler, as mini-Sia
(wearing the characteristic blond Sia wig), recreates the music video’s choreography. “Sia on
taking performance art to the masses: Behind the scenes as the blonde-bobbed artist explains
her visionary ‘Chandelier’ video and Ellen performance.” Dazed, accessed October 1, 2015, www.
dazeddigital.com/music/article/19982/1/sia-on-taking-performance-art-to-the-masses.
2 Kurt Mosser, “Cover songs”: Ambiguity, Multivalence, Polysemy,” Popular Musicology Online 2
(2008), accessed December 27, 2016, www.popular-musicology-online.com/issues/02/mosser.html.
AdAptAtion in the Age of MediA ConvergenCe
Introduction
In 2012 Walk off the Earth (WOTE), a rock band based in Canada uploaded
on YouTube a video of their cover of the hit single “Somebody That I Used to
Know” by Gotye. The playful combination of the vocal and musical abilities
of the band members and their staging in front of the camera (five musicians playing one guitar) as well as the deadpan performance of one of the
members of the band (Mike Taylor, also known as the Beard Guy) made the
video go viral within days. The same arrangement was later presented on
The Ellen DeGeneres Show. However, the replication of the same arrangement
in a TV studio was awkward in many ways. The transference of the WOTE
arrangement from the Between two Ferns-like décor of their do-it-ourselves
(DIO) cover to the larger stage of the TV show inevitably restricted their
otherwise novel and globally celebrated YouTube video to an old school
variety-like act.
WOTE’s TV appearance was simply “non-televisual” when compared to
the staging – fully utilizing the studio’s spatial and technical possibilities – of
other bands appearing on the same show such as the Thirty Seconds to Mars
“Do or Die” performance or the adaptation of the official music video of Sia’s
“Chandelier.” 1 WOTE’s TV presentation of their YouTube cover remained
faithful to the original staging of the musicians’ bodies simply because
the “five-musicians-playing-one-guitar” arrangement is the basis of the
cover’s success. The less “confident” TV adaptation of the same arrangement
reaffirms that the deliberate use of limitations and possibilities featured in
WOTE’s no-budget cover video can be “better viewed on YouTube”; in other
words, the key characteristics of the video are examples of how YouTube
enables a type of creativity, which is not fully prescribed by gatekeepers.
The key reason I am introducing the “five-musicians-one-guitar” video is
because it has become a paradigmatic case of a YouTube cover song video;
a cover that according to Mosser’s 2 classification of covers has become a
1 Sia talks about the specific performance in an interview she gave to Dazed. Sia states that
her “fantasy at the beginning of this process was to marry reality television with Nordic arthouse
cinema.” During the performance Sia is positioned on the far back right corner of the TV set
(which is a direct reference to the dilapidated apartment in the music video) and sings the
song facing her back facing to the camera, while the young dancer Maddie Zeigler, as mini-Sia
(wearing the characteristic blond Sia wig), recreates the music video’s choreography. “Sia on
taking performance art to the masses: Behind the scenes as the blonde-bobbed artist explains
her visionary ‘Chandelier’ video and Ellen performance.” Dazed, accessed October 1, 2015, www.
dazeddigital.com/music/article/19982/1/sia-on-taking-performance-art-to-the-masses.
2 Kurt Mosser, “Cover songs”: Ambiguity, Multivalence, Polysemy,” Popular Musicology Online 2
(2008), accessed December 27, 2016, www.popular-musicology-online.com/issues/02/mosser.html.