Showing posts with label picking up the slack for mtv. Show all posts
Showing posts with label picking up the slack for mtv. Show all posts
Picking Up The Slack For MTV: Miami Horror - "Real Slow"
Picking Up The Slack For MTV: Hugh Masekela - "Bring Him Back Home (Nelson Mandela)"
Picking Up The Slack For MTV: Phèdre - "Aquaris"
In this week's Picking Up The Slack, we take a look at the new music video from Toronto duo Phèdre. Later this month, the glamorous duo will be releasing their new LP Golden Age at a Warehouse Party in T-dot. It's now available through the label itself, Daps Records. The new album is said to pick-up where they left off on with their first self-titled offering and expand the Pop-Psychedelica and Hip-Hop Noise Rock with an even more fresh approach. The video was filmed in both Toronto and Chicago, and as seen below is a trippy harmonic equivalent to the music and lyrics. Enjoy.
Picking Up The Slack For MTV: Toro Y Moi - "Rose Quartz"
Picking Up The Slack For MTV: George FitzGerald - "I Can Tell (By The Way You Move)"
Picking Up The Slack For MTV: Washed Out - "Don't Give Up"
The natural world is alright, but sometimes I think it's a little overrated. It sometimes smells terrible, it can be downright boring, and wildlife can be a real pain in the ass (especially deer). That's really why I've come to value high definition intermediaries who gets to put up with all of that nonsense and edit and present the natural world for my viewing pleasure, whether it's BBC's Planet Earth, the Water Monster guy chasing the elusive whatever, or the video for Washed Out's "Don't Give Up," the latest single from Paracosm. Directed by Kate Moross, it's a riot of color, visual textures, and beautiful framed images of non boring animals not generally found around here that's as visually chilled out as the Ernest Greene jam it accompanies.
Picking Up The Slack For MTV: Pity Sex - "Wind Up"
Ann Arbor's Pity Sex have released a new video for "Wind Up," the first single from their highly anticipated full-length, Feast of Love. Featuring a no-filler account of what I can only assume is an average night out in Michigan, the video provides a strangely somber backdrop to Pity Sex's brand of blissful, emo-tinged shoegaze. It's a straightforward (and somehow equally as blurry) account of car rides, bike lanes, city lights, and arcade games... It makes me wonder if a music video about a night spent in Buffalo would play out the same way. At the very least, make sure to enjoy the fuzzy hooks and beautiful male/female harmonies - check out the video out below.
Picking Up The Slack For MTV: Phoenix
Picking Up The Slack For MTV: Moby with Wayne Coyne - "The Perfect Life" (NSFW)
Picking Up The Slack For MTV: Pixies - "Bagboy"
Yes, Kim Deal is no longer a member of the Pixies.
No, that's not Kim on "Bagboy," but the backing vocals bear a spooky resemblance to the beloved and lately errant bassist, despite the fact that it's a dude.
I'm not sure how to feel about this track. Like Dad's new girlfriend, she sounds nice, and she looks pretty, but she smokes and wears heels. I don't know if she's trying too hard or what, but it's not mom. Mom would take us to the quarry and sing about luxurious fabrics. Or she'd do a dead-eyed impression of someone playing rock and roll while we sat and wondered what we should do with our hands.
This new one lectures us about hygiene. She tries to tell us stories. Dad seems happy, anyway. I just don't know how to feel about that...about any of it.
Picking Up The Slack For MTV: The Flaming Lips - "Turning Violent"
Picking Up The Slack For MTV: Phoenix - "Trying To Be Cool"
Picking Up The Slack For MTV: Grouplove - "Ways to Go"
Yesterday, Grouplove, the NYC-based electro pop outfit, released
the video for their single “Ways to Go.” Chances are, you are probably going to
see the video while browsing the internet at some point this month and you
might as well see it here first. The video features the quintet playing a house
show in a young Kim Jong-Un’s childhood
home. “Ways to Go” cuts in and out of scenes of skeleton-clad Hannah Hooper and
a very Kurt Cobain-y Christian Zucconi going H.A.M. in the Jong ballroom alongside a pre-adolescent Kim Christopher Walken “Weapon of Choice”-ing throughout the
mansion, stumbling upon tortured westerners. Yeah you read that right. Also, I’m pretty sure that’s Annyong holding
the boom microphone in the beginning.
;
Picking Up The Slack For MTV: Kendrick Lamar - "Bitch Don't Kill My Vibe"
Kendrick Lamar's new video for Good Kid, m.A.A.d. City standout "Bitch Don't Kill My Vibe" sets the track to an all white clad funeral procession that balances somber themes with lighthearted comedic relief that develops into a full blown party. The video features some impressive visual work as the Compton MC delivers lines in a field behind rolling, grassy hills which works well to offset the limo partying and liquor baptism before ending with a call for "Death to Molly". As with much of his work, Kendrick shows his talent for creating memorable pieces of hip hop culture capable of dealing with heavy topics while having the time of his life doing it, retaining all of the energy and charisma that give the genre its' broad appeal.
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Picking Up The Slack For MTV: Titus Andronicus & The So So Glos - No Sleep Till Brooklyn
The Beastie Boys made better albums than their 1986 debut Licensed To Ill, as future releases would feature more experimentation, and less immature lyrics. But if all we're talking about is pure fun, that album is pretty unmatched. Just about every track is hilarious, and has an instantly memorable hook.
"No Sleep Till Brooklyn" is one of the most entertaining songs on the debut, which is why it was natural that it would be fun choice to cover. On their recent Bring Back The Dudes tour, New Jersey punks Titus Andronicus, along with opening act The So So Glos, did a rollicking cover of this tune, bringing the spirit of the original to life. To make the scene complete, they even dressed up in outfits similar to what the Beasties were wearing back in 1986. A great cover, and yet another reminder of ridiculously fun License To Ill is.
Picking Up the Slack for MTV: Lana Del Rey - "Young and Beautiful"
In just about every way, Lana Del Rey is the perfect artist to spearhead the soundtrack for Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby. The movie is a modern-day adaptation of the classic story, and Lana Del Rey, a modern-day mess with a voice that matches the elegance of the Roaring Twenties, seems to have been born to sing “Young and Beautiful.” Does she look like a hood version of Daisy Buchanan on purpose? Probably. Her glamorous hair and flowing dress are cleverly accessorized with extremely large hoop earrings and fake teardrop tattoos; this is no accident.
“Will you
still love me, when I am no longer young and beautiful/Will you still love me
when I got nothing but my aching soul?” Del Rey asks throughout the chorus. If Gatsby
is the person to whom she (as Daisy Buchanan) is posing this question to, the
answer is most certainly yes. But Del Rey (Buchanan) doesn’t wait around for
the answer, and the following lines, “I know you will/I know you will” are the
same kinds of assumptions that got us into the Great Depression in the first
place.
The video
itself is stimulating, to say the least. Lots of dark, shadowy orchestra shots
give the already-haunting song an even more ominous feel, and Del Rey manages
to be sultry, slutty, and classy all at once; you know, the way she always is.
It’s the best song and video to emerge from an over-hyped soundtrack, and my
advice is to enjoy Lana Del Rey while you can because when she is no longer
young and beautiful it’s unclear what kind of person she’ll become, especially
if she’s dealing with an aching soul.
Picking Up the Slack for MTV: Chris Hadfield - "Space Oddity" (First Music Video Made from Space)
Yesterday Chris Hadfield, a Canadian astronaut, recorded the first ever music video from space while aboard the International Space Station. The ironic choice of song (and perhaps, best fitting) was David Bowie's classic 67' tribute to the space age, "Space Oddity." It's not the best cover you've ever heard, but there's something transcendent about a tune conceived nearly fifty years ago being actualized in present day, a tune which echoed the possibilities and dreams of those who dared believe we could "get there." Apply your own meaning whatever way you see fit. Hadfield is now a living embodiment of the intersection between pop culture and science, and for that I applaud him. He is, quite literally, floating "in a tin can, far above the moon."
Picking Up The Slack For MTV: Pentimento - "Almost Atlantic"
Ever since the release of their self-titled album, Buffalo's own Pentimento have truly been "making waves" in the independent punk scene. Lame puns aside, they have just released a new video for the song "Almost Atlantic." The video fits in nicely with the rest of Pentimento's strong oceanic theme - a girl slowly makes her way into the water, painting a literal picture for the band's cryptic lyrics - "You were the ocean, I was the sand beneath your waves." The song's gentle high-low vocal harmony initially strays (albeit beautifully) from singer Jeremiah Pauly's trademark grit, but once the chorus hits, shots of the band performing show them diving back into the introspective punk-rock bombast that they have become so well-known for. Check it out below.
(And kudos to that poor girl - the water must have been freezing!)
Picking Up The Slack For MTV: Toro Y Moi
The video for Toro Y Moi's "Never Matter," the latest single off of his 2013 release Anything In Return, is a funky, enjoyable, and a surprisingly twisted piece of music video art. Shot on grade Z VHS tape and featuring the good folks of a Southern swap meet, it works as a piece of video art, both visually and as a seemingly life affirming expression of our shared humanity and love of getting down to funky music. The clever and hilarious twist at the end of course upends the whole thing and recontextualizes it in an entirely different light, making it an even more satisfying and visceral experience. Ah... the pleasures of VHS tape. Enjoy!
Picking Up The Slack For MTV: Phoenix
No, or course we don't. I was just playing with you using a cheap rhetorical device. Hell, MTV killed of 120 Minutes for the second time, successfully purging their airwaves of music videos worth a damn. But, the spirit of that bygone era survives and has found expression in Phoenix's video for "Entertainment," the lead single off their upcoming fourth album Bankrupt! This has it all: a concept, special effects, cinematic photography, love, violence, multiple levels of meaning, animals, explosions, and burning artistic ambition. The only thing it doesn't have is the band itself, who only appear briefly in the video on a concert poster, which is entirely cool and, like everything else in the video, very tasteful. This is a proper music video, and definitely deserving of a midnight world premiere.
Bankrupt!, the first album from Phoenix since 2009's Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, arrives in stores April 23rd. In all likelihood, it will be the album of the summer, at least for people with taste in music.
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