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Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Frontier Videology: Broken Bells/Christina Hendricks Edition, pt. 1

Apparently, there are still some artists who believe in the power of the music video. Broken Bells (the collaborative project between Shins' frontman James Mercer and the ubiquitous Danger Mouse)  released their debut this March, and since then they have been in full-on promotion mode.  The band has focused no small amount of effort on creating buzz for their forthcoming video for the song "The Ghost Inside:"


Broken Bells - The Ghost Inside

They began by recently creating the rather cryptic website Visit Planet BB114, which other than that BB makes no reference to the band and contains only this brief video:



Then, the announcement yesterday that that martini will be sipped by Christina Hendricks (of Mad Men fame), a woman so hot that her name should end in X.  Hendricks has been getting a great deal of attention lately, including being named Esquire's Sexiest Woman Alive.  She will be playing a "beautiful android" in the video; in other news, the idea for this video was conceived by a man.

Time was when the buzz surrounding a forth-coming music video could be deafening.  While videos began as mere promotional tools, they became ends in themselves in the early 1990s when what were once highly-edited concert films gave way to big-budget epics.  Blockbuster-level hype soon followed, and upcoming or just-released videos were topics of fervent discussion at high school cafeterias and student lounges nationwide.

Then, for reasons discussed before, everything changed.  Videos stopped looking like short films and started looking like blooper reels, which, while still amusing, must disappoint aspiring Spike Jonzes and Michel Gondrys everywhere.

While it would be excessive to suggest that the presence of such an "It Girl" in an upcoming video heralds some sort of renaissance, perhaps it will garner some well-deserved attention for the commercially struggling form.  Regardless of the results, however, great videos will continue to made, even if they are seldom watched.  Don't believe us?  See below:

Justice - D.A.N.C.E. (2007)


Bat For Lashes - What's a Girl to Do (2007)


Radiohead - House of Cards (2008)

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2 comments:

  1. It's true. I haven't watched anywhere as many music videos as I used to. But put a hot woman and some robots in there and I'm more likely to watch.

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  2. for a younger and perkier Hendricks (around 8 years ago) check her out in Joss Whedon's Firefly,,,she stars in two of the episodes as a spaceship hi jacking harlot

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