Again, before I get into this, I would like to say all the artists I have featured are ones that I really enjoy listening to. Its just that I have a love for well done music videos and I get disappointed when the video doesn't live up to the song that it goes along with. This also reminds me that I've been meaning to start a segment where the video is just outstandingly wonderful.
Connor Oberst, the man behind Bright Eyes, started as a young song writing virtuoso. He recorded his songs himself on cassettes and toured close to home while he was still in school. through the years he has been a part of more than a handful of bands and has had a successful solo career as well. He's used his slightly nasal voice to weave melancholic lyrics through rock, blue grass, electronic, and strange avant-garde landscapes.
I really liked the last album from Bright Eyes entitled "The People's Key". The album was released back in early 2011. It features a spoken word intro and outro by a shaman giving a few kernels of wisdom on life. Also there are songs that bounce along, some that rock, and others that just seem to strike the right chord
The song "Shell Games", the first single off the album, is about the general futility and mystery that are experienced through life. One of the prevailing themes of both the song and the album as a whole is that this whole thing called life is too difficult to do alone. We all need help now and again, we all need companionship. There's a line in the song that goes, "My private life is an inside joke/ no one will explain it to me". I love that line, even if I can't quite articulate why. Maybe its because that line portrays how we think everyone else seems to have it more together, but really, inside we're all just as lost.
And that's why I like both the song and the album. The video for "Shell Games" in my opinion, is a little underwhelming. Shot on 8mm film, the video is dim from lack of any real lighting. To add to the lack of clarity, there are several long cross fades, with one shot hazily running over top of another. For the most part the video consists of the band playing the song in a living room, then playing around in the snow outside. On one hand, I'm a bit thrown off by the confusion that is created by the fact that you cannot really tell what is happening. But on the other hand, maybe , maybe that's the point: using the lack of lighting and overlaid shots to illustrate the uncertainties of navigating the waters of life. things are murky, mysterious, and constantly changing.
Bright Eyes
Shell Games
video directed by Nik Fackler
Showing posts with label almost not quite. Show all posts
Showing posts with label almost not quite. Show all posts
Monday, February 18, 2013
Sunday, January 20, 2013
Almost Not Quite 3
Late 2011 Feist came out with her album Metals. It is an album I like quite a bit. More somber, a little darker than her previous efforts. There's also a living beat that fluctuates through all the songs on the record, as if at any time the bad is waiting for the cue to morph the melody into improvised Jazz. But for the most part things are more subtle.
My problem, if I have one, is with the video for her song "Graveyard". First of all I would like to say that I think most of Feist's music videos are beautifully shot, crafted and imagined. "Mushaboom" is a dream-like sequence where Miss Feist has a hard time keeping her feet on the ground, quite litterally, and her toast have acquired wings. The point is not that the video is whimsical and fun, which it is, but rather that it is and whimsical and well executed.
In "I feel it All" she has gone for a night hike, only to come upon a hill with a series of metal barrels atop. Feist, seeing these mysterious barrels, takes the opportunity to choreograph a pyrotechnic show, tapping each barrel in turn to have fireworks spring forth.
"Graveyard"on the other hand takes the chorus "Bring them all back to life"as a central theme, but not with the magic or "life" that is very much there in her other videos. We start with a grainy, gray-filtered landscape shot of an unremarkable field. The camera pans out further and further, leaving the musicians ant-like on the barren backdrop. Throughout the song other musicians pop into the landscape, some coming with shadows, others without. The introduction of each additional musician can be interpreted as a summoned ghost, called forth by the plea of "Bring them all back!". But these "ghosts" don't seem to have any life to them for two reasons: 1) the panned out camera which prevents seeing anyone very well 2) the digital method that the spectres are projected onto the field. Perhaps the overt digital effects combined with the chorus are showing how we have become trapped in our digital lives, chained to our computers. A message that we need a jolt to bring us back to life..But I don't know.
Feist
Graveyard
My problem, if I have one, is with the video for her song "Graveyard". First of all I would like to say that I think most of Feist's music videos are beautifully shot, crafted and imagined. "Mushaboom" is a dream-like sequence where Miss Feist has a hard time keeping her feet on the ground, quite litterally, and her toast have acquired wings. The point is not that the video is whimsical and fun, which it is, but rather that it is and whimsical and well executed.
In "I feel it All" she has gone for a night hike, only to come upon a hill with a series of metal barrels atop. Feist, seeing these mysterious barrels, takes the opportunity to choreograph a pyrotechnic show, tapping each barrel in turn to have fireworks spring forth.
"Graveyard"on the other hand takes the chorus "Bring them all back to life"as a central theme, but not with the magic or "life" that is very much there in her other videos. We start with a grainy, gray-filtered landscape shot of an unremarkable field. The camera pans out further and further, leaving the musicians ant-like on the barren backdrop. Throughout the song other musicians pop into the landscape, some coming with shadows, others without. The introduction of each additional musician can be interpreted as a summoned ghost, called forth by the plea of "Bring them all back!". But these "ghosts" don't seem to have any life to them for two reasons: 1) the panned out camera which prevents seeing anyone very well 2) the digital method that the spectres are projected onto the field. Perhaps the overt digital effects combined with the chorus are showing how we have become trapped in our digital lives, chained to our computers. A message that we need a jolt to bring us back to life..But I don't know.
Feist
Graveyard
Monday, September 17, 2012
Almost Not Quite 2
Hello again, its time for another installment of "Almost Not Quite". This time I'd like to take a look at Passion Pit's video for their song "Take a Walk". Okay first of all let's start with things that I think the video/song does well. The song itself tells the story of a man who goes from fresh off the boat immigrant to Wall Street inside trader, it shows a ruthless progression, but also conveys hope throughout. Its a fun song, jangly and polished and relevant to our world today.
The video shows us a sort of tour of America from the point of a bouncing blue rubber ball. I enjoy the slices of life and nature and happenings we're shown in the video, but nothing is really shown for any significant length of time to get any context to the situation at hand. We see a car accident, but how did it happen? Did the driver see the bouncing ball coming from the heavens and miss the bicyclist in front of him? Or there's a girl who spills her papers in an alley, did some ruffian harass this nice woman? Sadly we will never know the truth. I think my biggest problem with the video is that we are given the point of view of a bouncing blue rubber ball, but yet to me, the bouncing mechanics do not seem to have the right feel to them at all. Did they examine how a ball bounces at all before making the video? I understand they needed to cover hundreds of miles at a time, okay fine, but at times we the camera/ball seem to just sail in these awkward arcs that seem as if the ball has grown wings. That's all I have to say, give it a watch for yourself.
Passion Pit
Take a Walk
The video shows us a sort of tour of America from the point of a bouncing blue rubber ball. I enjoy the slices of life and nature and happenings we're shown in the video, but nothing is really shown for any significant length of time to get any context to the situation at hand. We see a car accident, but how did it happen? Did the driver see the bouncing ball coming from the heavens and miss the bicyclist in front of him? Or there's a girl who spills her papers in an alley, did some ruffian harass this nice woman? Sadly we will never know the truth. I think my biggest problem with the video is that we are given the point of view of a bouncing blue rubber ball, but yet to me, the bouncing mechanics do not seem to have the right feel to them at all. Did they examine how a ball bounces at all before making the video? I understand they needed to cover hundreds of miles at a time, okay fine, but at times we the camera/ball seem to just sail in these awkward arcs that seem as if the ball has grown wings. That's all I have to say, give it a watch for yourself.
Passion Pit
Take a Walk
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Almost, Not Quite
In my time as a blogger and music lover I have viewed countless music videos. A dizzying amount to be sure. I have seen ones that I love and ones that I hate. There are videos that simply are so original and breath-taking that they are a wonder to behold aside from even the music that the video was made to accompany. There are also the dismal videos that don't seem to make any sense or are just plain weird or not enjoyable. But, there are also the ones that fall between the two markers, they are music videos that are almost, but not quite awesome, or also almost but not quite horrible. These valiant vids lie in limbo, and from this limbo I will show you a few of the videos that I think could be a bit better or worse.
In this first installment of this segment, let's take a look at one of the latest videos from Metric for their song "Youth Without Youth". I think its a pretty good song, but the problem with the video is that it doesn't seem to know what it wants. The song is a bit dark and a bit edgy with heavy guitar and dark synths sailing throughout the song. The video on the other hand seems to have an odd gimmick of stacking things, contrasts of black and white and light tones, and a highly anti-climatic use of slow motion. Its artsy, sure, but to what end?
Metric
Youth Without Youth
In this first installment of this segment, let's take a look at one of the latest videos from Metric for their song "Youth Without Youth". I think its a pretty good song, but the problem with the video is that it doesn't seem to know what it wants. The song is a bit dark and a bit edgy with heavy guitar and dark synths sailing throughout the song. The video on the other hand seems to have an odd gimmick of stacking things, contrasts of black and white and light tones, and a highly anti-climatic use of slow motion. Its artsy, sure, but to what end?
Metric
Youth Without Youth
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