Old Favourites: Ben Lee – “Cigarettes Will Kill You”
“You love to watch me bake, you serve me up with cake and that’s your big mistake…”
I don’t know why exactly I thought of this one, but something must have triggered it – maybe trying to recall my earliest memories of music videos? Here’s a video that has distinctively stuck with me from the very minute that I first saw it as a child of seven, maybe eight. He might be seen as beyond naff now, but no-one will ever be able to tarnish the memory of Ben Lee being the coolest dude I had ever come across at the time.
This comes in the late nineties, where our hero has just released his third solo album at the ripe old age of twenty. Along with hanging out with cool people like the Beastie Boys and Sean Lennon, Lee was branching out into an extravagant, artsy style of video-making. Check out the full body paint, the confronting street-walking and the various weirdness that makes up the video. It’s pretty much entrancing from start to finish, and certainly did wonders in capturing my imagination. I’ll always love Ben for this.
Watch This Now: TV on the Radio – “Caffienated Consciousness”
“So fused are we, to the cause of light…”
Another weird and wacky video from the brilliant TV on the Radio that comes as a bittersweet surprise. On one level, this is an outstanding clip with a low budget but a wild, outlandish imagination – they haven’t done a video this trippy since Golden Age back in 2008. On another level, however, it’s heartbreaking to think this will be the last ever video to star former bassist Gerard Smith, who tragically lost his battle to cancer only a week or so after Nine Types of Light came out. He might have been an enigma, but he was still an integral part of the band’s sound. Still, it’s not healthy to dwell to much on the negative – let’s use this video to celebrate just what an amazing musician Gerard was!
Watch This Now: Paramore – “Monster”
“And we started drowning, not like we’d sink any farther…”
Paramore is still a band. Yep, even in the face of the controversial departure of the Farro brothers, the band have stuck to their guns and continued on. Major kudos to them – especially for getting new material out there in such a limited time. Monster is their first post-Farro material, as well as being the lead single from the Transformers: Dark of the Moon soundtrack.
I was actually worried that the video for this would suffer the same fate of their Decode video, which was also the lead single of the first Twilight film. If you’ve seen it, you’ll know what I mean – cheesy band footage mixed with shots of Robert Pattinson brooding about the place. Thankfully, we can report that there is no sign of Shia LaDouche anywhere in this video! Surprisingly, they’ve stepped up their game and mixed a confronting performance video with some Michael Bay-esque imagery – yes, that’s codeword for “shit gets blown the fuck up.” It’s not quite clear what exactly the three of them are running from – but guessing about it is half the fun, isn’t it? A very well-shot video with some cool ideas – it’s good to have them back.
Yes, We've Got a Video! 