Once again, Idolator intern Kate Richardson scours the video sites, looking for the best fan-made music videos. In this installment, she tries to see if Bryan Adams or Richard Ashcroft is a more appropriate foil for Disney's animated adapation of the classic tale Robin Hood:
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"Welcome to the end of slideshows," declares the subtitle on Animoto's press kit. The site, which launched last August and just got some funding from Amazon, allows users to upload photos, choose audio from Animoto's library or their own computer, throw these elements into a slick virtual crock pot, and come up with an automatically produced "music video" that's more like a fancy slide show. The concept is very similar to what we know all too well as tribute videos—except there's even less skill and artistry required, as there is no actual editing involved at all. As the resident expert in both tribute videos and stupid Internet shit, I took it upon myself to test out the service and see what it could do with some of the odds and ends in my Photobucket account and an English New Wave classic.
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If you've been on YouTube today, you may have noticed that the front page is curiously devoid of videos like "Todd's Oscars rant" and "Monkey eats cheese." Instead, Iceland's second-most-famous weirdo musicians, Sigur Ròs, have taken over the site for the day, and anyone can watch their tour documentary Heima in its entirety (for free!). They've also selected ten fan-made videos submitted to the Minn Heima contest to be featured on the front page. Most of the videos use leftover footage from Heima, but at least one out of ten Sigur Ròs fans is going to be artsy enough to dabble in stop-motion animation. Let's review a few of the more notable entires.
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I've seen a lot of odd combinations on the tribute-video beat, but recently I found what I believe to be officially the Weirdest Thing on YouTube. It's a confluence of cultural elements so incongruent, so entirely bizarre that I am not exaggerating when I say it causes me physical pain. Never has a musical soundtrack been put to such shocking ends, not even when the Phantom of the Opera paid tribute to Keiko the Orca whale. Brace yourselves: This one involves Dom DeLuise. And anime.
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In light of what they see as Clive Davis's neglect toward the promotion of Kelly Clarkson's My December, the Kelly Clarkson Express—a group that sounds like it should serve as a dual-purpose fan club for the first American Idol and trains—has put together a video for the song "How I Feel," which its members think should be the next single. This is but one facet of the How I Feel Project, a campaign to get the song played on the radio, or maybe very quietly in the background of an MTV show. While strong fan support is essential when you're a pop star being ignored by one of the world's most powerful music bigwigs, that devotion can come with a price—and in this case, that price is a well-intentioned but sadly incompetent tribute video.
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Period dramas: pretty costumes, stringent etiquette, and smoldering sexual repression. Men with cartoonish sideburns stare longingly from across the room at women in corsets. Indiscretions are hinted at, though rarely seen. And if there's one artist who can capture the essence of this subtle, implicit sexuality, it's Marvin Gaye, right?
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For those of us with no particular affection for Fall Out Boy frontman Patrick Stump and even less of an affinity for Law & Order, last night's season premiere of the NBC stalwart, in which Stump had a role, was not at the top of the to-do list. But I was just curious enough this morning to search for clips of it on YouTube, and luckily for me, there were already ten good old-fashioned bootleg videos—made by people who pointed their video cameras at their TVs, and hoped for the best—posted on the site. But which was the most watchable? In today's fast-paced world we can't be expected to pay for music or watch TV shows on a television set, so here's a handy guide to the best and worst Stump/Law & Order bootlegs on YouTube.
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"No One" Reimagines Sondheim Like The Tribute Video Community
We're just now wrapping up two concurrent seasons: movie-going season, and end-of-year music criticism season. Luckily YouTube has a video to offer that combines both of these variously unbearable occurrences into one moderately amusing tribute.
Once again, Idolator intern Kate Richardson scours the video sites, looking for the best fan-made music videos. In this installment, she tries to see if Mariah Carey or Bright Eyes can properly underscore the creepiness of people who seriously use "cute" nicknames for their favorite hospital-drama couples.
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"Musical Video of the movie becoming jane, with the song of radiohead creep. I hope you like it!" And with that, the universe was sucked through a gaping black hole located at the mathematical center of of YouTube, only to come out the other end as a never-ending tribute video to humanity set to "Iris" by the Goo Goo Dolls. Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.
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Once again, Idolator intern Kate Richardson scours the video sites, looking for the best fan-made music videos. In this installment, she tries to see if Pat Benatar and Chan Marshall could be seen as the Brontë sisters of YouTube.
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Idolator's Tribute-Video Treasury Gets Dark With Dexter
Once again, Idolator intern Kate Richardson scours the video sites, looking for the best fan-made music videos. In this installment, she looks at videos that pair Dexter's titular serial killer with bright, sparkling pop.
Once again, Idolator intern Kate Richardson scours the video sites, looking for the best fan-made music videos. In this installment, she looks at videos honoring the greatest Dudley Moore-narrated film about a pug and a cat and their unlikely friendship:
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Once again, Idolator intern Kate Richardson scours the video sites, looking for the best fan-made music videos. In this installment, she takes two different subjects—bloodthirsty vampires and adorable animals—and tries to figure out if the two can be compared:
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Idolator's Tribute-Video Treasury Gets Down With The Dirty Dame
Once again, Idolator intern Kate Richardson scours the video sites, looking for the best fan-made music videos. In this installment, she finds out why Helen Mirren is a no-good dame with a body beautiful:
Last night on Anderson Cooper 360°, R.E.M. premiered the videofor their new single "Until the Day is Done"/ trailer for the upcoming Anderson Cooper adventure "Planet in Peril." The song is so bland it kind of makes the polar bears want to go extinct. But is it, as Jess predicted yesterday, "the most depressing YouTube tribute video in history?" Well, yes. But it's also kind of hot.
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Idolator's Tribute-Video Treasury Grabs The Conch Shell
Once again, Idolator intern Kate Richardson scours the video sites, looking for the best fan-made music videos. In this installment, she ventures into the world of Lord of the Flies tributes: 
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