History Themed Music Videos

I LOVE finding fun, funky, modern, resources to use with my students!  Teaching art, most kids at least enjoy the act of creating and don't need much convincing (other than I will take your paints away and you can read and write reports about art) to pay attention.  Art history, which I LOVE and could spend hours studying, can be a little harder to focus on for students...especially first thing in the morning.... in a darkened room......with pretty comfy chairs.  I try to be interesting, but I can see their heads bobbing some days and remember fighting the same napping instinct when I was the art history student.

This week I stumbled on a GREAT history/ art history resource and I just had to share it. I was searching for a video on the renaissance and I stumbled onto a YouTube video called Renaissance Man.  The link said something about the Violent Femes song Blister in the Sun.  I clicked on it and got a history themed music video parody with lyrics that were historically accurate.  Even better, they used subtitles, so you could be sure to catch all the information even if the lyrics were fast.  I found 50 something history videos on a You Tube channel called History Teachers's Channel.  Of those, 20 or so directly apply to subjects and time periods that I cover with my AP Art History class.  I showed one video, Civilization, today.  I let the students write down all the artworks in the video that we covered in the class.  We made it a contest for extra credit on a quiz to see who could find the most.  In a 3 minute video, they recognized 15 images. (I found 20 but I have read the entire textbook and they aren't half way through it yet!) They had to correctly name the image to get credit and I was really impressed and excited about using this as a review.  Next week we start Rome and I am looking forward to the Cleopatra video based on the song Fergalicious!  The image above is not one of the History Teacher's videos.  They are a group called Hold Your Horses who sing a song called 70 Million.  The real video for this real song is completely made up of the band acting out famous paintings.  It reminded me of the living paintings project that my AP Art History students do at the end of the year.

One last fun music video find for the week.  The Bare Naked Ladies have a song called The Mesopotamians!  The music video, does not feature any actual Mesopotamian art, but the lyrics mention all the different civilizations that fall under the Mesopotamian umbrella.  If you are an art or a social studies person, check out these videos and ENJOY!