Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now" on Google Japan

http://www.google.co.jp/

by mouhtasi • 15 years ago

139 46 15 years ago

google.co.jp

klausa• 15 years ago

For those that are wondering: today (Sept. 5th) Freddy Mercury would turn 65.

It's also absolutely amazing, I recommend you to watch it in it's entirety.

(I think it's also no longer Japan only, it was on .pl and .com for me also, but YMMV.)

estel• 15 years ago

Presumably it's appearing on various domains as those countries move into the fifth.

Edit: blog says that it's appearing in the US on the 6th. http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/09/happy-birthday-freddi...

patrickaljord• 15 years ago

You can watch it on youtube here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KX2BQM0D01M

buster• 15 years ago

.de now too

qxb• 15 years ago

.co.uk now too.

jamesgagan4• 15 years ago

Cool as Freddy was, let's not forget these are ads for google - would he have wanted his image used to shill for a giant corporation?

chao-• 15 years ago

Versus a small corporation? Or versus his image not being used at all?

It is a tribute, with at least some degree of creativity and effort put into making the video. I don't see this being exploited to gain Google any more users than, let's be honest, they would have anyway. Especially since it is on Google Japan, I would anticipate people going to the main page, watching the video, and then not even performing a search. And in instances where that does occur, Google is gaining nothing financially from something which, again, is a creative tribute.

I don't really see it as shilling at all.

jamesgagan4• 15 years ago

How many times does the google logo appear in various forms during the "tribute"? If you don't think google gains anything financially from this, then you don't understand how advertising works.

m0nastic• 15 years ago

I don't think Google posting a Google Doodle tribute is akin to shilling (is it shilling when they have doodles for other world figures?).

I will agree that there is some commercial benefit to Google for this sort of thing, but even I'm not cynical enough to think that's their rationale for doing this.

Freddie Mercury was one of my biggest heroes growing up, and I thought this was really nice (and maybe will cause a whole bunch of young people to ask "Who the hell is Freddie Mercury?").

Teeooe2• 15 years ago

It's a Google Ad! Are you blind?

atypicaluser2• 15 years ago

I don't think you know Freddy Mercury or Queen all that well. Considering they provided the score for two films (Flash Gordon, Highlander) and allowed their music on scores of commercials (e.g. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Zr5lZWx9X0 ) yeah, he'd/they'd shill.

jamesgagan4• 15 years ago

I know them well enough to know that commerical features Dwight Yoakum's version of the song and it aired many years after Freddy Mercury died.

philwelch3• 15 years ago

Highlander still had a traditional orchestral score alongside the Queen songs. The Highlander TV series also liberally used some of the songs, most prominently the album recording of the title song "Princes of the Universe" as the theme song, but also variations on "Who Wants To Live Forever" in the score.

There's no question Queen was a fully-sold-out pop band at the end. With their talent they could have easily pursued a less commercial path--and in their early albums, had a fair deal of influence from heavy metal and progressive rock--but for whatever reasons, they didn't. Not a criticism, just a fact.

toyg• 15 years ago

Yes he would. Queen was one of the most "commercial" bands ever, constantly rehashing their music to sound like the mainstream-of-the-day and selling out to the highest bidder. They knew that being a pop band is just an act, and what matters is how many records and tickets you sell. Freddie was quite happy to get money to be a showman, and would probably laugh at modern "indie" sensibilities like you wouldn't believe. Hell, they happily sold "We are the Champions" to any sport organization willing to pony up some cash.

thristian• 15 years ago

On the subject of Japan and Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now", here's another curiousity: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTo-wFfIXKo

Somebody took a copy of Super Mario World for the Super Nintendo and hex-edited the levels so that instead of requiring a human player, the game's built-in physics propels Mario through the level. And, the levels were designed so that the various sound effects caused by Mario stomping on and bumping into things vaguely approximate the music to Don't Stop Me Now. AND four entirely different levels were created, each attempting to reproduce the part of some particular member of Queen. AND they occasionally sync up for the more spectactular parts of the song.

spiralganglion3• 15 years ago

It never ceases to amaze me what people are doing with these "classic" video games. I have immense hope that the current generation of video games, ten or twenty years on, will have fostered the same degree of love and devotion in their fans, leading to such astounding mods. I can't wait to see how the more advanced physics and rendering technologies in recent games are twisted by the brilliant and insane minds of hackers and digital circuit-benders.

There are some good examples already (the GTA4 negative wheel friction hack (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0cUkU9rZyE) or some of the Mario64 Tool-Asisted-Speedruns come to mind), but we're not yet anywhere near these beautifully orchestrated sublimations of classic Mario, Zelda and Super Metriod.

philwelch3• 15 years ago

I think contemporary videogames are too complicated to do this with. Older, simpler games have a minimalistic beauty all of their own; newer, complex games are more of a spectacle but lose a lot of the simple elegance. It's similar to the difference between the deliberate, minimalistic, kendo-style lightsaber battle in Empire Strikes Back and the hyperactive, flashy lightsaber battles in the Star Wars prequels.

whatusername• 15 years ago

Tower to Tower? http://jumprs.org/forum/showthread.php?742-Tower-to-Tower

Not really a mod - but certainly has the love/devotion thing down.

jmillikin• 15 years ago

This is called "automatic mario", and is very popular on Japanese social video sites like Nico Nico Douga.

One of the most impressive examples is an 11-minute medley of video game and cartoon themes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xz0PaPpmGa8

DarkShikari• 15 years ago

More specifically, this is one of the Nico Nico Medleys, a series of fan-made medleys of memetically popular songs. There are quite literally thousands of arranges of each of them.

Sadranyc• 15 years ago

Also great, the Minecraft version of Bohemian Rhapsody http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4qQHWP0GXg

paxswill• 15 years ago

Unrelated, but is anyone else's Google+ name being translated properly? I'm a little surprised at that touch.

makmanalp• 15 years ago

Nope, but I get a "san" at the end of my name.

w1ntermute• 15 years ago

They probably only cover the common names.

rrpp• 15 years ago

This is HTML5 right?

bonzoesc• 15 years ago

No, it uses a proprietary browser plugin.

magicalist2• 15 years ago

to be more specific, it's a youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KX2BQM0D01M

schiptsov• 15 years ago

That is really nice mix of several genres - anime, video games, that new crazy trend to design everything like screenshot from a ZX Spectrum game, and, of course, that vocal and drive. Really nice work of a modern art. ^_^

ck2• 15 years ago

Wow that was really beautiful. Why not on the US site? I hope they write a "making of" somewhere.

That's probably the most time I have ever spent on the Google front page, maybe that's a hint to advertisers.

At the end it auto-googles him too, isn't that a first too - Google auto-forwarding?

thefox• 15 years ago

Google Japan? Not only Japan. The whole Google servers shows Freddy.

iamichi• 15 years ago

I saw this just after reading the Teal and Orange post (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2960235). The entire Google animation is basically teal and orange.

Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now" on Google Japan

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