Have been listening obsessively to this a few weeks ago, absolutely lovely (especially if you know modern french and can marvel at the pronunciation differences).
For anyone else curious about that part of it, an interesting little video [0] shows the evolution of French and its ancestors' phonetics from (reconstructed) Proto Indo-european to modern French.
It's fascinating to see especially how French spelling almost stopped evolving somewhere around Old French, while pronunciation changed dramatically.
that second song is dope. in regards to the genre of pirate metal this is my understanding to be one of the more popular bands (and a very fun song): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f55CqLc6IR0
I'm partial to Storm Seeker, which is more traditional folk metal combined with pirate metal. Their lyrics aren't really humorous, either. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCnttPJHt6s
See also: The show Westworld's soundtrack. The show is set in western themed park in the near future, and contains several excellent remixes of others songs in a western style.
I do believe I actually stumbled across Stary Olsa playing at a Renaissance Faire in Texas. They blew my mind. I kept thinking, "how did they end up in Texas?" Nice folks, also.
From just the name, I feel like it should resemble Burzum's prison years.
Edit: in practice, what I hear so far sounds more like a mod-tracker version of Summoning. Really, for actual atmospheric black-fantasy synth stuff, Summoning is the name to look up. (The old albums are greatly preferable: e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JgLFdNSwks)
Hildegard von Blingin doesn't do "ancient english", that's early modern English, c. 16th century. This account is the only one I have found using early medieval dialects: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbVcb9puAsOhXBT2_XPFf-A
I used the term "ancient" as an indication that it was older than the contemporary english because I didn't know which category it fell into, whether it was old english, middle english, or, as you say, early modern english. Thanks for naming the right category.
Bardcore is arguably traceable to the "What Is Love?" meme which originated in 2005 on YTMND, based on a 1996 Saturday Night Live skit. It consisted of a short, repeated loop taken from the skit of the three "Roxbury Guys" (90s lounge lizards, basically) bobbing their heads to Haddaway's "What Is Love?" in their car. Endless variants and edits of the loop were made -- one of the most memorable being "What Doth Love Be?" which features a medieval-instrumentation version of the Haddaway riff and a Bayeux Tapestry style art work of three men in a boat:
Always happy to see someone else remembering YTMND. I have a soft spot for the endless remixing with different video/audio influences. I guess it is a similar thing that people do now on TikTok, but maybe people were less inclined to use videos of themselves as source material in the early 2000s
I so wish she would descend from her cloister and grace us with more of her bangin' tunes.
There's nothing I love more than when exceptionally skilled people spend a ton of effort on what's essentially a joke. Her version of Jolene is crazy good, and all of her small changes to the lyrics and the music are absolutely perfect. Ridiculously accurate re-styling of the song!
It would honestly be really cool to encounter this (or something like it) unexpectedly in some fantasy type movie. One of my favorite things of the new Westworld series was the Player piano openings of more recent hits.
Oh wow, now that cover of Gangster's Paradise could really use some lyrics.
Coolio's original song is a masterpiece. Especially looking back after the death of George Floyd and it's aftermath, that 1995 song resonates more than it has in the last 25 years.
It's words of the street and the oppressed are universal and timeless (unfortunately). Maybe take the bardcore cover and alter Coolio's lyrics to represent the lead up to the Peasant's Revolt of 1381?
Just a shame there were no vocals for the almost-period-appropriate lyrics, (and they were a lot less inspired by medieval myths than some of the other English metal songs of the time)
Thank you HN for pointing me to this! It still exists on the internet of 2020, innocent creative brilliance with a nice dose of humor, not spoiled by commercial interests. This almost feels like the internet of yore
Clear serious commitment on those making sure language is authentic.
Hearing some of the instrumental covers makes me fantasize about all the 'bands' of musicians & the songs they'd play live, never to be written down & back before music could be recorded.
I would love to imagine a group playing a song not quite unlike this in a tavern & people going wild...
This is an absolute delight. Some of these do a good job of being authentic, too. Some use thee and thou correctly with the correct conjugations, use "mine" instead of "my" in front of a vowel sound, and so on. Truly a lot of fun.
The youtube "remix" videos almost all have a youtube-generated "music in this video" section pointing to the original. Maybe only revenue is redirected if such a section is shown? The bardcore videos I checked don't have such a section.
I think right now Lady Gaga, unless I missed something.
However, "Surfin' USA" goes to whomever owns Chuck Berry's rights to "Sweet little sixteen" -- those were much more similar than "Born This Way" and "Express Yourself" IMO.
But how does the money get directed to the original song creator? Can ContentID detect covers? Does the original song creator come by and flag the video?
At least in the US, parodies tread on thin-ice when they are done in any commercial setting, which collecting ad revenue implies. Fair use is complicated though.
Between the htop author's gracious response to his project having been forked, and now this, the internet has made me feel better about humanity twice in one week. That cover of Jolene is magnificent. This is how you keep old music alive!
As enjoyable as this is, I still can't help but to worry that it's another imitation of something historical or traditional eclipsing the actual thing it is meant to pay homage to. Let's not forget the original, else we run the risk of forgetting, and the closest thing becomes and imitation of an imitation.
I'll search medieval music and so often I find modern, original, creations. It can be great and sometimes I'm in the mood for it, but I want us to have as a culture a memory of our older arts.
Absolutely the best way to remember things through history and keep them alive is to keep making them.
The commitment some of these artists are showing to ensure the language & pronunciation is as accurate as possible is astounding. Really, this is a hell of a way to get kids interested in old languages when they're being taught at school.
My experiences with searching for older music precede this trend, a few years back I researched bardic tradition and that lead to me exploring traditional Welsh music and it really opened my mind to how much is out there. The internet helps enormously but even still things take digging, and get lost.
I hope that this style trending does lead to a renewed interest and appreciation of medieval music and history. It's a matter of how the seeds fall, so to speak. Many might just enjoy these modern takes, but then there are those who will take it further to learn about the old source.
A few years ago, there was a Westerner who got together with a couple of Japanese craftsmen and started producing ukiyo-e -- Japanese woodblock prints -- of Super Mario, Link, Samus, and other video game characters rendered in a traditional style with the hope of reviving interest in the style.
It turns out that ukiyo-e's popularity waxed and waned over two centuries, with art audiences getting bored of it until some new artist found a way to make the medium contemporary and relevant again with new subject matter. So, far from trivializing a great Japanese tradition by associating it with material from his vidya, he was keeping it alive the exact same way Japanese artists kept it alive over the centuries.
Most great art takes from the past, I don't see any reason why music shouldn't take inspiration from styles or instruments from the medieval periods (or any other!)
I can picture a group of medieval brutes sharpening their blades around a fire listening to the toxicity version, getting amped up before a castle raid.
Well, I mean, if you were on youtube in the past few months and outside of the default suggestion trashpile, I can't imagine how you'd manage to evade this phenomenon.
That's a bit of a loss on your part: Youtube has, ahem, a large music library—my favorite litmus test is the presence of Gruuthaagy's output. And secondly, Youtube's recommendations surface some great stuff once in a while, if you manage to teach it that your taste is not quite generic.
One of my musical pastimes formerly was searching for two disparate genres together on YT. (However, apparently either I've reached the limit of that configuration space, at least for now—or it's Google's algo killing the results by becoming too imprecise.)
Well, if I try to imagine electric bluegrass, I get rockabilly.
My favorite cover of DSotM is the meh-titled ‘Jazz Side of the Moon’ by Yahel, Moreno, Hoenig and Blake. More specifically, it's the only worthy cover so far imo (though the bluegrass one is a quite strong contender, yeah). Surprisingly ‘JSotM’ isn't on YT in entirety—which is the greatly preferred mode of listening to it—but some snatches can be had at https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Yahel%2C+Moreno...
I'm a big music fan, and I use YouTube pretty much all day every day with a front page full of all sorts of eclectic and eccentric stuff, and I spend a lot of time in alternative online music communities and follow a lot of independent and experimental musicians, but somehow I've never seen or heard of this until just now. Just goes to show how much algorithmic curation can vary from person to person.
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 234 ms ] threadYou're welcome.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=JcKqhDFhNHI
One commenter described it as sounding like English with Dutch pronunciation.
For anyone else curious about that part of it, an interesting little video [0] shows the evolution of French and its ancestors' phonetics from (reconstructed) Proto Indo-european to modern French.
It's fascinating to see especially how French spelling almost stopped evolving somewhere around Old French, while pronunciation changed dramatically.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rD--OdhdJfg
https://www.youtube.com/user/9freakydarling9 (Hildegard von Blingin')
drum & bugle metal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=td3c5rNFLew
too far inland to be pirates? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGko10RIGtY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=787t4NZN0mg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdkBs0VCSX0
Death in Rome does neofolk covers of pop songs.
Edit: in practice, what I hear so far sounds more like a mod-tracker version of Summoning. Really, for actual atmospheric black-fantasy synth stuff, Summoning is the name to look up. (The old albums are greatly preferable: e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JgLFdNSwks)
I really like the bass.
The pirates of the Caribbean theme fits really nicely as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95M9UsQS2HI
Probably helps that the original music was made for and recorded on classical instruments.
If you like vocals in ancient english: https://www.youtube.com/user/9freakydarling9
https://youtu.be/3uHz0KdIbhY
Of course, the song "What Is Love?" on its own makes an excellent bardcore candidate:
https://youtu.be/Kbj4bulZX2Y
https://m.youtube.com/user/9freakydarling9
Plus their name is unreasonably funny.
"To send a wagon for thy minstrel and refuse my letters"
"Was there cause to cast me off?"
The absolute totally freakin' brilliance!
"Best ye go, best ye go"
"Outrun my bow"
Oh god, I'm in tears. This is amazing.
There's nothing I love more than when exceptionally skilled people spend a ton of effort on what's essentially a joke. Her version of Jolene is crazy good, and all of her small changes to the lyrics and the music are absolutely perfect. Ridiculously accurate re-styling of the song!
[0] - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbVcb9puAsOhXBT2_XPFf-A
Why is it 'unreasonable' to be funny?
Or maybe you were trying to make a joke?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCUx9nOt9u8
He does a great job, plays the instruments on video too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SABPBly90Nk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gl7zqpZBVrc
X-Files theme, discovered in a medley:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-t8GFh7Fz5M&t=278s
30 seconds in, Gangsta's Paradise sounds like Anno 1502 background music.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dywM446-vcE
Coolio's original song is a masterpiece. Especially looking back after the death of George Floyd and it's aftermath, that 1995 song resonates more than it has in the last 25 years.
It's words of the street and the oppressed are universal and timeless (unfortunately). Maybe take the bardcore cover and alter Coolio's lyrics to represent the lead up to the Peasant's Revolt of 1381?
Coolio actually sampled/covered the song "Pastime Paradise" from Stevie Wonder
https://youtu.be/_H3Sv2zad6s
EDIT: "WITHOUT ME" ist also great https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiV7hwfLXGE
1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3okjFDo2aSU&lc=UgxGPmAFigFUR...
No lyrics for the 'bardcore' versions of Stairway either: perhaps they could borrow them from this Gregorian chant version https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKn5lydAZ6k
Clear serious commitment on those making sure language is authentic.
Hearing some of the instrumental covers makes me fantasize about all the 'bands' of musicians & the songs they'd play live, never to be written down & back before music could be recorded.
I would love to imagine a group playing a song not quite unlike this in a tavern & people going wild...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5d8bnvO2JQ (System of a Down - Toxicity - Medieval Style - Bardcore)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WK7olFGxw3Y
It brought a rare smile to my face during the stressful times in March when COVID started blowing up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dywM446-vcE
Özgür Baba - Dertli Dolap
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIMKJ43TFLs
PS: how do you feel about memes? They seem to fit into that niche that you describe.
Copyright owners could still put in manual Content ID claims, though.
David Paich gets paid every time a radio station plays wheezer's cover of Africa, while the wheezer gets no money for radio play of that song.
However, "Surfin' USA" goes to whomever owns Chuck Berry's rights to "Sweet little sixteen" -- those were much more similar than "Born This Way" and "Express Yourself" IMO.
While that can be frustrating, you're still far closer to finding what you want than in the pre-internet age.
Absolutely the best way to remember things through history and keep them alive is to keep making them.
The commitment some of these artists are showing to ensure the language & pronunciation is as accurate as possible is astounding. Really, this is a hell of a way to get kids interested in old languages when they're being taught at school.
Rather a cynical view you're taking I think.
I hope that this style trending does lead to a renewed interest and appreciation of medieval music and history. It's a matter of how the seeds fall, so to speak. Many might just enjoy these modern takes, but then there are those who will take it further to learn about the old source.
It turns out that ukiyo-e's popularity waxed and waned over two centuries, with art audiences getting bored of it until some new artist found a way to make the medium contemporary and relevant again with new subject matter. So, far from trivializing a great Japanese tradition by associating it with material from his vidya, he was keeping it alive the exact same way Japanese artists kept it alive over the centuries.
Most great art takes from the past, I don't see any reason why music shouldn't take inspiration from styles or instruments from the medieval periods (or any other!)
1: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/jun/24/never-mind-the...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mP1QJguEJJc
I can picture a group of medieval brutes sharpening their blades around a fire listening to the toxicity version, getting amped up before a castle raid.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2zpbcW-h-c
One of my musical pastimes formerly was searching for two disparate genres together on YT. (However, apparently either I've reached the limit of that configuration space, at least for now—or it's Google's algo killing the results by becoming too imprecise.)
Still have yet to have had it turn up decent electro bluegrass, but it did find some album-oriented bluegrass: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zLMsvaRWhY
My favorite cover of DSotM is the meh-titled ‘Jazz Side of the Moon’ by Yahel, Moreno, Hoenig and Blake. More specifically, it's the only worthy cover so far imo (though the bluegrass one is a quite strong contender, yeah). Surprisingly ‘JSotM’ isn't on YT in entirety—which is the greatly preferred mode of listening to it—but some snatches can be had at https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Yahel%2C+Moreno...
P.S. As for techno contra dance: I like my techno on the harder side, so expected something in the vein of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ep_35FTnYVA or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48laJC8wYl4. After seeing some fine synchronized pair dancing, of the jumpstyle-shuffle sort, it's quite conceivable for me.
I'm trying to refind some of the better audio/video mashups I've seen, but fighting The Algorithm atm.
- BLM cupid shuffle video / audio: boot scoot boogie
- Footloose line dance video / audio: boom boom boom
- vertically spinning race car crash video / audio: lezginka
At least there's still jumpstyle hopak: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqEtq34dSUo
and (not even externally mashed up) bolly[wood] ciao: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2wahu8bDMo
[1] even "electric bluegrass" I'd put closer to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mg1AD0GBii4
Bonus track: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fr7718xoeMI