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katranatThis is a bit of a silly and unscheduled post, but I hope you enjoy.
The other night I had a stray thought that wouldn’t leave me alone until I did some digging - what is the oldest song that someone has edited an AMV with? Now, the easy answer to that question is classical music - there are several edits which use Beethoven and Mozart for a start, which already dates us back to the 1700’s.
However, this answer does not really satisfy me. There is a huge difference between a classical composition designed to be performed by an orchestra versus something that could be considered simply a song. So to put some arbitrary restrictions on myself I decided for the purposes of this quest I would define a song as a piece of music that was recorded by the original artist which could be bought by the general public as a stand alone record, and just generally feels like a song rather than an orchestral piece.
I also had the additional thought of, well what’s the oldest anime that’s been edited with? Which was a far easier question to answer and I will include it here just because:
The Tale of the White Serpent, which was released in 1958, and was edited with by TRUTH CRAB twice in 2021.
TRUTH CRAB was an obvious place for me to begin searching for older sources and it turns out he has indeed edited with the oldest I can find. I did some searches for other anime which were released prior to 1958 however none of these yielded any results and there just aren’t that many anime from that time period to check in the first place. So here you have it, currently the oldest anime used in an AMV.
VPR - High contrast, flickering, motion/patterns/particles
Knowing this, I was now ready to try and dive into finding old music sources.
This was quite a bit harder - where would I even start and how could I best search for these? It’s not like anime where I can easily look up what anime was released each year and then check to see whether the anime has been used in an AMV. There are hundreds and hundreds of songs, and it would feel like looking for a needle in a haystack to pick a song and see if there’s an AMV.
I decided the best way to do it would be to focus on popular artists - the more popular the music, the more likely it would be someone would have edited with it regardless of the age surely?
My first port of call was The Beatles. I chose The Beatles simply because I already know there are many AMV’s which have been edited to Beatles music (albeit, they’ve all been removed from YouTube due to copyright). So, if I could find the oldest Beatles song that had an AMV that would give me a reference year to start searching from.
I found “Godai Saw Yagami Standing There” on animemusicvideos.org which was edited in 2006 by maricela, it uses the anime Maison Ikkoku and the song “I Saw Her Standing There” - which is off of The Beatles first album giving me a date of 1963.
It’s watchable on animemusicvideos.org if you have an account. It’s pretty cute.
VPR - Fades to black
https://www.animemusicvideos.org/members/members_videoinfo.php?v=132728
From there I tried to think of any music artists off the top of my head who were older than The Beatles. My first thought was The Beach Boys, however while they did release some music before The Beatles did, none of those songs had been used for AMV’s. So that was a dead end.
I turned to Wikipedia as I couldn’t remember what the type of music before the pop/rock scene was called. Turns out, it’s just referred to as “Traditional Pop”. Anyway, that gave me Frank Sinatra to look up, which had a few, with the oldest being “My Funny Valentine”, edited by Mindwarp Entertainment in 2003, using the anime Cowboy Bebop and the song My My Funny Valentine - which was released in 1954.
VPR - Flashes to white, fades to black, peripherals/cut outs
I continued searching in the same vein and that brought me onto Bing Crosby, who had so many AMV’s! It was amazing - I guess that’s what having some classic Christmas tunes does to you.
The oldest I could find was “Pistol Packin' Rally”, edited by More Than Toast Productions in 2001, using the anime Gunsmith Cats and the song Pistol Packin' Mama - which was released in 1943.
VPR - All
I realised this was getting quite close to wartime music, so I thought, of course! Who was a popular wartime singer? Well, Vera Lynn was - and there were so many AMV’s using “We’ll Meet Again” I was astounded. I picked a random one for y’all here.
This was edited by mohae hae in 2020, using the anime Metropolis and the song We’ll Meet Again - which was originally released in 1939.
VPR - All
At this point I was at a bit of a loss. I went on a small tangent and looked up John Cage as I wasn’t sure whether his work could be considered songs rather than compositions, but all that got me was AMV’s using 4’33”… Which is hilarious and I couldn’t not share them - they’re both Evangelion obviously. 4’33” was released in 1952 so unfortunately I went backwards here.
VPR - None known (it’s just a still picture)
VPR - Major motion, major flashing
After my failure with John Cage, I had a hard time trying to think of anything that was older than wartime music. I eventually realised I was being an idiot because Jazz! Jazz is some of the oldest popular music.
I didn’t have high hopes here as generally Jazz tends to be an underrepresented genre among AMV’s, however it seems editors are a reminiscent bunch!
The first obvious searching point here was Louis Armstrong, who has an absolute bounty of AMV’s, mostly to “What a Wonderful World”. It turned out though that none of the songs used in AMV's by him were released earlier than 1939 so this was sadly a dead end.
Looking deeper into Jazz I found another name I recognised - Cab Calloway. I did find an entry on animemusicvideos.org for his song “Minnie the Moocher” which was released in 1931, making it by far the earliest yet!... However, against the listing, there is no video, and I could not find it on YouTube.
https://www.animemusicvideos.org/members/members_videoinfo.php?v=9295
On YouTube I did however find a Minnie the Moocher AMV using a cover by Jeeves and Wooster, which does not count because it’s a cover, but it’s kinda funny, so I thought I’d share it anyway.
VPR - Fades to black, flashes to white
I’ve reached the end of my limited musical knowledge at this point. I searched other notable Jazz musicians from around this time and none of them came up with any AMV’s. I have no other threads of music history to realistically follow so Cab Calloway is for now my last stop.
Which brings us folks, to the final video, the oldest song I could find used in a watchable AMV.
This was edited by TheLastSeraphim in 2007, using the anime Naruto and the song Reefer Man - which was released in 1932.
It’s available on animemusicvideos.org if you have an account.
VPR - Flashes to white
https://www.animemusicvideos.org/members/members_videoinfo.php?v=136607
I’m torn on this… On the one hand having the AMV which uses the oldest song being a Naruto video focused on Kakashi composed entirely of scenes from episode 101 including hardsubs and a terrible quality source - is rather hilarious. On the other hand, I’m not very satisfied with this being the answer.
I’m definitely hampered in this search by my lack of early 1900’s music knowledge. There’s also the possibility that someone out there has edited with something that qualifies as a song but is also incredibly obscure. Especially considering music from places other than the western world.
I would love to know if anyone has come across (or created themselves) an AMV using a song from a year prior to 1932.
For now though, I guess this Naruto video will do.
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Date: 2023-05-04 12:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-05-04 07:49 am (UTC)