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comment by kleinbl00
kleinbl00  ·  4665 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Hands Down, The Best Music Video of 2012. Truly Awesome. Simply Beautiful.
Really?

What makes a 4 minute assemblage of stock footage "Hands down the best music video of 2012?"

Where's the narrative?

Where's the message?

Yeah, mushroom clouds "bloom." I get it. And?





thenewgreen  ·  4665 days ago  ·  link  ·  
Only watched this once but I recall there being moments when the lyric and the visual narrative seemed in lock step, complimenting one another. Best? Second best? Stock footage or original, never before seen shots...Who cares, I enjoyed it.
kleinbl00  ·  4665 days ago  ·  link  ·  
>moments when the lyric and the visual narrative seemed in lock step

...that's not optional, that's not commendable. That's baseline.

HologramMan  ·  4665 days ago  ·  link  ·  
To be fair, I suppose I should have titled this "The Best Music Video of 2012, thus far." Lacking a clear narrative, or an outright message is not something that should automatically count against a piece of art.

We could ask: Where is the band? Who is the main character? Why is the screen split in half? Clearly this is a departure from the traditional conventions of a music video. Take away and interpret a meaning of your own. I have always been under the impression that is what art is all about. However, that is another debate for a different day.

Perhaps this is more your style... http://vimeo.com/10818338

kleinbl00  ·  4665 days ago  ·  link  ·  
> Lacking a clear narrative, or an outright message is not something that should automatically count against a piece of art.

No, but being completely and wholly derivative should be. I mean, this approach is over 30 years old:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PirH8PADDgQ

And if you're not going to add to it, you're subtracting to it.

We could ask all those things, but the real question is "so what?" "wow, man, blooms like like mushroom clouds" is not new:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63h_v6uf0Ao

You might as well start it with a piece of Academy leader and finish it up with "fin" it's so Film School 101. "clearly this is a departure from the traditional conventions of a music video" SAY WHAT? "I'm going to raid a bunch of stock footage out of Getty and IStockphoto and call it a music video" is something all my film school friends did. My whole point is that this video, "hands down" is painfully derivative and absolutely, positively, nothing new under the sun. Better has been done, on similar themes, by amateurs:

http://vimeo.com/26145192

...and, for that matter, professionals:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2zKARkpDW4&ob=av2e

(complete with "leader")

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7K72X4eo_s&ob=av2e

"Art", according to Frank Zappa, is about "making something from nothing and then selling it."

This video? I'm not buying.