{"id":161,"date":"2015-07-14T13:53:27","date_gmt":"2015-07-14T13:53:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/?p=161"},"modified":"2015-07-14T20:45:30","modified_gmt":"2015-07-14T20:45:30","slug":"ftv-scott-bradlees-post-modern-jukebox","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/?p=161","title":{"rendered":"FTV: Scott Bradlee’s Post Modern Jukebox"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0Born on Long Island, NY on September 19, 1981, \u00a0Scott Bradlee was the perfect age to be heavily influenced by the music produced in and around that decade. \u00a0This leads one to believe that he may have been inspired by the post-disco period, \u00a0the emerging hair metal scene, or even grunge. \u00a0No, Bradlee fell in love with jazz after hearing George Gershwin’s\u00a0Rhapsody in Blue<\/em> at the age of 12. \u00a0Okay, nothing unusual about a young man from Long Island getting interested in jazz and embarking on a career as a piano playing, music arranging jazzophile. \u00a0What about him exploding into the YouTube universe by producing multiple viral music videos as he has done since 2013? \u00a0No, again, nothing unusual here. \u00a0Bradlee wasn\u2019t the first nor will he be the last to gain musical notoriety via the internet. \u00a0What separates Bradlee from the herd is how he became a YouTube sensation.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0As a working musician in the New York jazz scene, Bradlee began looking for inspiration. \u00a0\u00a0He realized that his passions, \u00a0old ragtime and jazz piano, \u00a0might not be as popular today as they may have been in the F. Scott Fitzgerald era. \u00a0Working off-Broadway and at restaurant piano gigs, Bradlee experimented by adapting various types of music to his musical styles of interest. \u00a0By 2009, he was ready to record and release his version of 1980s popular music arranged for ragtime piano (Hello my Ragtime \u201880s)<\/i>. \u00a0\u00a0The vision of where he wanted to take his music grew and evolved with the release of Mashups by Candlelight \u00a0<\/i>(2012). \u00a0He continued tinkering with his formula which led to his 2013 CD A Motown Tribute to Nickelback<\/i> that reworked the music of Nickelback with a 1960s R&B twist.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0With the template now in place for what is now known as Scott Bradlee\u2019s Postmodern Jukebox (or PMJ for short), Bradlee created his first surge of internet buzz with his arrangement of Miley Cyrus\u2019s hit We Can\u2019t Stop<\/i> featuring the vocal group The Tee-Tones. \u00a0\u00a0Viral videos bring national attention and Bradlee began to get calls from mainstream media outlets like NPR<\/i> and Good Morning America<\/i>. \u00a0Bradlee ended the year with a visit to Cosmopolitan Magazine\u2019s<\/i> New York office where they filmed a mashup medley of the popular music PMJ had been recording in 2013 subtitled \u2018Just another day at the office\u2019. \u00a0(www.youtube.com\/watch?v=FStVXiu-0bQ<\/a> ) . \u00a0\u00a0All of that activity in one take!<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0PMJ\u2019s CDs produced since the Nickelback tribute include Mashups by Candlelight, Vol. 2<\/i> (2013), Twist is the New Twerk<\/i> (2014), Clubbin? With Grandpa<\/i> (2014), Historical Misappropriation<\/i> (2014), \u00a0A Very Postmodern Christmas<\/i> (2014), and Selfies on Kodachrome<\/i> (2015). \u00a0I am not exactly sure when PMJ had time to record another new CD for release in 2015 (Emoji Antique<\/i>) as there have also been extensive tours conducted both here and abroad during this time. \u00a0The ever ambitious Bradlee\u2019s goal is to release a new video track every week so there has to be some time left over in his busy schedule for arranging and rehearsing. \u00a0The quality of and choreography done for these clips indicates they don\u2019t just set up the cameras and start filming.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I have in no way done justice to the number of entries on Bradlee\u2019s YouTube channel nor the massive number of views he has accumulated. \u00a0In fact, when I previously wrote about the PMJ collaboration with Puddle\u2019s Pity Party (covering Lorde\u2019s Royals<\/i>), I mistakenly said the clip had already garnered over 200,000 hits since it was released. \u00a0That part is true, but I didn\u2019t realize I used the count from a more recent reposting of the video by someone who had (like me) recently discovered it. \u00a0In truth, the Puddle\u2019s track had garnered over 8 MILLION hits by September of 2014, making it the second most watched video on PMJ\u2019s YouTube channel at that time. \u00a0Bradlee has also been providing music for segments of the video game industry which opens an even larger audience for his work.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0His collaborators come from all over the entertainment map: \u00a0\u00a0the world of jazz (saxophonist Dave Koz), country music (Emily West), American Idol <\/i>(Haley Reinhart who finished third in season 10), theater (Shoshana Bean – Elphaba\u00a0on Broadway\u00a0\u00a0in the musical Wicked<\/em>), \u00a0Minnesota (Adriana Savalas – the daughter of the late actor Telly Savalas who was raised in Minnesota after her father\u2019s death. \u00a0She began as a singer\/songwriter in Los Angeles before transitioning into jazz and some acting), and of course we can\u2019t forget our old friend Puddles (Big Mike Geier) straight out of Atlanta, Georgia. \u00a0If you take the time to check out the flood of videos available at the Postmodern Jukebox YouTube channel, you won\u2019t be alone. \u00a0As of 2014, \u00a0Bradlee’s YouTube Channel “Postmodern Jukebox” was listed as #42 on NewMediaRockstars<\/em>‘<\/i> “Top 100 Channels.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0This isn\u2019t exactly a \u2018retro\u2019 trend. \u00a0Old things get recycled to become the \u2018next thing\u2019 all the time. \u00a0This is not like that. \u00a0While the stylings are old school, the PMJ way of retooling pop songs and the live performance videos are kind of refreshing. \u00a0The mashup videos alone contain multiple song snippets , choreography, rotating musicians, and even some recurring characters like Tambourine Guy, all of which points to someone taking the time to script out these spontaneous looking events \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Like most musical styles and things that go viral, this will run its\u2019 course but I have a feeling that Bradlee will have cooked up something else to keep him inspired. \u00a0I find it interesting that while he is in all of the videos posted by PMJ, he is seldom the center of attention. \u00a0What a concept: \u00a0take popular music, throw it back to the 1920s, make very cool, modern viral videos and become an internet star without actually being the focus of the videos! \u00a0\u00a0Way to go, Scott Bradlee!<\/span>