As hooks go, the trick that the New Heathers use to get people to watch their video for “Agatha” is pretty shameless: shoot the band in silhouette, while the train scene from “Stand by Me” plays in the background.
But damned if it doesn’t work.
And for the kind of music the New Heathers play – this song recalls Roger Joseph Manning Jr., if he laid off the pomp and brought the rock – it’s a clever ploy. Anyone who’s into their kind of music surely loves “Stand by Me” as well. And timing the guitar solo with Gordie and Vern’s mad dash to safety was sublime. I’m watching the action, and associating the emotional response with the music. Well done, lads.
You have to feel a little bit bad for OK Go. Ever since they made the one-take, dancing-on-treadmills instant classic video for “Here It Goes Again,” the fifth (!) single from their 2005 album Oh No, they raised the level of expectations for their subsequent music videos impossibly high. You can’t help but wonder if the reason they have taken so long to record a follow-up album is because they were having a hard time coming up with an idea for the album’s first video.
We’re kidding, of course, but still, we’re willing to bet they went through over a hundred treatments before settling on the one for “WTF,” the first single from their upcoming album Of the Blue Colour of the Sky. The press release quotes singer Damian Kulash saying that “there is a lot of Purple Rain on this record,” a statement that we found dubious, to say the least. After all, Trent Reznor once said that Nine Inch Nails were making a Prince record, and the end result was The Fragile. Not quite a Prince record.
But as it turns out, OK Go did channel Prince, though we’d say it’s more Parade than Purple Rain. (Kulash’s falsetto is pure “Kiss.”) Armed with a Yes-like time signature (5/4, for those keeping score at home), “WTF” is one of the band’s best songs yet, and the video is an eye-popper. Using what we believe is referred to in the drug world as the tracer effect, the clips shows the band members walking around a white set, using giant wands to change the colors in the background. The clip looks like it was shot in one take as well, though we’re guessing there are a couple of cuts spliced in there. Either way, it’s a brilliant clip, in a my-head-hurts kind of way.
Weezer looked far and wide during the recording process of their new album, Raditude, which comes out November 3. Aside from collaborations with Jermaine Dupri and members of the All-American Rejects, Weezer also teamed with the phenomenon known as Lil Wayne. Unfortunately, the rapper just pled guilty to gun charges and faces up to a year in prison.
As for the video, it’s as silly as can be, and I wouldn’t expect anything less. The attractive woman walking through the town is Odette Yustman, known for her roles in “Cloverfield” and “The Unborn.”
It’s been pretty quiet around the music industry as of late. Tours are underway and bands are just starting to release their new albums during this lucrative season. Other than that, nobody’s breaking up, pissing each other off, or getting into any legal trouble. That’s all well and good, but what is there to discuss? Oh, right! You see, the news of Pavement’s reformation is still fresh in my mind. In 11 brief months, I will be flying to New York City to catch my favorite band on their reunion tour. As more and more dates are unveiled, it appears as though I’ll be attending their final show, which will be historic.
Given the dearth of news, I want to showcase the new music video from Spiral Stairs, one of the guitarists and songwriters from Pavement. He’ll drop his new album, The Real Feel, via Matador on October 20.
The video is for the song “Stolen Pills” and looks like something right out of the 90s. Enjoy!
We’ve got new videos today from two of “indie” rock’s biggest acts. Obviously, I mean indie in the sense of their style of music, as both bands are on a major. While Modest Mouse hasn’t gotten much bigger than they were in 2003, Death Cab for Cutie’s stable seems to grow by the day.
UPDATE: Vimeo won’t let me embed the video at this moment, though I was able to earlier. You can still check it out here.
“Meet Me on the Equinox” is, of course, Death Cab for Cutie’s contribution to the “New Moon” soundtrack. Death Cab takes a back seat in this one as footage from the vampire flick is shown throughout.
