Tag: video

New Reels: ‘Roger Waters’ by Liima

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New Reels: ‘Roger Waters’ by Liima

The latest release from Scandinavian act Liima somewhat inexplicably namechecks the Pink Floyd legend, or maybe there is a reason after all… Directed by Mancunians Plastic Zoo the video depicts a bloodied, half-naked man as the survivor of some terrible hidden beast that hides in the darkened tunnel, eventually arguing with what we can only assume to be his own hallucinations. I won’t spoil the ending for you, but the final shots are very worth seeing… The comic-nightmare of the video complements the jumpy, slightly anxious sounding music. As a track it builds nicely sucking you in with a hypnotic Read more »

One On One Banned! Special: Pearl Jam’s “Jeremy” and Aerosmith’s “Janie’s Got A Gun”.

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One On One Banned! Special: Pearl Jam’s “Jeremy” and Aerosmith’s “Janie’s Got A Gun”.

We continue our Banned! series with a One On One special bringing together two giants of American rock music and two videos with dark subject matter and violent endings. Quite often the One On One’s are done in an almost entirely facetious manner but for this one we’re actually dealing with pretty heavy subject matter. In fact both of these videos were and are important for exactly that. I don’t want to to the usual point scoring compare-and-contrast thing here, but rather talk about two videos that were censored for trying to deal with difficult subject matter. For obvious reasons Read more »

Banned! – ‘Low’ by Foo Fighters

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Banned! – ‘Low’ by Foo Fighters

In the first of a new series exploring videos that were either banned or censored we look at the video for ‘Low’ which brought you Jack Black and Dave Grohl as two rednecks having an increasingly bizarre private party. And whilst we’ll certainly be looking at more outrageous and extreme videos in this series we might not look at another one that’s as plain funny. Besides, we wanted to ease you (and ourselves) in a little. Taken from the Foo Fighters third album One By One, and released in 2002, ‘Low’ is reportedly one of the few tracks on the Read more »

New Reels: “Go” – The Chemical Brothers feat. Q-Tip

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New Reels: “Go” – The Chemical Brothers feat. Q-Tip

Having already seen the return of fellow dance pioneers The Prodigy, 2015 also marks the arrival of a new album by Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons aka The Chemical Brothers. The album will be titled Born In The Echoes and this, released last week, is the first single to be taken from it. It not only features A Tribe Called Quest’s main-man rapper Q-Tip but also marks a re-acquaintance with French director/auter Michel Gondry, having previously worked with him on 1999’s ‘Let Forever Be’ and 2001’s ‘Star Guitar’. The video features seven girls and two poles and is trademark Gondry Read more »

New Reels: ‘Riverman’ by Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds

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New Reels: ‘Riverman’ by Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds

This week we take a look at the latest single from the ex-Oasis man’s Chasing Yesterday album and ask if his music entertains as much as his interviews. It’s hard to know what to make of Noel Gallagher. I mean, is he a chancer, a journeyman who wrote most of his best songs 20 years ago and has used the reputation gained in those years to surf a long wave of mediocrity ever since? Or is he in fact one of Britain’s greatest living songwriters, a national treasure and ever-present guardian of a good, honest, down-to-earth musical aesthetic? What we Read more »

New Reels: “Living For Love” – Madonna

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New Reels: “Living For Love” – Madonna

We review the latest Madonna single and ask is the Queen of pop getting too old for this kind of thing? Just because she is not “in” right now, and it is actually trendy not to like Madonna and apparently is amusing to talk about her fall, it does not mean that her new single is not one great dance track! Living For Love – Madonna Ok, ok, so this video has grown on me. I cannot say much for the rest of Madonna´s 13th (unlucky 13th?) studio album, I´ve only heard 6 tracks, of which I like this one and Read more »

New Reels: “Animal Fear” by Marika Hackman

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New Reels: “Animal Fear” by Marika Hackman

The latest single and video from this very promising English singer songwriter gets a glowing MVD review. This talented young, and I mean young (born in 1992!) English vocalist, multi instrumentalist and song writer has just unveiled this new track (and a new photography project due to feature a 24 page booklet, with photography from Glen Erler.) Animal Fear – Marika Hackman This former Burberry model turned pop/folk singer will release her debut album We Slept Last Night on February 16th – 2015. She has been touring around the UK promoting her upcoming album. I personally first heard her since Read more »

Rock Me Tonight: Billy Squier and the video that killed his career.

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Rock Me Tonight: Billy Squier and the video that killed his career.

The story of one of the worst videos of all time and the rock singer who could have ruled the new MTV age but instead saw his career die because of it. “I think that’s probably the most damning four minutes of video ever shot in history! Well, from my perspective it is!” – Billy Squier, 2006. If you dig around in the annals of rock music you’ll find so many hard luck tales of singers and bands who got within a desperate hand’s-grasp of success only to to have it unjustly whipped away that it’s practically a cliche. Sometimes Read more »

New Reels: ‘Sober’ by Childish Gambino

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New Reels: ‘Sober’ by Childish Gambino

The new single and cool video from this American singer and actor best known by many for his role in the NBC series 30 Rock Donald McKinley Glover, Jr. has one of the best stage names ever – Childish Gambino, He was born on September 25th – 1983 and is an American actor, writer, comedian, rapper, singer, and producer. He attended Rockbridge Elementary School and the DeKalb School of the Arts and then he went to New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, where he graduated with a degree in Dramatic Writing in 2006 (There is a degree in Read more »

“Sugar” or Artificial Sweetener – Maroon 5

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“Sugar” or Artificial Sweetener – Maroon 5

On December 6th last year Grammy award winning band Maroon 5 decided to record a video in which they would crash weddings in Los Angeles. The result of which is the new video for their new single: Maroon 5 – Sugar   AWESOME right? but today I write about this with confused feelings: it is apparently fake! I am speechless, devastated and MAD! This is going to be a cathartic post. Before I “deconstruct” the video, let me say that although I am not a fan of Maroon 5, I don´t dislike them. I like their song: “Sunday Morning”, and Read more »

New Reels: ‘Nasty’ by The Prodigy

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New Reels: ‘Nasty’ by The Prodigy

The Essex dance-punk trio return with a typically brutal new single and an album to follow but can they ever regain the relevance they had in the 90’s? Some 25 years ago 19 year old raver and classically trained pianist Liam Howlett created a demo tape of various tracks he’d made on a Moog Prodigy synthesiser which ended up in the hands of a guy he’d met on the Essex party scene called Keith Flint. He liked what he heard so much he went back to Howlett and insisted they form a group together with Flint and his friend Leeroy Read more »

History of the Pop Video pt.5: The age of the auter

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History of the Pop Video pt.5: The age of the auter

Music videos in the 90’s saw directors such as Michel Gondry, Spike Jonze and Mark Romanek add a new level of artistry making them an MTV must-have for the big acts. So having given plenty of coverage of the first age of MTV I want to move on to the second age, one which saw the video director step forward and become a bit of a name in their own right. By the time the 90’s had gotten underway music videos were becoming more sophisticated reflecting advances in film-making techniques. Plus, budgets had increased allowing a better class of video Read more »

New Reels: ‘Stay A while’ by She & Him

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New Reels: ‘Stay A while’ by She & Him

It’s been some seven years since actress and singer/songwriter Zooey Deschanel and fellow singer/songwriter Matthew ‘M’ Ward first met on the set of the film The Go-Getter where they were asked to collaborate on a song for the soundtrack. They clearly hit it off, and since then they have released four acclaimed albums as She & Him, with a fifth Classics due for release on December 2nd. The album is, as the title suggests, not composed of original material but rather covers of thirteen different songs including ‘Oh No, Not My Baby’, ‘Stay Awhile’ and ‘Unchained Melody’. Covers albums can Read more »

New reels: ‘Brando’ by Scott Walker and Sunn O))) (film by Giselle Vienne)

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New reels: ‘Brando’ by Scott Walker and Sunn O))) (film by Giselle Vienne)

Is there a more lauded avant-garde figure in the world of music at the moment than Scott Walker? Famous for an uncompromisingly experimental approach to his art, his explorations into what a song can be continue apace with this taken from the recently released album Soused, a collaboration with experimental metal outfit Sunn 0))). To accompany the song there’s this compelling film by the French-Austrian director and visual artist Giselle Vienne. It concerns what we assume to be a mother and son who are involved in a violent and possibly Oedipal episode. That and other things such as the woman’s Read more »

Música en mi primer idioma – Chavela Vargas

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Música en mi primer idioma – Chavela Vargas

One of Latin America´s most beloved performers and cut through voices, Chavela Vargas. And so it is that I have finally decided to write about Latin American music. There are different reasons why I have not done this here before. Firstly because I usually listen to music in English, and also because this is a music video site and I have had more exposure and interest to music videos in English. But there is also a hidden factor, and that is I am scared. It is such a vast musical universe and unknown to some of our readers, that it Read more »