AMV chronicles #087: Rock N’ Roll McDonalds AMV

As the relevance of Internet memes and transformative works have grown over the past decade from silly niche concerns into something that engulfs every conceivable piece of media in existence, redefining the cultural value and currency of every creative work in existence, AMVs are no longer perceived as a standalone pursuit or an individual subculture. Despite predating this moment by entire decades, AMVs have been fully subsumed into this new age and are now regarded as just another ephemeral and disposable permutation of this “remix culture” that has now all but completely displaced any capital C “culture” still left in the Western World. Over the years here I have tried to make a case for AMVs as something that exists outside of this hivemind-driven impulse to compulsively repurpose and rearrange, believing deep in my heart that AMVs can be “art,” or that they can be deeply personal expressions of fandom or provide revealing insights into the once-impenetrable realms of the individual mind, where ideas intermingle on levels beyond the confines of human language.

All that being said, I understand if this is one of the last videos you’d ever expect me to post here.

Uploaded to YouTube in 2016 by user brutallillfjomp, “Rock N’ Roll McDonalds AMV” does not attempt to transform the visual source material (a Japanese animated McDonald’s commercial) into something new, not even introducing a single cut to the original video footage. The only creative change that brutallillfjomp even makes is swapping the original audio with a song, and selection being such a ridiculously obvious one that it might leave this video feeling more like a disposable mashup of memes than a “true” AMV. At least that was my first reaction to watching it, as the lack of transformative effort visible onscreen left me disappointed by what seemed to be a missed opportunity. But as my ongoing search for proper Wesley Willis AMVs surprisingly wasn’t returning the bounty of results I was hoping for, I figured that this one would have to do for the time being, so I found myself coming back to it, sharing it with others, ultimately giving it the benefit of the doubt as a silly guilty pleasure before finally accepting it on its own terms. I guess I have a thing for these sort of weird one-and-done creations–brutallillfjomp’s channel is composed of cat videos, concert recordings and video game footage, with almost nothing else resembling an AMV–so I found myself watching it again and again, intrigued by its unassuming origins and its relative lack of views in comparison to the viral heights it otherwise seemed destined to seize but somehow never had. In its simplicity and absurdity, I eventually developed an obsession with it. This is not the sort of thing I can talk you or anyone else into, so don’t be alarmed if none of this makes sense or feels normal in the slightest.

I get an uneasy or defensive feeling in seeing how how Wesley Willis’ 1995 song “Rock’N’Roll McDonald’s” (some say his single best song) is currently regarded as a “meme,” as if it was suddenly discovered and spread across the Internet during the age of social media and never had a meaningful life of its own prior to that. On the contrary, it was a song I heard and played into the ground when at least half the people who made and disseminated things like this were either not yet born or were so young and innocent that they were mercifully ignorant of the meme-saturated future that would eventually swallow their still-pure imaginations. The irony of me talking down to anyone for not appreciating the songwriting and musical composition of Wesley Willis is not lost on me; I never would have discovered any of his music for myself if I also hadn’t been an entitled kid on the Internet, one who stole music off Napster while the person who created it in the first place was making a living in his final years as a struggling artist, so I realize I have no room to “claim” this music as my own or whatever it is I’m trying to do. There’s endless potential here to write about Wesley Willis, the man, his music, his complicated legacy, how he may have fared as an artist and as a person in the truly online world that he never lived to see. I regret never seeing him in person or purchasing any art from him (which I would proudly display today if I ever had), as I know I had the opportunity to do so but also understand I was just never going to pony up for as an absolutely broke tightwad during the early 00s.

“Rock’N’Roll McDonald’s” follows the typical structure of a mid-90s Wesley Willis song: verse-chorus-verse-chorus-instrumental bridge-verse-chorus. It’s a reliable and reassuring formula that defined all but his earliest recordings. Occasional tweaks to the songs, such as changing the pitch or tempo of the backing track, or adding vocal effects, make the subtle audio edits in this AMV feel at home with the artist’s idiosyncratic aesthetic. It had been a few years since I’d last heart “Rock’N’Roll McDonald’s” and it took several viewings of this AMV to realize that this is not how the song is supposed to sound. brutallillfjomp’s adjustments to the speed of the track stops short of reaching nightcore-like levels where the edits to the music steal the spotlight from the song itself, instead sounding like just another creative choice that Willis made on other songs and could just have easily made in this one. The audio edits result in an uncanny sync with the passage of scenes in this commercial, and along with the seamless excision of the 50 second-long instrumental bridge, create a sense of seemingly natural flow from beginning of this video to its very end. I don’t expect that this will impress almost anyone reading this, especially not on a single viewing, but you’re here because you don’t have “normal” taste in things so who knows?

I don’t think I’ve laughed harder at a single moment in an AMV this year than when the protagonist of this advertisement proudly puts on her hat to the lyrics, “McDonald’s hamburgers are the worst.” That right there is my sense of humor in its purest form.

I never actually went to the Rock ‘N/ Roll McDonalds during its heyday. The restaurant unexpectedly phased out its signature theme five years ago and is now a very normal, very forgettable McDonald’s location. Perhaps Wesley Willis’ song, an American classic that only grows more iconic with every passing year, is now the restaurant’s most endearing legacy. Hopefully it remains that way, as second place surely goes to a far less joyful association.