New Princess (and Villain) Music Videos
Move aside, Princess Rap Battles! There are some new music videos in town. Princess fans have gotten more creative than ever and are releasing tons of cosplay videos inspired by our favorite princesses. It's the perfect season for dressing up in costume and singing songs. Since Halloween is coming up, the latest fan videos have more of a villainous spin. These production groups have done lots of great princess videos in the past, and they are sure to make more in the future. Up first, we have a special treat from Rachel Bloom. I have been eagerly anticipating Friday's premiere of her show, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and was pleased to find that she released this sneak preview yesterday of the Disney-inspired song introducing the episode.
Unlike their last princess number, the new song "Where's Rebecca Bunch?" is an ensemble sequence with the everyone in the show except Rebecca dressed as puritans in a colonial village. The video draws heavy inspiration from the song "Belle" from Disney's Beauty and the Beast. Of all the fabulous costumes in this video, Rebecca is the only person not dressed in period fashion. This juxtaposition is a metaphor of the disconnect she feels from the rest of society after last season's shocking finale. That's not to say that Rachel Bloom has never gotten a chance to play a fairy tale princess in a music video before. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend prides itself on covering different genres and styles of music videos. While this isn't the first Disney style number they've done, it is the first one that portrays the entire town of West Covina as a medieval village. I liked how the characters' outfits reflected their personalities. For instance, Nathaniel is dressed as an upper class nobleman as his shoes are shined by the lowly George, who he has fired multiple times. The video also poses a question that Disney has been trying hard to answer over the past few years, "Where's a woman's pride without her man?"
The next new Disney-inspired video is brought to you by Patty Cake Productions, a Florida-based YouTube content studio that launched the "Unexpected Musicals" web series roughly a year ago. The web series takes popular movie musicals and replaces their soundtracks with pop songs by well-known artists. Their first episode, "Snow Spears and the Seven Dwarfs," told the story of "Snow White" to a medley of Britney Spears songs. Later princess videos include "Beauty and the Bieber," "Michaeleficent," which set the movie Maleficent to songs by Michael Jackson, and my personal favorite favorite, "Cinderswift," which stars one of my favorite theme park princesses in the role of Cinderella. I was eagerly looking forward to their "Little Mermaid" video, "The Grande Mermaid," but unfortunately, it got delayed due to the recent hurricane. In the mean time, they just released this villain mix called "Look What You Made Me Brew," set to Taylor Swift's latest hit.
The new video is full of surprise appearances from different Disney villains, startig with an appearance by the Sanderson sisters from Disney's 1993 Hocus Pocus, who spiked in popularity recently, possibly to the announcement of an upcoming remake. What I love about Patty Cake Production is that they are masters at recreating live-action costumes and sets. All of their fairy tale-based videos are inspired by Disney's live-action remakes. Since live-action requires more detail than animation, using these costume designs gives their videos a slicker and more professional look. I was amazed by their advanced use of CGI in "Beauty and the Bieber" and "The Will of Oz." Even though they are an independent online studio, their videos look just like the big Hollywood productions they are trying to mirror. Maybe one day they'll start producing live-action fairy tales for the big screen.
Following in the Halloween spirit is AVByte's newest cosplay video, "Disney Villains - The Musical." These are the same two guys who brought us the viral Disney Princess "I Don't Need a Man" music video featuring Elsa. Though the costumes and sets in their videos are not as impressive as Patty Cake Productions, they do provide catchy tunes that make you want to sing along with fun choreography. Their new video features the Disney villains singing about how they will never get their "happily ever afters" even though they're not as bad as people say they are. It pokes fun at stories such as Wicked that flip famous tales on their head, making us rethink who is good and who is evil. The video isn't meant to be taken too seriously. It's all in good villainous fun.
Last but not least, beloved Disney cosplayer Traci Hines recently teamed up with Chris Villain to do a tribute to Disney's 1999 animated classic, Tarzan. Traci is a pop singer as well as a cosplayer, and she has done many Disney music videos where she dresses up and sing covers of popular Disney songs. My absolute favorite of these is her "Part of Your World" video in which she beautifully recreates scenes from Disney's The Little Mermaid wearing breathtaking costumes created by Firefly Path. In these two new videos, Traci recreates three different looks that Jane Porter wore in Tarzan and performs duets with Chris to Phil Collins' songs for the movie. Though there were no elaborate sets, parts of the video were filmed up in a treetop, which is still pretty impressive.
Dressing up in costumes and singing songs are the two of the most fun aspects of playing princess. Thanks to online streaming sites like YouTube, more fans than ever are able to share their creativity with the rest of the world. In the spirit of Halloween, there are more music videos featuring villains than princesses this month, but that's sure to change after the season passes. I'm also looking forward to more Crazy Ex-Girlfriend videos that will continue to explore the psychological effects of growing up with princess movies.
Unlike their last princess number, the new song "Where's Rebecca Bunch?" is an ensemble sequence with the everyone in the show except Rebecca dressed as puritans in a colonial village. The video draws heavy inspiration from the song "Belle" from Disney's Beauty and the Beast. Of all the fabulous costumes in this video, Rebecca is the only person not dressed in period fashion. This juxtaposition is a metaphor of the disconnect she feels from the rest of society after last season's shocking finale. That's not to say that Rachel Bloom has never gotten a chance to play a fairy tale princess in a music video before. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend prides itself on covering different genres and styles of music videos. While this isn't the first Disney style number they've done, it is the first one that portrays the entire town of West Covina as a medieval village. I liked how the characters' outfits reflected their personalities. For instance, Nathaniel is dressed as an upper class nobleman as his shoes are shined by the lowly George, who he has fired multiple times. The video also poses a question that Disney has been trying hard to answer over the past few years, "Where's a woman's pride without her man?"
The next new Disney-inspired video is brought to you by Patty Cake Productions, a Florida-based YouTube content studio that launched the "Unexpected Musicals" web series roughly a year ago. The web series takes popular movie musicals and replaces their soundtracks with pop songs by well-known artists. Their first episode, "Snow Spears and the Seven Dwarfs," told the story of "Snow White" to a medley of Britney Spears songs. Later princess videos include "Beauty and the Bieber," "Michaeleficent," which set the movie Maleficent to songs by Michael Jackson, and my personal favorite favorite, "Cinderswift," which stars one of my favorite theme park princesses in the role of Cinderella. I was eagerly looking forward to their "Little Mermaid" video, "The Grande Mermaid," but unfortunately, it got delayed due to the recent hurricane. In the mean time, they just released this villain mix called "Look What You Made Me Brew," set to Taylor Swift's latest hit.
The new video is full of surprise appearances from different Disney villains, startig with an appearance by the Sanderson sisters from Disney's 1993 Hocus Pocus, who spiked in popularity recently, possibly to the announcement of an upcoming remake. What I love about Patty Cake Production is that they are masters at recreating live-action costumes and sets. All of their fairy tale-based videos are inspired by Disney's live-action remakes. Since live-action requires more detail than animation, using these costume designs gives their videos a slicker and more professional look. I was amazed by their advanced use of CGI in "Beauty and the Bieber" and "The Will of Oz." Even though they are an independent online studio, their videos look just like the big Hollywood productions they are trying to mirror. Maybe one day they'll start producing live-action fairy tales for the big screen.
Following in the Halloween spirit is AVByte's newest cosplay video, "Disney Villains - The Musical." These are the same two guys who brought us the viral Disney Princess "I Don't Need a Man" music video featuring Elsa. Though the costumes and sets in their videos are not as impressive as Patty Cake Productions, they do provide catchy tunes that make you want to sing along with fun choreography. Their new video features the Disney villains singing about how they will never get their "happily ever afters" even though they're not as bad as people say they are. It pokes fun at stories such as Wicked that flip famous tales on their head, making us rethink who is good and who is evil. The video isn't meant to be taken too seriously. It's all in good villainous fun.
Last but not least, beloved Disney cosplayer Traci Hines recently teamed up with Chris Villain to do a tribute to Disney's 1999 animated classic, Tarzan. Traci is a pop singer as well as a cosplayer, and she has done many Disney music videos where she dresses up and sing covers of popular Disney songs. My absolute favorite of these is her "Part of Your World" video in which she beautifully recreates scenes from Disney's The Little Mermaid wearing breathtaking costumes created by Firefly Path. In these two new videos, Traci recreates three different looks that Jane Porter wore in Tarzan and performs duets with Chris to Phil Collins' songs for the movie. Though there were no elaborate sets, parts of the video were filmed up in a treetop, which is still pretty impressive.
Dressing up in costumes and singing songs are the two of the most fun aspects of playing princess. Thanks to online streaming sites like YouTube, more fans than ever are able to share their creativity with the rest of the world. In the spirit of Halloween, there are more music videos featuring villains than princesses this month, but that's sure to change after the season passes. I'm also looking forward to more Crazy Ex-Girlfriend videos that will continue to explore the psychological effects of growing up with princess movies.
Comments