You know how it’s funny when little kids and grannies swear? Or when there is a cute gerbil that is actually the vice president in charge of acquisitions at Citibank? Something about the difference between the appearance of the speaker and the content of what they are saying makes us laugh. Unless you want us to [laugh at you](http://www.amazon.com/Please-Stop-Laughing-Me- Inspirational/dp/B0064XLZJW), though, I don’t recommend the same technique in a music video.

Take these two videos (please?):

Both of these videos are in the format called live without an audience. I don’t know who came up with that name, but I first read it in something by Chuck Klosterman. I imagine he didn’t come up with the name, though, so I’ll go ahead and attribute it to Oscar Wilde. This is a great way to make a video because you can get nice close-ups of each member of the band and work out some wicked choreography, using as many takes as you need to get everything perfect. These videos do not take advantage of these qualities. Instead they are just terrible, boring videos.

“Get Free” is a moderate rocker that would match well with a video of good looking young men cavorting around a mall meeting young women with prime-time- friendly loose morals. The Vines, though, think “Get Free” is heavier than a suitcase filled with lead bricks. Maybe they were going for that in the studio, but once you are making the video you just need to match the sound you recorded.

Here is the lead singer rocking out like a white Ozzy Osbourne. Totally inappropriate for the song.

From what I can tell, the only thing heavy about the song is that the singer has a bit of edge in his voice. Well, so does Rod Stewart and I don’t think the video for “Maggie May” has a group of teenagers throwing Molotov cocktails directly into cops’ open mouths.

The Jet video has just the opposite problem. This song is a real rocker that made me want to behave in a decidedly disobedient fashion upon hearing it. That is until I saw the video. Then I realized that Jet’s vision for the song was a group of hipsters doing their best statue impressions.

Having removed any possibly distracting motion, they realized that viewers might become fixated by color. So they quickly switched to black and white.

I can’t stress enough that the band literally just stands there motionless for the entire song. They move their hands and one of them moves his mouth some of the time, but otherwise they don’t do anything. This is a rock song! Did they consider… rocking out?!? Just a suggestion.

Seeing this video completely ruined the song for me. When I heard it on the radio I imagined some crusty dudes totally going crazy on a tiny stage. At some point one of the band members maybe was jumping into the audience and I think the bass drum exploded. Here they are, though, very spread out to dilute any sort of combined effect they might have accidentally had. Not moving. NOT MOVING!

Man, I’m too sad to conclude. Just don’t do this to me.

-PTD

What can I say about The Darkness’s “I Believe In a Thing Called Love” that hasn’t already been said? I have no idea. I don’t do any research for this blog. I will say this, though. When I first heard The Darkness I thought their music was stupid. Then, I watched this:

I immediately thought they were awesome, or possibly totally radical. The Darkness is definitely not a joke band, but they don’t take themselves too seriously. This means that rather than being a shitty Queen they were suddenly a campier Queen.

The Darkness also seem to be Joseph Campbell aficionados. The video begins with our hero being born.

He emerges from his watery womb, shows us his butt, and is then molested by a purple monster.

This is very similar to many Navajo myths where a young brave’s loincloth is lifted by a winged buffalo on his thirteenth birthday.

He then assembles his band of adventurers who emerge, robot-like, from the walls.

They receive their call to adventure and quickly face their first foe, a giant crab.

As you know, in psychology a crab represents hidden feelings. I recall a fable from west Africa where a woman is perpetually hounded by a crab who reminds her that menopause can happen to women as young as 40. Here the crab represents our hero’s inability to avoid giant crabs no matter how goddamn hard he tries.

The crab is quickly defeated, however, with the power of rock.

Note the direct rip-off of Queen. Totally radical.

That was only an initial test, however. To achieve his goal our hero must travel through hell.

We are all familiar with the story of Orpheus who traveled to hell while on tour and had his van broken into. Naturally, he had no insurance.

Our hero must now atone with his father, represented here by a giant squid.

I don’t need to explain the obvious symbolism here. A connection you might have missed, though, is that squids are notorious about not turning the heat up regardless of the weather.

Once again the power of rock is called upon, but here it must be extremely focused. So focused that a lightning beam comes out of his head.

Thus victory is achieved.

There is so much to love about this video. It is consistently ridiculous. It has three different guitar solos. It allows you to see each member of the band.

This is actually the only place the video goes a little wrong, because the guitar player is not very interesting on screen. The first guitar solo is awesome, but that is done by the front man.

The second and longest guitar solo is done by the guitar player, though. He mostly just stands there and plays. In order to jazz it up the director decided to put him in front of a wall of amps. And the wall is extremely large. It is also extremely monotonous visually.

This is essentially a tiny man standing in front of a blank black wall. Come on! You are The Darkness! He should be standing on an enormous vagina representing his issues with his mother!

Don’t worry guys, I forgive you.

-PTD

Since the dawn of time (some time in the 1980’s, I believe) man has made music videos. Early on the music video was seen as an ad for your band, but at some point we lost our way. Here is an artifact from those halcyon days:

The video quality is absolutely terrible because everything in those days was done using 1 mm film in hand-cranked cameras, but I think you can get the idea.

The video opens with a group of bewildered young people in a club.

Who are then attacked by fake Native Americans in fake military clothes.

By the end of the attack, everyone is dancing.

So, simple enough message. There you are, not having any fun, then Adam and the Ants show up and before you know it you’ll be halfway to a threeway in the bathroom. Even the song is an ad for their music. “That music’s lost it’s taste so try another flavor - Ant Music.” And for god’s sake, don’t listen to non-Ant- related marketing! “It’s so sad when you’re young to be told you’re having fun.” By the time you are done finding out that you should be listening to Ant Music it’s too late, you’ve already listened. And are dancing.

This video is the standard that all others should measure themselves against. How hard am pushing my band and album? Do I like the song more after watching the video than before watching it? Ant Music gives both of these a resounding, “Yes!”

Some sections are completely sublime. Take the guitar solo.

We inexplicably change locations to a picture of a mountain. Are we supposed to believe that the club is at a ski lodge? Is this possibly a piece of art located in the bathroom? I don’t care. This is the best thing I have ever seen:

The man doesn’t need to even touch the guitar to play. He just gestures at you and you hear the perfect riff. Also, the whole solo was pretty much done in a single shot, which is fun.

Some parts of the video, unfortunately, are not perfect. One big danger in music videos is being too literal. I can see the brainstorming meeting now:

PERSON 1

What should we show when he sings, “Unplug the jukebox”?

PERSON 2

Why don’t we have someone unplugging a jukebox?

PERSON 1

To make it even better, we could have the plug be really big.

PERSON 2

Genius!

So, there’s that. But it’s hard to complain. This was just after the dawn of time so they couldn’t know everything we know now. I quickly forget about this misstep when I get hypnotized by the maw of the English back-up singer.

Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night screaming about that mouth.

-PTD