Sunday, May 24, 2009

One of the really exciting things about owning cds and listening to music and having opinions on everything is that it results in some fun *ahem* "discussions" at 2am with strangers at parties.
The debate I got into last night was about music videos, and I think worth continuing on to today's post.
When asked "name your favourite video...you have 10 seconds", my two aquaintances put forward "Just" by Radiohead and "November Rain" by Guns n Roses. I, in a fit of bad memory, announced that the video for Svefn-G-Englar (Sigur Ros) was the greatest. I meant Saeglopur (also Sigur Ros) although the Svefn clip is pretty fantastic. In fact, all of Sigur Ros' videos are rather awesome (.

So what is it that makes a great clip? Not necessarily a message - that can just make it a bit wanky and lame. But perhaps ambiguity. Interesting visuals. Beauty. Something that conveys the message of the song without distracting us too much from the music.
For an example of the latter, check out Yves Klein Blue "Polka" - the lyrics are about drugs, and the video is a bit drugged out and early 70s film and hazy. It's fantastic.