Noah (from Polyphonic)

youtube.comThe Untold Story of Portishead’s Most Cinematic PerformanceYouTube video by Mercury Studios

The next episode of my ongoing collaboration with Mercury Studios is up. Come learn how a band who had barely played live before put together one of the most visually and musically stunning shows of the 1990s. www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_am...

I've said it before and I'll say it again - Revolution 9 is nothing short of a masterpiece. Genuinely one of the best songs in the Beatles' entire catalogue.

This post is unavailable.

what should my halloween video be this year?

Continuing to chip away at this Heroin video, and man is it ever bleak. There are already several important musicians with huge cultural contributions that I've had to reduce to a name in a montage of people who died young, because there's just so much to get through. try not to do heroin folks.

youtube.comWhy Pavarotti Returned to a Town of 3,500YouTube video by Mercury Studios

My new collab with Mercury Studios is dropping now! This project has been months in the works, so I'm stoked that it can finally see the light of day. Come learn about the career-defining performance that Pavarotti gave in a small Welsh town in 1994. www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfDq...

someone in my neighbourhood drives a ford ranger with the license plate "F KAFKA" and I have so many questions

today in "out of context screenshots" (yes, this does mean Drugs season 2 is in the works)

has anyone ever looked so consistently cool as Charles Mingus? every photo of this man is an absolute banger

just look at this

out of context screencap from this week's video

youtube.comHow Kyle Gordon Makes Music FunnyYouTube video by Polyphonic

Up on YouTube now! Check out my profile on the hilarious Kyle Gordon: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftdv...

nebula.tvPolyphonic — The Art of Song Parody (Feat. Kyle Gordon)An interview with rising musical comedy star Kyle Gordon

22 Sept

Live on Nebula now! I interviewed Kyle Gordon and learned all about the craft of Song Parody. The full interview will be dropping on Nebula later this week, and this video drops on YouTube Friday. nebula.tv/videos/polyp...

3 Sept

being a video essayist means being at perpetual war with ones internal desire to do altogether too much

nebula.tvPolyphonic — Trespassing with Grace PotterTalking with Grace Potter about her new album, Trespasser

1 Sept

New video is up on Nebula! I got a chance to talk to Grace Potter about her new album. The video drops on YouTube Friday, and the full interview will be up on Nebula in the coming days. nebula.tv/videos/polyp...

Rest in Peace Dolly Parton. I've had some thoughts bouncing around my head since the news. I hate my brain's desire to turn everything into content so I'm not gonna make a video on this. But there's some stuff I'd like to say as a public music commentator, so here's a thread I guess.

Dolly’s legacy will be defined by the music she made, and the incredible charitable work she did. Throughout her career she deliberately avoided becoming a pawn the culture war. So let’s not drag her into it in her death.

tl;dr - touch grass

When the ghouls and vultures swoop in to try to claim Dolly for a side in this fight, they’re not acting in good faith. They don’t care. They’re trying to stir up rage because they profit from it. You don’t win by dunking on them or getting into keyboard fights. That only benefits the platforms.

youtube.comThe House of the Rising SunYouTube video by Dolly Parton - Topic

So if you’re thinking of fighting about Dolly online with someone, maybe turn off the browser and go bump her wicked Disco cover of “House of the Rising Sun” instead. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nmrr...

Dolly Parton was an incredible person. A genuine force for good in this world. That’s why it makes me really sad to see that her death is being wrapped up into our ongoing culture war. This is inevitable, the culture war claims us all eventually, but it’s also exhausting.

This isn’t to say Dolly isn’t a political topic. Her entire career was political, whether she wanted it to be or not. But we don’t need to litigate that. Her body of work speaks for itself.

nebula.tvPolyphonic — I Love This Kind of Album CoverThe joy of Wimmelbilder album covers

19 Aug

New video is up on Nebula! Coming to YouTube later this week. Big thanks to the Polyphonic Discord for helping me on this one. nebula.tv/videos/polyp...

30 July

you can tell someone's real if they record a song with a Roud number.

Noah (from Polyphonic) reposted

Todd in the Shadows

@shadowtodd.bsky.social

29 July

Arguably all of them, but for me (and I think the most obvious and basic answer) Born to Run, Darkness, River

This post is unavailable.

Noah (from Polyphonic) reposted

amy brown 👻

@amybrown.xyz

28 July

putting a sex scene in oppenheimer but not the odyssey is wild though. can we all agree on that at least

To me, complaining about historical accuracy in a Hollywood blockbuster film is kind of like complaining that a metal album is too loud. It's not really engaging with the media on its own terms. Cinema is a medium of spectacle, especially Hollywood Cinema.

I think there's room for nuance in this conversation, especially when it comes to films that portray people and events in living memory. But even so, the role of this kind of film is to narrativize and mythologize, not to portray reality.

anyways, probably a bad idea to break my general embargo on posting and engaging with "THE DISCOURSE," but I felt the need to shout this into the void gonna go touch grass now.

This doesn't mean that Hollywood blockbusters can't try for historical accuracy, it's a tool in the kit of any creative team, but ultimately it's something that bends to the spectacle of the work.

Obviously I'm talking about the Odyssey here but I'm also just talking about filmmaking trends generally. For pretty much my entire adult life there's this cultural desire for "realism" that is just exhausting and kind of ignores the fact that the wonder of film is in its ability to defy reality.

There's a tradition of filmmaking that cares a lot about accuracy, it's called documentary. I love documentary, but it's generally not a medium of spectacle. That's because good historicism requires careful thought, nuance, cautious speculation, and approaching things from multiple perspectives.

autocorrect strips so much expression from digital language. let me type what i want to type you demon.

21 July

I swear to god so many podcasts use the worst, most boring clips possible in their ads. It's like they actively don't want you to listen to their shows.

21 July

Re-watch podcasts are the worst culprits.

13 July

I hate AI slop as much as the next person, but can we please stop framing everything good about human creativity in relation to AI. I'm so sick of seeing interesting human art and having the top comments be "so refreshing to see human art" or "AI could never do this" or something like that.

nebula.tvPolyphonic — A Cultural History of CocaineFor more than a century, music has had a torrid love/hate relationship with cocaine.

29 June

The latest episode of my DRUGS series is up on Nebula now! Come and learn all about how cocaine has woven its way through music history over the past century. nebula.tv/videos/polyp...

26 June

a lot of my visual style comes from trying to entertain myself. editing can get boring if you're just plugging stuff in, so i'm always trying to have fun with it

24 June

still from an upcoming video. i promise it makes sense in context

nebula.tvPolyphonic — A Cultural History of LSDWhen LSD first hit music scenes in the mid-60s, it kicked off a cultural revolution whose echoes still reverberate to this day.

23 June

absolutely nuts that "Trent Reznor" isn't a stage name

Noah (from Polyphonic) reposted

Justin Ling

@justinling.ca

19 June

music nerds: @nebula.tv is very much worth it to watch @polyphonic.nebula.tv's drug series nebula.tv/videos/polyp...

12 June

here's your periodical reminder that curtis mayfield is the goat

youtu.beThis Enormous Synthesizer Changed Music ForeverYouTube video by Polyphonic

11 June

In this week's video, I had the privilege of talking with Robert Margouleff, a musical legend who helped to create one of the most important synthesizers in music history. youtu.be/PfKHEJ-_TvA

nebula.tvPolyphonic — In Conversation with Robert MargouleffMy full interview with Robert Margouleff

11 June

Check out my full conversation with Margouleff on Nebula: nebula.tv/videos/polyp...

25 May

I remember being incredibly shocked when I first learned that "Proud Mary" was a Tina Turner cover of a CCR song, not vice-versa.

Todd in the Shadows@shadowtodd.bsky.social

Cover songs that are so perfectly suited to the band that it's nearly impossible to believe that they weren't the original artist "Goodbye Earl" - The Chicks "Stone Cold Crazy" - Metallica "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" - They Might Be Giants Add your own!

nebula.tvPolyphonic — A Cultural History of LSDWhen LSD first hit music scenes in the mid-60s, it kicked off a cultural revolution whose echoes still reverberate to this day.

25 May

The second episode of my new series, Drugs, is up on Nebula! Come learn about the acid revolution, and how LSD's musical impacts still reverberate to this day. nebula.tv/videos/polyp...