Watch This Now: Zebra Katz -“W8WTF”
“Smelling something brewing, like a batch of bitches’ tongues…”
Here’s something a bit weird and wonderful that went a little under my radar. Zebra Katz is a very engaging and exciting new artist emerging from that ever-burgeoning Mecca of cool that is NYC. He’s doing hip-hop, but on his terms – dizzy, warped beats and some particularly dark stories to go along with it. This right here is his second single and video – and I’ve got to hand it to him, the guy certainly knows how to make an impression at such an early stage of his career.
It’s unclear exactly what will grab your attention first: the stunning black-and-white surrounds that Katz finds himself in, or the fact that he has been handcuffed and is wearing a gimp mask. Various personas of Katz are sprawled across the apartment in which he has awoken, and it’s all quite unsettling and bizarre. Probably not something you’d want to be watching first thing – although it could send you into shock, which could be the exact kickstart you need. I dunno, all I’ll say is that the video is semi-NSFW and it’s not going to please everyone. Give it a chance, though – fuck knows that it deserves one.
Watch This Now: Taylor Swift – “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together”
“Find your piece of mind, with some indie record that’s much cooler than mine…”
Well, shit. Here it is. As soon as I heard Taylor Swift‘s jam-and-a-half new single, We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together, I knew two things almost immediately. The first was that it was going to be nigh-on impossible to get that fucker of a song out of my head for roughly the next month or so. The second was that the video, whenever it dropped, was going to be life-changingly fucking amazing. Ladies and gentlemen, I was NOT let down. We now have some very, very close competition to Justin Bieber‘s As Long As You Love Me video for the pop video of the year.
But how did we get here? Taylor isn’t normally the kind for outstanding pop videos. There’s been some good ones (the cute You Belong with Me) and even the occasional great one (the adorable Mean), but THIS level of greatness? There’s levels to it.
Declan Whitebloom of Mean and Ours returns to direct, focusing in on the best parts of his work on those videos and getting the pop princess down from her ivory tower. Her gloomy, look-off-into-the-distance videos invariably fucking blow, so letting T-Swizzle’s hair down and letting her enjoy the moment with a slab of squeaky-clean humour to keep things going.
Almost entirely a one-take effort, the video is full of gorgeous colour schemes, a very hunky leading arsehole ex-boyf in Noah Mills and… there was one other thing. What was it? Oh yeah, that’s right. HER ENTIRE BAND IS DRESSED UP LIKE WOODLAND CREATURES. I mean… it’s just perfect.
This is exactly what this song needed. This is exactly what Taylor needed. This is exactly what the pop video world needed. I hope this gets 85 billion views and earns Taylor enough money to buy her puppy a mansion.
Yes, We've Got a Video! 