Gonna keep going down this music video reactions rabbit hole, because I’m weird like that. This time, I want to talk about a guy who goes by “Jamel_AKA_Jamal” (his name is Jamel but a lot of people apparently get mixed up and call him Jamal). When I started watching a lot of music video reactions, I quickly came upon Jamel’s YouTube channel, and I’d say he’s kind of become my “go-to” reaction guy. That sounds so dumb to say, but it’s true. I guess it says something about me that I’ve gotten obsessed with watching videos of people watching videos. Oh well, it’s better than getting into drugs or farming, right? Well, okay, farming is cool, but I just like videos more because I’m not very good at harvesting wheat.
For more about my general take on music video reactions and how it all got started, see this earlier post.
For me, the main thing I look for in music video reactors is their personalities, and how genuine and emotional their reactions tend to be. I want to watch people where the music really seems to have a big impact. It’s just more fun that way. For people my age or older, we grew up with American Bandstand on Saturday mornings, and they had a segment called “Rate a Record.” It became a running joke because so many of the people really didn’t know what to say and would just go, “I liked it. It has a good beat. You can dance to it.”
The music reactors who are most popular are completely the opposite of that. You can feel how much they love the songs, and how happy they are to have discovered them.
I also really like Jamal because he’s just a good person. In fact, his motto is:
Just Be a Good Human
Be Humble, Be Kind
Spread Joy, Peace & Love.
We need more people like that.
Jimi Hendrix—Hey Joe
It’s so funny when people see Jimi Hendrix perform for the first time. Especially when you compare him against some of the things today that seem to be impressive to so many people. When someone first watches Jimi, it’s like they’re seeing an alien. And they kind of are, because there’s never been anybody quite like Jimi Hendrix.
Led Zeppelin—Dazed and Confused
This is one of my favorite music video reactions of any that I’ve seen from anybody. First, I love Led Zeppelin and I love this song. And second, Jamel’s head is kind of melting as he listens to it. I love watching people’s heads melt.
Ambrosia—Biggest Part of Me
Well, this is a big left turn. Going from Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin to Ambrosia. I like Ambrosia, a lot. Always have. They were really popular in the 70s and early 80s and wrote some great melodies.
One cool thing is that sometimes musicians who are performing in these videos will hear about one of these music reaction videos and reach out to the music reactor. And that’s what happened with Jamel on this reaction. I think it was his comment on the red pants. But ya gotta admit, those are some fancy ass red pants.
Redbone—Come and Get Your Love
I think Jamel’s channel turned up a notch when he discovered videos from the TV show The Midnight Special, which was especially big in the 70s. We didn’t have a billion channels back then like everyone has today. We had three channels. And The Midnight Special was THE show to watch if you were in to music and wanted to see live performances by popular and upcoming bands and musicians. But you had to stay up late. If you’re too young to remember this show, do a search for it on YouTube. It’s really a lot of fun. Just do it for the clothes and outfits. You won’t be sorry.
And Redbone, man, they were just cool. Even if they were a one-hit wonder. This is a great song. It’s funny that a lot of reactors are familiar with parts of these songs because of something like Guitar Hero or Guardians of the Galaxy, whatever that is. As surprised as I am that these guys have never heard of most of these musicians, I’m sure that they would be as surprised to find out that I don’t know what Guardians of the Galaxy is.