The Shins - Simple Song

Nice poppy song from the Shins for a Monday. Made by the Daniels (http://www.danieldaniel.us/MUSICVIDEOS.html), it feels like the sort of music video Wes Anderson would make. The band play a dysfunctional family reliving their awkward, strained memories during a scavenger hunt for their old homes deeds, instigated by their recently deceased father.
         
It's a fairly lavish production, with some lovely choreography and set pieces, given a lo-fi aesthetic. Scanlines and video artifacts transition the viewer from the colder grader present to the warmer VHS visuals of the past. There's a lot going on in the video, and it deserves multiple viewings to take in all the amusing instances during the hectic moments, as they really layer things up.

A 2012 video as well, it's nice to see them still being made like this. A true example where the video is a companion piece to the song, and not just promotional youtube fluff.

Psychologist - Comes in Waves

First off, I like this guy's music. Fortunate enough to catch him at the Propeller EP launch, but he's proved elusive since, cancelling both the Next Big Thing gig in February and his Camden Crawl appearance. Still forgive him though, and it's in no small part because of this track.

The video could have gone anywhere really, the track is capable of carrying weaker ideas, fortunately they put some thought into it. In taking the 'male seahorse' lyric and making it the narrative is s sweet idea and compliments the track well. The reveal itself doesn't come until around 1:45 into the song, all the while beforehand you assume this is another typical 'emotional chap down on his luck misses someone' narrative, before this is tipped on it's head and your forced to apply sympathy previously reserved for women onto this fragile male, played by Iain Woods, aka Psychologist, himself.

The song itself has it's quiet moments, before building to a dramatic climax. The video mirrors this by playing with the lines ‘Take me out of my depth / Make me tread water / Get out of breath / And ward off my death” which, during the water breaking/childbirth scenes can be interpreted one way as the strength required by expecting parents entering unknown territory, but take on a softer and more sentimental meaning when he's playing with his new child at the end.

Technically nothing fancy. Nice clean shots and a bit of seahorse archive used to symbolise the male child birth elements, but nothing more. Not that it needs it.

First post, better make it a good one...

Starting to recently feel like the video is seen as an unnecessary part of the music experience. If you agree with that, you may have a point. Music does the talking and live performance supplies the spectacle, but it doesn't mean videos don't showcase great ideas. Music is used to add dimension to video, so there's no reason that, done properly, it can't work both ways.

Here will be a blog of video's I like, dislike or are important for whatever reason. Suggestions welcome.


Today's Like & Dislike!


Like

First video is for Lone Wolf's 'Keep your Eyes on the Road'. Familiar if you've ever seen this video

Goes for the aesthetic even down the 4:3 aspect ratio. 6 months to make and, this particular upload, has a criminal 7000 odd views. The song is a beast too. Love the fact they could have gone for a more straight forward approach to this, but nailed the feel of the song. Something about using stop motion manages to take melancholic elements of the song, portray them in a literal sense i.e the 'suicide' and yet takes an edge of the dark tone. Something playful about it I guess. Love it.
 


Dislike

Don't mind the song, although I don't know if it's because I'm a massive Leon fan and love the ending so much... It's just slowly morphing band members, done with 1/2 day in after effects and a stills camera isn't particularly inspiring. Might have well have stuck with this...

Guess this is half the problem. Looks like this was made by a mate as a favour in his bedroom. Nothing wrong with homemade approach but at least put some thought into it...

Anyway.

Like to think I'll get round to getting some thematic cohesion here. Otherwise, another day, another video with some possibly unwanted opinion surrounding it.

See how it goes.