Music videos in 2010: a small case study
Posted on 02. Sep, 2010 by Anupa in Internet, Music, video games
Screencap from Das Racist’s Who’s That Brown? via Village Voice
Back in the day, music video debuts on channels like Much Music or MTV were a big fucking deal. But then Youtube (and OnSmash) came along and that changed everything—but still, the music video didn’t die. In the past couple of years we’ve been exposed to some pretty creative music video marketing techniques—from making videos the memes themselves to putting out teaser trailers.
In the past week or so, three bands—with three very distinct levels of success, from mass to niche—have put out their own innovative music videos online, making heavy use of the internet/meme-chasing/hit-grabbing tactics to prove their virtual relevance.
Last week, Cee-Lo Green—former Goodie Mob rapper turned Gnarls Barkley misterioso turned new soul crooner—dropped a slickly designed, fontgasmic lyric video for new track ‘Fuck You’ to much curiosity. Bands have made sing-a-long friendly videos for a long time, and we’ve seen tons of fanmade creations on Youtube in recent years as well, so Cee-Lo isn’t working with a new concept here. What differentiates this though is that the lyric video was good enough to stand on its own, but it wasn’t meant to—this week, Cee-Lo allowed fans to view the official, Everybody Hates Chris-esque music video for ‘Fuck You’ via his Facebook page. All you had to do was Like the fan page first. The philosophy? You tease and they will Like.
Arcade Fire takes interactive topography to the next thematic level with the video for ‘We Used To Wait’ earlier this week. This one took me a while (um, in web-geek speak I guess that’s like, a day?) to come around to for the simple reason that it requires you to upgrade/download the Google Chrome browser. After inputting the address of the house you grew up in, the multi-window video takes you on a visual tour of your streets interspliced with shots of a hooded teen running and other wastelandic imagery. This would’ve rocked and totes felt nostalgic had my dad not been captured outside of our house when Streetview drove by. Oh, but points for the cool interactive, veiny ‘postcard to your younger self’ you get to make and keep as part of the process.
Das Racist, meme-y highbrow rap group of non-white dudes from NYC, are, like, my most favourite thing ever. And it’s not just because they’re brown or because Heems tweets me about ginger ale or because they fuse lyrics about international development theorists with life as a diaspora-bred P.O.C or because they name drop Bollywood action heros, but because they make me laugh. Sit Down, Man, the follow-up mixtape to Shut Up, Dude is coming out in a couple of weeks and—along with a trailer video featuring voice-over quotables from megaman Diplo—the crew dropped a video for ‘Who’s That Brown?’ WITH ACCOMPANYING VIDEO GAME. BAS.
Simon
Sep 5th, 2010
The Arcade Fire site is incredibly impressive.
The Das Racist vid? BANAAAAAANAS
Anupa
Sep 6th, 2010
I played that Das Racist game like 8 times at work on Friday.