Who is your favorite youtuber that does pop song analysis? The ones I like to watch are the excellent Captain Pikant and also sometimes Adam Neely
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David Bennett is pretty good
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At the moment probably black Pegasus
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Daily Doug! He’s my favourite uncle and amazing ear & knowledge of music.
https://www.youtube.com/@Doug.Helvering
David Bennett I like but he’s too much into Beatles, hah.
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I like Charles Cornell mostly because I’m so familiar with video game music. He’s pretty goofy and reacts like I used to when I would get too baked in my teens, but he showcases a lot of fun stuff.
Similarly, and much more technical, 8-bit Music Theory is excellent.
Oh sorry. Not pop!
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Gyu Beats has some great recreations and explanations of early rave classics, Leftfield & Orbital tracks are among them:
full playlist here:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEz0lNz01yk2lfpqhk3Gju3qirhKd4aQA
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Don’t know if it is my favorite, but I’ve seen some of her videos:
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really like Ixi’s approach to pulling out what’s going on harmonically etc, especially the BoC coverage etc. fun, chill, educational (particularly if piano/keys are yer thing)
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“Strong Songs” by Kirk Hamilton is also well made, though he sometimes veers a bit off into bragging territory (I prefer his video game podcaster appearances).
I love Tape Notes and Song Exploder, which let the artists themselves walk us through the process and show us demos/alternative versions. It’s also quite encouraging because you notice how these pros also always struggle and how bad some of the earlier stuff sounds.
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Ohhh, yeah, I do like hearing from the artists when they’re passionate about songwriting and production. Reminds me of this
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Pat Finnerty
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+cats
Came here to post exactly these two! I can’t say I always understand what they’re talking about, but it’s been helpful to see the patterns and ideas behind some of my favorite songs.
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Me too! Great recs. In keeping with the Charles Cornell thumbnail, here’s another excellent video on the music of Mother/Earthbound:
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I’d love recommendations and perhaps a way to talk to them outside of YouTube on like how to create something inspired by my fave songs with as much originality as possible.
I like Captain P, IxiMusic (though I watch less often now that she’s had to expand out to bands beyond NIN), Adam Neely.
I’d say Captain Pikant is the most valuable to me because of the .pdfs on their Patreon. Definitely worth the subscription.
Also, with most music YTers, even the ones I really like, there’s this fiction that it’s all being done by one person. So one thing I like about Cpt. Pikant is that they make it a lot more transparent that the work is being done by (at least) 2 people.
The titles & screenshots for Scott’s Bass Lessons are hot clickbait garbage, but the actual content is really good, at least if you’re a bassist or care about bass. A lot of them take the form of just 2 musicians talking about why they love their favorite songs & artists, with positive vibes:
Some of the challenges, like trying to play a Primus tune by ear in under 10 minutes, are fun in the “Against the Clock” kind of way…
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For pop stuff I’m pretty fond of 12tone. Obviously has a solid theory foundation but gets into arrangement, mixing, touches on psychology here and there, etc. I like a lot of his videos about songs I specifically dislike.
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Alex ball is one of the few I still actively watch. He doesn’t do a ton of song analysis but when he does he goes super in depth
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