Swing Lo....

Lo-fi music is pretty much a thing these days. You can't get on YouTube --or, I presume, a music streaming service-- and not run into people streaming it. It's designed to be low-fidelity with imperfections throughout the music, and no, not in an innovative way such as Thelonious Monk,

The first time I heard Straight, No Chaser, I thought

the pianist was just playing badly, but I soon learned

that there was a method to Monk's madness.

but designed to emulate an AM radio signal to a greater or lesser extent. Okay, that's not being really fair to the sound fidelity, because it does sound much better than an AM transistor radio. It kind of does have a unique, chill type of vibe that grows on you; a person can have it playing in the background while doing other tasks without the music standing up and demanding that you pay attention to it.

Lo-fi music doesn't have to be royalty free --that depends on the composer-- but I've noticed that a lot of it is advertised as such. 

I guess you could say that if Easy Listening Music and Jazz had a kid that also listened to hip-hop, Lo-fi would be the result.

It is very much the 'it' music these days, and lots of people are looking to cash in on the trend with AI generated artwork gracing the YouTube videos of Lo-fi music. Just type in "lofi" in YouTube and you'll see what I mean. Sure, there's artwork that would look at home in a Thomas Kinkade painting, 

and others that give off an anime vibe, 

I teased my questing buddy with this, since

she plays a Bear Druid in WoW Classic.

but there's also plenty out there that veer toward hentai and other, far more sexually suggestive graphics.* 

Sorry, but I'm not going beyond PG on this blog.

Graphically speaking, that is. But if you really

want to hunt around, you certainly can find the

explicit stuff.

Still, I guess it's to nobody's surprise that Blizzard got in on the act:

But what surprised me was what dropped today:

I have so many questions about this.

Wasn't rampant use of the arcane what caused the Queldorei/Sindorei magical addiction when Arthas destroyed the Sunwell? So while I understand why the animators did what they did, it just seemed like an unnecessary waste of the arcane.

Cardwyn: "She could never go incognito anywhere; she's too used to using the arcane for everything." 

Me: Shush; it's just an artist's rendition.

Cardwyn: Don't shush me! Go back to writing! 

Me: Yes, ma'am. 

So... judging by the Water Elemental in the background, Jaina's a Frost Mage? Hasn't somebody told her that Frost is the worst spec in Retail right now? Or that it's pigeonholed into PvP?

And where is she, exactly, wearing clothing that covers her arms entirely, along with a heavy cloak and gloves? It doesn't look that cold outside.

Oh, right, the music. It's good enough, I suppose, but since it's background music it was, well, in the background while I worked. The floating book was occasionally distracting as it caught my eye on more than one occasion while I was working on a spreadsheet.

***

However, I will make a quick rant about a change to YouTube:

From Reddit, because when I actually wanted to
see this pop up, it doesn't, but when I don't,
it's effing everywhere.

At least you can click the X to remove this pop up, but it's still very annoying. I personally am not paying for the privilege of avoiding ads, because Google's algorithm is abjectly terrible at picking out spots to stick ads into a video, and the sound volume differences between the ad and any random YouTube video are different enough that it aggravates my tinnitus. 

There. Told you it was a quick rant.

*In that respect it's a lot like ASMR these days, where you get some people definitely angling their ASMR appearances toward titillation for more clicks. 

EtA: Corrected grammar.