Skate videos have long been a portal for musical discovery. Except in recent years, it has began to almost feel like …filler. If one editor finds success with an untapped genre or artist, there is always an avalanche of imitators. If you find that “how has nobody skated to this?!”-song, the answer to your question is often “someone has, it was just in some video you missed.” And a popular song? Forget it, it has been in twenty kids’ IG edits since the day it got uploaded to YouTube.
(Don’t even start with the dude editing his “Trip to N.Y.C!” video to Big L right now.)
Choosing a song that makes an impact, and gets people tracking it down is hard when our attention spans are their fickle 2019 selves. We reached out to five people who routinely put out edits (i.e. not the guys dropping one full-length every few years) to get their thoughts on how the process of selecting music in skate videos has evolved.
It’s heartwarming to see world renown design principles from 12th & A make their way to skateable spaces all the way across the Atlantic.
“Their video Grains, filmed across the soybean belt of Illinois, Missouri, Indiana and Ohio, veers far off interstate arteries and urban sprawls to extract tricks from crumbling loading docks in Joliet, dilapidated stadiums in Gary, polished-stone plaza ledges in downtown Peoria.” As most skate content has drifted towards Instagram and nothing has much staying power, the idea of a “video review” has sadly become a relic of skate publications past. That’s a bit sad, considering a resounding, well-written recommendation of a not-so-obvious video (or something you simply neglected to click on) still means a lot. I bought Grains after reading Boil the Ocean’s new review of it, and can’t say I would’ve been compelled to do the same if I saw a part of it on Thrasher or YouTube with a Big Cartel link under it ♥
“The most dominant example of genre loyalty is DGK’s whopping 92% use of hip hop.” Someone culled Skatevideosite’s entire database of soundtracks and put together an infographic-based portrait of #musicsupervision in skate videos over the past four decades — and somehow, despite the fact it has been a recurring joke on here for ~10 years — Big L isn’t the most oft-used rap artist.
Chief Keef making Seaside Heights boardwalk music (and him sounding the most energized he’s sounded in years on it) is one 2018’s most unheralded developments.
We have a capsule with Nike SB releasing this Saturday, April 14. It’s definitely our best one! More info soon ♥
Gonna throw in an early left field link, but the Pass~Port in Greece edit is the best (i.e. watched it more than once) trip edit that’s dropped during 2018’s Winter Getaway Footage Dump Season (yes, I know Australia is in the southern hemisphere.) It’s always nice to learn of some nice new songs in a skate edit too :)
“That’s what I keep telling myself, ‘maybe in ten more years.’ Those ten years go by and I’m still not ready. Actually, I’ve come to terms with it, this is it.” Skate Jawn interviews productivity legend, Dave Caddo.
“In a Warhol-esque version of a future skate industry where 1% of pros earn lavish salaries and the rest ball for position, will everyone have their own brand, with price-points scaling higher in accordance with gnarliness and footage releases?” Boil the Ocean on pros’ t-shirt ventures, and the cult of Jerry Hsu’s Sci-Fi Fantasy brand.
Even if it is in the Times + includes the phrases “daredevils” and “neoliberal training grounds,” Jeff Ihaza’s feature on how skateparks came to be understood, accepted, and built passes the litmus test of linkable traditional news outlet skate coverage.
While the Times may think we “won,” we also lost one of the best ledges in lower Manhattan this past week. The deknobbed ledge at Seaport that was more-or-less a go over the past year-plus is now knobbed not only for grinds, but for manuals too!
Normally don’t care about “oh, so-and-so already skated to that song”-isms — especially in this fickle footage economy — but “Blowing Up Fast” holds a special place in many hearts. This guy does a line at Three Up Three Down, hypes up P-Rod, and has never seen Baker Has a Deathwish, which is totally fine because it’s almost ten-years-old now goddamn.
