More YouTube Channel Changes

We've changed the MPL YouTube Channel to simplify navigation.  Given the frozen viewership counters on our uploaded videos, we decided to delete the "Top 50 Most Viewed" video playlist.  There is an easier way to see our most popular videos.  From our YouTube Channel Page, it's an easy two-step dance with your mouse (if you're using a computer) or your finger (if you're using one of those fancy hand-held Internet-accessible gadgets).  Click to bigify the screenshots below.

This will give you a listing of our most-watched videos.

You may also access our playlists from this screen, as shown below.

The playlists automatically sort from newest to oldest, which frankly isn't the order I'd like to see, but we can't seem to get it to default differently. You, however, may change the playlist ordering from your end.  Click the drop-down menu on the right to change the playlist ordering from newest-to-oldest to oldest-to-newest.  This should present the playlists a little more logically.

This new format for the MPL YouTube Channel has some definite advantages, but we're just trying to adjust to the changes in how things operate (if they operate, that is).  Like the video viewership counters, some of the new features seem clunky at best.  Either that, or we're not using them correctly.  It could go either way.

Nonetheless, YouTube is a free service, so we're not going to complain too much.  We're fortunate to have a popular forum for our Library's videos.

We Need More Videos of Moi, Broadway Gal -- Just Saying,

Cauli Le Chat

MPL Roving Reporter

Library Videos News Beat

P.S.  YouTube's democratization of video distribution is reminiscent of the evolution of music videos, which began as independently-produced "musicians performing on videotape" and eventually were absorbed into the huge industrial music-making machine, like popular music itself. Arguably, the Beatles were one of the first (perhaps THE first) rock-and-roll bands to create short films of some of their single releases.  The Monkees, of course, were the American television spin-off of the Beatles, and each weekly episode of the Monkees' television program included at least one song, often showing the group lip-synching to a studio recording.  But the true pioneer of videotape as a music medium, and the progenitor of MTV, was Michael Nesmith, who was one of the Monkees. Whoever posted a clip on YouTube suggested that "Eldorado to the Moon" was released in 1984, but I'm fairly certain that it appeared on Nesmith's music video/comedy special, Elephant Parts (1981), for which he won a Grammy.

P.P.S.  This music video was definitely included in Elephant Parts.  "Cruisin'" was released on Michael Nesmith's LP Infinite Rider on the Big Dogma (1979).  Check out Mike's Pete Townshend parody at the end of the video.  SENSITIVE VIEWER ALERT!  If you do not want to see a bodybuilder wearing a bikini brief swimsuit, then do NOT watch this video!  That's fair warning, I'd venture.