I don’t know if it’s the age I’m getting to or if it’s a side effect of the direction that modern music is going in, but my taste in music has been slowly gravitating towards hits from the 90s, 80s, or early 2000s. Whether it’s on Spotify, or simply reliving classics on YouTube, it’s been a sombre reminder that times are truly changing.
Thankfully, the folks over at Google seemingly share my sentiment. Announced on June 19, YouTube is partnering up with Universal Music Group to remaster classic music videos on the video-sharing platform to Full HD resolutions. They’ve already remastered more than 100 music videos; including classics from Michael Jackson, Boyz II Men, and everybody’s favourite Shrek theme song by Smash Mouth.
Another ‘classic’ that YouTube has remastered is Lady Gaga’s 2009 hit, Bad Romance. Now, to each his own, but…
The remastered HD videos will still have the same URLs, view counts, and likes as before. Comments will remain, as well. You’ll know if If videos have the #Remastered tag and “Remastered in HD!” in the description sections.
YouTube (along with UMG) promises to bring more remastered classics to the platform soon, as well. According to them, they’ll be remastering nearly 1000 music videos with the goal of having all 1000 classics available to stream in Full HD by the end of 2020.
As Stephen Bryan, Global Head of Label Relations at YouTube explains;
“It’s our goal to ensure that today’s music videos — true works of art — meet the high quality standards that artists’ works deserve and today’s music fans expect.”
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