Not necessarily funny this time

A sneak preview of the Paul Stanley from KISS “1974” action figure. Yet another product from the never-ending stream of merchandise from this band-turned-corporate-mega-brand. Did you know Gene Simmons is said to be worth $300 million?

Then there's this video is very much in the vein of some funny flash animation videos that became particularly popular on the web some years ago. Basically, foreign-language songs would receive additional phonetic English subtitles and matching animated photos and images, often with hilarious and crazy results. The most famous at the time was called French Erotic Film (originally a Dutch song with no lyrical connection of any kind to its new title); one version of the infamous Numa Numa video did it momentarily by superimposing an image of fettuccine over a vaguely similar-sounding moment in the original Rumanian lyrics; and there were a few others I believe, with the craziest spoofs being Japanese songs.

Now here’s another one in the same glorious tradition, in the form of alternate lyrics for the instantly recognisable O Fortuna epic. Except, I find this one particularly interesting because of the choice of music. Specifically, I own at least three releases that were later retracted because the bands sampled O Fortuna, including Ministry, Apoptygma Berzerk and Apotheosis (in this last case, the release was actually called O Fortuna and ended up shooting up the Belgian charts at the time, so that was something of a giveaway).

Personally, I feel this militant hunting down of copyright violators is morally stupid, seeing that the lyrics that appear in Carmina Burana consisted of “previously published” material — specifically, a large book of poetry written by Medieval monks which Carl Orff transcribed for his composition. Hell, I even knew some people a few years back who got a take-down because they posted a short YouTube video of them dicking around at home, set to this music. It couldn’t possibly have attracted more than a few hundred views and that got them some unwarranted attention.

So, I seriously wonder if this fantastic video is going to be around for long.

Oh, and last but not, Axl Rose is still a douchebag. It seems he’s now banned fans from wearing Slash t-shirts at his gigs. I wish I could think of some appropriate Guns N’ Roses lyrics to make some ironic point about this total douchebaggery but nothing’s forthcoming. What an arse.