Friday Night Video

Zooey Deschanel and I have a pretty one-sided relationship: I worship her from afar, she doesn’t know I exist. I’m ok with that though. I have a feeling meeting her would ruin it. In real life she’s probably not the manic pixie dream girl she plays in most of her movies. And I’m probably not that interesting to a big shot musician and actor. So it’s probably best that we keep our relationship at a comfortable distance. She can keep going on not having any idea I’m out here, and I’ll keep admiring her work a little too much.

On that note, she and M. Ward are getting ready to release their second album as She & Him. Volume 2 comes out March 23rd, and from what they’ve released so far it seems to pick up where the last one left off. The video for “In the Sun” shows the pair back in high school. Loner M. punches away at his phone and practices guitar, while popular Zooey dances with her friends and perfects the dying art of hula hoop. That’s right. Zooey. Deschanel. Hula. Hoop. Enjoy:

Via Pitchfork

Whether you like their music or not, you have to admit that they make some of the most interesting music videos you’ll see. They’re most famous for their treadmill dancing to “Here it Goes Again”, but they don’t stop there. For their latest album, Of the Blue Color of the Sky, they’ve already had a cool techno acid trip for “WTF?” and performed “This Too Shall Pass” with the Notre Dame marching band. Now they’ve managed to top them all.

This is going to sound like hyperbole, but it’s honestly true: this is the best music video I’ve seen in the last 10 years. It’s not even close. The band enlisted some help from Synn Labs to build a giant Rube Goldberg Machine, timed to the music, to be in the official video for “This Too Shall Pass”. It’s a staggering work of ingenious engineering, and it was filmed in one continuous take. I can’t even begin to imagine the amount of planning, testing, and failing that went into this.

I didn’t really pay enough attention to Bowerbirds’ 2009 release, Upper Air. I listened to it a couple of times, got a sense that it was solidly put-together, and a continuation of what they did on In Our Talons, but not enough to really appreciate it. The new video for “Northern Lights” has gotten me to go back to it though, and I’m starting to realize just how good it is. Check out the video:

via StereoGum

The Morning Benders are back with a new album due out in March. To build up anticipation they’ve released a video of their new single, “Excuses”, performed live in studio with a whole bunch of friends, including John Vanderslice, Chris from Girls, The Mumlers, and Gram LeBron. The song is really, really good. Check it out:

The Morning Benders’ new album, Big Echo, is out March 9th.

via StereoGum

In case you missed it, Spoon released their latest album, Transference, a couple of weeks ago. The single “Written in Reverse” has been making the rounds for a while now, but the video just came out this week. It’s kind of cool, with a high-contrast look and interesting use of mirrors. Oh, and the song kind of kicks ass. So it’s got that going for it. Check it out:

via You Ain’t No Picasso

Frightened Rabbit – “Nothing Like You”

I don’t know about you, but I’m getting close to counting the days until their new album The Winter of Mixed Drinks hits stores (March 1st!). They’ve just released the video to “Nothing Like You”, from the upcoming album, and I have to say so far so good. I’m not sure Frightened Rabbit is my favorite band right now, but they probably are my favorite Scottish band, and that’s still pretty high praise.

St. Vincent – “Laughing With A Mouth Of Blood”

Poor Annie. She shows up to what has to be one of the worst in-store appearances ever and plays for only the to proprietors. One of them is played by SNL’s Fred Armison, in drag.

I’m kind of ashamed to admit that, before tonight, I had never seen Jonathan Demme’s classic concert film Stop Making Sense. The films shows The Talking Heads at their eclectic peak, working their way through classic songs like “Psycho Killer”, “Life During Wartime”, and “Once in a Lifetime”. Frontman (and under-appreciated musical genius) David Byrne excels at his role of quirky anti-rock-star. Demme focuses his camera on the band, rarely showing even the slightest glimpse of the crowd, and makes you feel like you’re actually watching the show live. The whole film is great, but the highlight is undoubtedly the scorching rendition of “Burning Down the House”:

If you’re a music fan and you haven’t seen Stop Making Sense, repent and go watch it now. You won’t be sorry.

I know I featured OK Go in this slot last week, and normally I wouldn’t dream of putting the same band in two weeks in a row, but this new video is just too good to pass up. Plus it comes with an articulate summation of the economics of modern music videos, straight from the band. The video is for “This Too Shall Pass”, from their new album Of the Blue Colour of the Sky. It features the band performing as part of the Notre Dame marching band, and it’s recorded live. Maybe it’s just the fact that I spent 9 years in marching bands that makes me love this, or maybe it’s because the band isn’t afraid to try new and original things. But love it I do. Check it out:

Even if you don’t like OK Go’s music (and really, what’s not to like?) you have to give them credit for making interesting and innovative videos, usually for very little money. The video for their breakout hit “Here We Go Again” featured the band doing an incredibly complicated and intricately choreographed dance on four treadmills, in one continuous take. The timing of its release was perfect, since it hit when YouTube was just going mainstream. It went viral and really got the band on the map.

The band is back again with a new album and another video that was shot in one continuous take. It’s for the song “WTF?” and it features some old-school style computer graphics and a whole bunch of dollar store props. Check it out:

And in case you’re one of the 12 people that hasn’t seen it, here’s the eminently awesome video for “Here We Go Again”:

The situation is critical: I’ve had “Single Ladies” stuck in my head for two full days now. In an attempt to exorcise the demons, here’s Beyonce’s super-stylish video (the one that Kanye memorably described as “one of the best videos of all time”).

Really, as far as mindless pop songs go, this one isn’t that bad. Still don’t want it stuck in my head for two days though. Make it stop!