While video number three is, thankfully, better than number two (if you missed number two, here's a quick recap: all photos, gratuitous "sexy," and rape). A return to the element of mystery, some fantastic camera work. But seriously, why is Kanye putting out MULTIPLE VIDEOS for this song? Yeah, it's a good song, Kanye, we get it. Nothing is going to remotely compare to the excitement that the first one generated - short, sweet, out of nowhere, slightly self-effacing/tongue-in-cheek. When that thing came out, I was glued from start to finish, and when the song ended early, I was wide-eyed with "Dang" on my lips. Now I'm just kind of bored.
There are two things I've been recently rather excited about: Sigur Rós and Ryan McGinley. And those two things just made sweet sweet love and had a baby. It's name is Gobbledigook.
In a delicious, supermarket-cheese-table-style sample of the new record, Sigur Rós has made available the audio and music video for the new single, "Gobbledigook." The song and video are VERY noteworthy for several reasons (other than the obvious, which is that they are awesome). First, this marks a distinct change in the song style of Sigur Rós, whose lackadaisical, contemplative melodies could best be described as sweet, heartrending lullabies. Where once tranquility was a dominant effect (if not a dose of melancholy), reckless, youthful abandon has taken its place. And the video follows suit. Traditionally, SR videos have been rife with slow motion, and cuts that take their sweet time. And while a lot of the green-toned color temperature remains from that style, this new video is light on its feet with rapid cuts, and motion that is never slower than a-little-faster-than-reality.
Also, of course, the video is exciting because it is inspired by Ryan McGinley's work, in particular the recent show he had at Team Gallery. These photos, and thus the video, share the same youthful abandon that this new style of song comes in. It is particularly exciting to feel as though these photos have come to life.
In a way, this marks a step in the same direction for both Sigur Rós AND McGinley. Looking at McGinley's photos, one gets the impression of watching someone at play in slow motion. The subjects in some cases are so vivacious and energetic, that even the still frame seems to beg to move. On the other side of the same coin, SR videos feel so slow and magnificent, each frame perfect, that they seem to almost freeze in time and become brilliant still images. Add to that similar color tones, and an interest in youth, and it starts to become apparent why these artists have come together to MOVE FAST together.
This song (which is available for free download at the Sigur Rós website) bears a lot of similarity to the Animal Collective, and it has indeed been drawing that comparison. True, the beat reminds one of the pseudo-tribal rhythm of "The Purple Bottle" (off of "Feels"), and the playfully almost childlike vocals seem indelibly referential as well. But what, I think, gives Sigur Rós some cred in this case is how disparate this sound is from where they've been only recently. Context is the key word here.
All in all, I'm really thrilled about this video. I'm also thrilled that the band is continuing in its path of making things exceedingly free and easy to access on the internet, and in high quality! They are helping to pave the way toward massively free and outstanding-grade media.
Enjoy the video! And, is it me, or is Jónsi channeling Ziggy Stardust with that makeup?
I mean, seriously. The first video was unbelievable. Everyone was totally surprised by it. Such an amazing concept, beautifully shot. Then, you get this second video: terrible concept (oh, yeah, it's SUCH an amazing idea to watch a girl virtually naked get dressed, go out, then get raped, while Kanye chills out with some random girl in some strange room, all touchin' her and watching her dance), not all that original to do it in stills. And what the hell is this thing saying about rape?
Here are my two specific problems with the inclusion of the rape scene: First of all, the black-and-white inserts. If you'll recall, earlier in the video these B+W cutaways were meant to glamorize - they were pinup poses, hyper-sexualized for the camera. The fact that the same style is then incorporated for the rape sequence seems to imply some kind of glamor, or at least SEXUALITY to the rape. The B+W shots during her rape compare it to her sexiness getting dressed. Uncool.
Secondly, all that happens to this girl in the video is the following: She wakes up, has a cigarette and a mimosa, makes breakfast, and then tries on clothes for a while. When she presumably picks the right outfit, she goes out dancing and getting drunk. She walks home in the dark and gets raped. There are only two significant events in this timeline: she gets dressed, she gets raped. The getting dressed is significant because we spend the most time with it. The rape is significant for obvious reasons. I can't help but think of the old adage that girls are "asking for it" because of the way they dress...
Now, is this video trying to imply that when we objectify the woman at the beginning by viewing her as a sex object, we are committing a form of rape? While this is not a horrible argument, and an absurdly old one, if it is Kanye's (or whomever directed it) intent, it is completely misguided. It includes Kanye looking cool as he likes to do, which immediately discounts any serious intent. Also, the woman hams it up for the camera, which makes her complicit (eye contact, people). In fact, there is nothing about the video that directly portrays objectification as a negative thing at all. If anything, it is heralded.
The bottom line? The new video sucks. And it's completely insensitive.
OK, I'd like to take a moment to talk about Noise-rock of any kind. This is a genre that really, really confuses me. My introduction to noise-rock occurred about two years ago not by being introduced to the music itself, but by being introduced to Kip.
Kip's head was in the right place - art, film, and music, across the board he had good taste. Kip was a sweetheart, too. True, he lived a bit on an island that could make him a bit difficult to access. But he was nice. Kip had a noise-rock band in Syracuse whose name had something to do with Skeletons and Closets. Kip told me stories about throwing around large sheets of metal to make noise, and the gashes it cut in him and others. Injuries in general, he informed me, were commonplace when his Skeletons and Closets namesake band performed. This gave Kip a weird street-cred that didn't really seem all that earned, and yet he had it.
Since then, my experiences of noise-rock have been few and far between. But when I watched this video of Ptv live performance by Health, a noise-punk band, I felt like I wanted to try to "talk it out:"
Watching this makes me think two things:
1) This is ridiculous for me, as a spectator, in the pejorative sense. 2) This reminds me of jambands, where the disparity between the experience of producing the music and listening to it seems massive.
Now, I can appreciate what's happening here. There's something exhilarating and important about reductionism, not in the sense of tonality or rhythm or anything like that, but in the reduction of the self - the stripping away of the ego and superego. Noise-rock seems clearly driven toward exposing a raw sense of self through the exploration of sound as it comes out of the body, in a feral way. As Dr. Arthur Janov will certainly vouch, there is a therapeutic benefit to accessing deep, primal sounds and noises. Others, too, would agree that there's plenty to be gotten out of a combination of childish and animalistic freedoms of behavior. And I think it's something everyone should consider.
Also, on an intellectual level, I get it. Music sometimes seems to have hit a wall, and there's the desire to break through the wall. Rock 'n' roll, punk, noise. These were all primal desires to break through the wall of staleness. To do something new. To appeal to the inner flame of innovation against stasis. So I get it there, too.
But who wants to watch this? I mean that not sarcastically. I mean, obviously people want to watch these kinds of bands perform because otherwise there would be no bands, much less bands playing on Pitchfork TV. But why not just do this stuff yourself? It seems that all the thrashing around and screaming that the crowd might be doing are so close to what the band is doing, that it's kind of just like an orgy.
Maybe therein lies the rub. The counter-point could be that like with an orgy, where one could choose to just have sex alone or with one other person but chooses to have it with many partners, the orgiastic primalism of noise-rock concerts beg the throngs of the masses to achieve something that can't be achieved just thrashing and screaming at home.
And hell, this is actually kind of pretty to listen to (also Health):
This is an old find, and yet, three to four months in the bowels of the internet haven't rendered Jens Lekman a dollop less charming, adorable, or delightful.
OK, so I stole the title of my post from BSLS, but it's so right on that I had to.
In yet another superduper move from the Kanye team, "Flashing Lights" a make-over. I've already blogged about how awesome the original video is, but this one kicks things up a notch. Combining the visuals of Wong Kar-Wai's film 2046, and the song by Kanye, the video below is a sensational blend of styles and culture. And there are plenty more videos in a similar vein.
I don't have much to say about this, other than to report it. The idea is not bad, its execution is (expectedly) flawless, the song is decent, and I love New York and LA.
Today's a video day, people! I've scoured the bowels of the internetz, and found some great videos for you to enjoy.
--BigDog--
There is something unsettling about BigDog. It's not how much he weighs, it's not how much he can carry, and it's not even the fact that he's a machine. What made me feel sick to my stomach watching him move is how realistically he handles treacherous terrain, getting kicked in the side, and slipping on ice. Maybe it's the noise he makes, too, but the absurdly life-like mannerisms of this incredible machine are staggering. And of course, BigDog NEVER goes down.
--Clapton Shredzz!!--
This video from artist Santeri Ojala is hilarious. Using real footage of Eric Clapton playing a guitar solo with his band on-stage, Ojala overdubbed crappy guitar lines that are strikingly accurate in their attacks, if not in tone, so the illusion is almost completely seamless. And the result is something pretty entertaining. I laughed out loud a couple of times. Can you believe people like Clapton wouldn't want this stuff on the internet? Come on guys, you're talented and famous. Let people have a little fun with you.
--TAKE--
As Dave Burnes pointed out to me, the New York Times knows how to handle the arts, fashion, media, and other right-brained miscellanea. Recently they launched T Magazine, seemingly for that very reason. Now, T Magazine online has begun "TAKE," a series of short short films (12, to be exact) starring "Hollywood’s bright young things" that, as a whole, lay out a single narrative. "Shot by the emerging New York writer and director Brody Baker during the recent Sundance festival, these 12 improvised vignettes were conceived to be viewed sequentially. Each episode, starring a different actor, will build on the previous one." The first one stars Josh Hartnett in arguably his best minute on-screen ever. What excites me most of all (yes, even more than the Band of Horses track in the teaser/trailer) about this is that what appears to be smart, invested, quality drama has been created SPECIFICALLY for the internet. And that's no small news bit. The future is the internet, people.
"The future is the internet," someone wise once said. Whomever it was, they were smart. Welcome to TV on the Internet. No, it's not some Brooklyn indie-band. It's Hulu, where you can watch a bunch of your favorite shows AND movies, streaming, for free, with limited advertising interruption. What distinguish this site from Peekvid, a predecessor, are great design value and big-name advertisers, including 20th Century Fox. That's right, their shows are on there for free and they're bout it bout it. While Hulu has some holes (for instance, not much in the "Scrubs" department), there is a wide and phenomenal breadth of media available, and I don't see this thing going under anytime soon with all of the corporate backing it already has. We may very well be witnessing the beginning of free media.
I just got the new album from Goldfrapp, entitled "Seventh Tree," and I can't stop listening to it. Nonstop for days, this album has been playing on repeat in my computer. Apparently more mellow than their earlier stuff, Seventh Tree is a haven of honey-sweet vocals, lush soundscapes, and a heartbreaking lightness. The video for A&E, a personal favorite, is bizarre and slightly disturbing, but does not manage to detract from the heavenly vocal arrangement. And if you've got three minutes that you never want back, you can also check out the Rex The Dog
--Pitchfork.tv--
Pitchfork has been advertising the unveiling of Pitchfork.tv lately, which goes live on April 7. Promising to be a phenomenal source of indie music video splendor, there is little information available about the format, but the site sports a lovely wash. I guess we'll just have to wait a few more weeks.
I'm a little behind on this post, but it's exciting to announce that Sigur Ros has put their entire film, "Heima," on YouTube! I scrambled to get the DVD in december, but didn't even get the special edition that I wanted. Regardless of my own pettiness, now everyone gets to enjoy this film for free! Freeculture, hurrah!
Also, they had a contest called "Minn Heima," or "My Home," where people could remix and re-edit footage from the feature into their own film. Below is the a thank you from the band themselves, and the winner of the contest for best "Minn Heima."
If you've been living under a rock, then you might not be aware that Sigur Ros has made some of the most beautiful music and music videos around. Here are a couple of memorable music videos that match their music so well that sometimes you want to cry, they're so beautiful.
This man has been doing some wild and crazy stuff with his career lately, spanning different genres and making sick (as in, AWESOME) videos. I wish wish wish I could embed this video just because I want its prettiness running in my site, but alas embedding was disabled for it. Just have to link to it.
I stopped listening to the Mountain Goats a bit ago. Maybe a year or so. It was a tough call to stop listening to a band that was, for all intents and purposes, my favorite band, but it was something I decided I had to do. John Darnielle has a way of taking the helm of the beautiful, glorious ship I call my inner psyche, and I always trust him with that position, despite the fact that occasionally the Sirens run us aground. It was those moorings on bare rocks that forced me to cut the Mountain Goats out of my music diet.
I've heard bits and pieces of the new album, but largely in a passive way that leaves me virtually impressionless, so I have nothing to say about that. However, the first Mountain Goats music video (that I'm aware of) has been produced, and that is a thing of excitement.
There is always the fear that a music video will ruin a good song, a good band even. Interpol is a sad example of a band that has made too many bad music videos despite being such a good band, and on one or two occasions a video has temporarily RUINED a song of theirs for me. But fear not, friends, because we can relish in what is an ingenious, masterful, entertaining, and ultimately true-to-the-music video.
To quote Marc Hogan of Pitchfork:
"Director Ace Norton's... impressive video for Heretic Pride opener "Sax Rohmer #1" manages to reaffirm the prominent role Darnielle's detail-packed storytelling plays in his records, while at the same time creating a visually arresting, technically deft take on the old "here's a band miming their song" format."
Well said. And while I'm fairly sure I can count at least two cuts (thereby negating what Hogan goes on to call a "one-take" video), I can't say I mind. For the first time in a while, I'm excited about the Mountain Goats. And once again, John Darnielle's shrill, semi-sweet voice trills in my head words that manage to stand strong underneath the huge emotional fervor that they bear. Mark another tick on the board; In My Opinion, this video is sensational.
Other recent "one-take" videos of note by Feist, which also seem to capture the magic and passion of the songs and the voice of the woman singing them. Note the diegetic sound in the beginnings of each, as well as the diegetic clapping sounds in the first two:
Yeah! YEAH! YEAHH!!!!!!!! FUCK, GOD YES!!! Man, all these young kids, they're SO GOOD at stuff nowadays. This takes me back to my hair-metal days... Jesus, this kid makes me want to freak out and throw shit out my window. In a good way.
How can I love the Band of Horses so much, and yet still I don't think a single one of their videos is anywhere near as good as their songs? And they ALWAYS do videos for the best ones!!!
(Here is a link if the embedded video below doesn't work... I've had problems viewing it with my browser.)
FINALLY IT'S HAPPENED!!!!!! We did it! Rap and white indie comedy have met at a crossroads, as Zach Galafianakis (gotta check the spelling on that one), Bonnie Prince Billy, and Kanye West have all held hands and made the most unique rap video yet.
Eyes must see to believe. Even if it's not the greatest thing ever made, know that In My Opinion it is the swell of a new wave to crash upon the shores of the 'copter.
A little while back, imeem hosted a competition for Junior Boys fans to make a video for any song on "So This is Goodbye," and a winner would be selected. The selected winner's video was nothing short of astounding, and very similar (to my dismay) to an idea I had for a Ratatat video. At any rate, it is in my humble Opinion that this video is incredible, not just for its content, but for the fact that it is a FAN VIDEO!
I've been searching for this on and off for ages, only to finally discover that I'd been searching under the wrong song title. Duh.
