So the main thing I can tell you here is the government does not want you to watch these videos. Watch quick before they get deleted again
- "Ante Up", Mash Out Posse (ft. Sesame Street)
Gangsta rap in a cartoon register but deadly serious, this 2000 breakout hit is so charming it became the favorite rap song of everyone who doesn't listen to rap; it was in last year's TMNT movie and a KFC ad. Meanwhile the song itself is a full-throated endorsement of/how-to guide for street mugging. Here it is being sung by Ernie and Bert.
- "Difference", Red Five & Exile + DJ Mickey Finn + Ragga Twins + MC Navigator (ft. Sesame Street)
I have only indirect knowledge of the 90s British hardcore electronic scene. But, Jungle grew out of reggae culture, and tracks we in the states knew only as instrumentals were meant to be spun as backing tracks for improvised vocals.
This short clip was from a party called "Future Winter Session 1998" (full set is on YouTube). This was all liver than live.
- "Hey Ya", Outkast (ft. the Peanuts Gang)
Okay, yes, this got overplayed. But give it a chance. Andre 3000 puts his entire self into this. He performed almost every instrument. The lyrics swerve dizzyingly between literal last-second improvisation about Lucy Liu, and him pouring his heart out about his divorce. This song is so sincere.
Here's an exacting shot-for-shot HD remake of one of the earliest videos on YouTube (March 2006 or possibly earlier); part of me wanted to embed the original, with its ABC watermark and slightly more Peanuts-plausible opening title, but that one is 240p and very badly compressed.
- "God's Away on Business", Tom Waits (ft. Sesame Street)
A funeral dirge for our fallen universe. Listening to this song, the sense I get was Tom Waits was one of those people in the 80s who understood the Reagan administration really was the end of the world and it was all downhill from there. …or so I was GOING to say, but then I looked it up and this album was released in 2002, one year into the Bush administration. Well, same difference.
- "A Divine Proclamation of Finishing the Present Existence", Last Days of Humanity (ft. Sesame Street)
In every art form, we need that one person to go All The Way, we need the Merzbow or Malevich or the John Cage who finds and crosses The Line so, lines established, the rest of us can draw within them. "Putrefaction in Progress" is that for metal. 25 minutes of music of uniform, maximal density. You can't go harder than this. We checked.
⬇️ Click below for Sesame Street (not a joke) ⬇️