Category: Music Video Reviews
Drake Dances In Hotline Bling
No one expected “Hotline Bling” to get so popular, and no one expected it to become the next music phenomenon. Now you can’t go anywhere without hearing the iconic beats along with someone saying “you used to call me on my cellphone”. On Oct. 19, 2015 Drake released the highly anticipated music video for “Hotline Bling”, which was the first music video since If You’re Reading This, It’s Too Late‘s “Energy”. Created by Director X with inspiration from American lights artist James Turrell, the video is clean and simple. The use of different colored lights and sharp shapes created an aesthetically pleasing world for Drake to freestyle some dances moves in. Heads up: the dancing is goofy and absolutely perfect.
Check out the video for “Hotline Bling” here!
Watch: Kendrick Lamar, “For Free? (Interlude)”
Kendrick Lamar’s incendiary, nothing-short-of-genius To Pimp A Butterfly has recently begun yielding music videos that match the album’s experimental tone. After the recent black and white romp through the streets of an avant garde Oakland in “Alright”, we’re now being treated to a short two-minute burst of intense visual metaphors for “For Free? (Interlude)”, a song so bizarre and humorous on the surface that its enraged political undertones are often overlooked.
The song begins insistently with some rapid-fire jazz and gospel chorus – two genres originating in black culture that were appropriated by white masses, it should be noted – before launching into a woman tirade-ing on Lamar’s voicemail. According to her, he’s not good enough for her; he’s off-brand, broke, and his train has officially left her station, so to speak. We’re then absolutely floored by brilliant verbal buckshot in which Lamar turns this common romantic predicament into a grand comparison to how America treats black men, and how narrowly their success is defined. Suddenly his woman starts looking an awful lot like a master in the big house. And he fittingly does most of the video in an Uncle Sam costume, chillingly reminding listeners that America’s wealth was literally built on his ancestors’ backs.
Directed by Joe Weil & The Little Homies (who also directed “Alright”), the video – along with the song – quickly goes from quirky to dead serious, and both are worth an infinite number of revisits.
Modest Mouse “The Ground Walks, with Time in a Box”
Modest Mouse released their newest album “Strangers to Ourselves” March 2015 with hit singles such as “Lampshades on Fire” and “Coyotes.” Now, a new music video accompanies one 0f the most familiar tracks, “The Ground Walks, with Time in a Box.” The video opens slow and dramatic, strange creatures in straw hoods walk across what seems to be a landfill; lead singer, Isaac Brock is king of the wasteland. The video is hard to grasp with a gray tone and Brock’s energetic facial expressions, almost unsettling and a little bit mind boggling. Brock rules the junk in a crown made of scrap metal and almost nothing but an animal pelt on his back. Geometric shapes wave across the video in true Modest Mouse form. Plastic bag angels and dark lipped maidens are his followers, and Brock oversees them all with a maniacal grin on his face. Pops of color bring life to the scene and coincide with the upbeat track. I guess one man’s trash is Isaac Brock’s treasure.
Watch: The Libertines: “Gunga Din”
Few bands have been as on-again-off-again, as will-they-won’t-they, as The Libertines. Formed in 1997 by BFFs (Best Frenemies Forever) Carl Barât and Pete Doherty, the group had line-up and punctuality problems from the start. Their rough shod, jangle punk sound garnered a heap of attention from British fans and press alike, but drug use, inter-band squabbling, and some light B&E tore the group apart. Doherty went on to focus on his similar-sounding side project in (the aptly-named) Babyshambles, and Barât soon followed suit with Dirty Pretty Things. The Libertines officially disbanded in 2007, with Barât refusing to continue under its name until Doherty quit his various drug addictions for good.
As it happens, Doherty completed a Thai rehab treatment in January of this year; the time for heroes just might be nigh . This past weekend, The Libertines announced Anthems For Doomed Youth, their third album, slated for a September 4 release. We now have a first official glimpse of what it’ll sound like in the music video for “Gunga Din”. The song’s verses almost have a reggae vibe to them, and they seem a little too clean cut considering the loose, untuned sound that made this group famous. But when the feel-good amiable pub chorus hits, full of Britpop glory as the whole band sings along, it really does feel like a comeback. The video itself has the likely lads galavanting around Thailand, sweating through their wrinkled suits and giving each other bear hugs. Our fingers are crossed that the tabloid drama stays far in the background, because it’s good to have these limey bastards back.
Watch: Son Lux: “You Don’t Know Me”
Son Lux are set to release their Glassnote debut Bones this year, and have just released a video for their lead single “You Don’t Know Me”. The star is none other than Tatiana Maslany – a.k.a. Tumblr’s perpetual nomination for all of the awards. Maslany stars in BBC’s Orphan Black as approximately forty hundred cloned characters, all of whom have completely different personalities and backgrounds. The show’s wild success and utterly bizarre nature made her a perfect fit for the defeatist and paranoid Son Lux song about an empty relationship. Maslany’s SO (Noah Segan from Looper) is self-absorbed and uninterested in her; he talks at her instead of to her, he’s really only in it for the sex… and he doesn’t know she’s in a cult.
Created by The Made Shop, the symbolism and seance visuals were meant to evoke “the empty rituals we often see in relationships and, to a larger degree, religion.” Just your average everyday things, until you add in tribal face painting and robed-up prayer circles. Living mystically is the best revenge.
Reptar share new video for “Amanda”
(NOT FOR THOSE EASILY GROSSED OUT)
Reptar have shared the music video for their new single “Amanda,” and it’s (expectedly) a weird one. Two girls in white take turns putting weird fruit in each other’s mouths, and there’s some fun and casual waterboarding. It’s footage that could very well show up on your local public access station, placed there by local community college art kids. Given the song’s alluded-to themes about love and pain and long distance relationships, the vignettes seem to be commentaries on the small ways we hurt the ones we love the most.
“Amanda” recalls early Vampire Weekend, when they still had a massive hard-on for Graceland. It’s not as overloaded and excited a production as the first couple Reptar records – our boys have figured out how to get their ideas across while being economical with their sound. At first, vocals and xylophone reign; even when the smartly arranged horns come in, the room to breathe is refreshing and entrancing.
Lurid Glow is out now via Joyful Noise Recordings.
WATCH: Modest Mouse: “Of Course We Know”
Modest Mouse is a band with big ideas, and now that they’ve released “Of Course You Know,” that’s never been more apparent. Given everything we know about their forthcoming (3/17) release Strangers To Ourselves, we’re in for some heavy you-know-what.
“Of Course We Know” is the FIFTH new song we’ve heard, and you can bet the order the singles were rolled out in has been intentional. The first four, “Lampshades On Fire,” “The Best Room,” “The Ground Walks, With Time In A Box,” and “Coyotes” more or less sprouted up every couple of weeks. Their titles hint at a companion record to Arcade Fire’s The Suburbs, and their accompanying artwork thusly frames the target of choice: the dreaded suburban sprawl. With “Lampshades On Fire,” it was concentric circling waterfront homes up close; soon enough it was a similar image, but from a higher birds eye view. Now, “Of Course We Know” features evil-eyed businesspeople, presumably the sprawl’s developers. So, the question arises: of course they know what?
“Of Course We Know” is some doom-laden, chanting Monk-type indie rock. Isaac Brock’s shimmering vocals and chiming chords give it a cultish feel. The lyrics are unsurprisingly vague, repetitive in the creepiest ways. “The streets are just blankets and we sleep on their silky corpse / Covered up by them, why would we ever want to wake up?” is a hell of a way to open the song. Each chorus, if you could call it that, has Brock whisper-howl-grunting, “We just do not know.” At clear odds with the song’s title, the narrator must be lying about something. And not to jump to conclusions, but real estate developers are known for lying. Though it may be way too early to hurl thematic guesses around, big picture, Modest Mouse are attempting to tell us something about the American Dream. Hey, 2015 is as good a year as any to examine society through song.
Tom Hanks’ son Chet Hanx releases worst rap video of all time
In efforts to step out of his father’s shadows, Tom Hanks’ son, Chet Hanx, formerly known as Chet Haze, has begun to forge a career with club music in mind.
Hanx released a video for his single “The Thirst,” just in case you didn’t pick up on his uber-whiteness from the track alone.
The video, filmed by Armen, encompasses a day in the life of this super hip street thug, which obviously entails – what else? – hooking up with prostitutes. He sings about how his woman comes after each call, accompanied by various shots driving in his car calling on women and then ending up with them in a hotel room.
The best part is the over-dramatized shots of water splats as a male voice whispers through your speakers the word “splash” (you can’t make this up) and the awkward white-boy dancing that starts at the two minute thirty second line. It’s actually painful to watch.
Luckily, after a few goes, the video does create some ironic hilarity and even may be worthy of a hardy drinking game to those who dare.
I think it’s safe to say that Colin is the Hanks’ best shot at a legacy.
WATCH: Megafauna: “This Town”
Megafauna describe themselves as 90s post-rock, and the new video for “This Town” proves this comparison to be more than appropriate. The aggro Pixies-on-speed track makes good use of guitar shredding and a jarring 6/8 time signature to get the job done, and the distinct old time-alt feel pairs real well with the surreal imagery used.
Though obviously shot in much higher def than was available twenty years ago, the video borrows plenty of visual tricks from everyone’s favorite decade. The whole affair is very dream-like – sequence after sequence of stream-of-consciousness images appear, lacking context but still somehow making a grain of sense. The video’s heroine, played by lead singer Dani Neff, trips her way through seemingly unrelated memories – visiting the fair as a child, getting felt up by a dude at a bar, and journaling in her bedroom. Each memory leaves a literal imprint in the form of neon paint. Her suburban hood is subtly presented as stifling and duplicitous, a barrier overcome when Dani musses her white dress with enough paint to cover up the traces others have left on her. As a bonus, eagle-eyed viewers may notice the wink to Siamese Dream in the girl who stands in for Dani’s id.
Jack White premieres interactive 3-in-1 video for “That Black Bat Licorice”
With help from creator/cartoonist James Bagden, Jack White opens up his world to the popular dimension of music video animation in his new video for “Black Bat Licorice.”
At first listen, the song sounds almost reggae. However, this illusion clears as images of an Egyptian goddess and bats fly across the screen. The video encompasses poor Jack lying in his bed dreaming of the love that the goddess Horace could provide him, constantly yearning for her companionship as he is oh-so-alone.
Another element is the song’s literal translation in the video. A precise picture accompanies every lyric on your screen, including when Jack sings about cutting off his tongue…gross.
Luckily, there is some humor attached, as men dressed in George Washington masks head bang along with you as you watch.
One critique I do have is that, although this “lyric video” style is classic, I’m getting a little bit of a been-there-done-that feeling. The masses were consumed with Girl Talk and A$AP Ferg’s rendition of a very similar style video for their song “Suicide.” This video seems like the Rock knock off. Regardless, “Black Bat Licorice” definitely adds some pizazz and will leave Jack White fans saying, “What guac?”