We strive for diversity here on the Audio Visuals desk. We want eclectic music choices and a wide array of narrative formats to both keep you, the readers, guessing, and to promote all the crazy this medium has to offer. We also love cartoons, so we try to find a lot of kick-ass animations for your viewing pleasure. This week it’s a zany little grab bag with your new favorite cover of any Backstreet Boys song, Snoop Dogg paying tribute to cinema of yore, Florence Welch going H.A.M. on herself, a socially conscious animated short, and a few other tasty treats to satisfy your appetite. Commence your tiny desk concert now.
“Carmen”—Stromae (Above)
Nothing says “social commentary” like putting a cartoon Barack Obama on the back of a big blue bird and sending him over the edge of a cliff into the waiting mouth of an even bigger and scarier blue bird. What do you think Stromae is trying to tell us here? Think it has anything to do with … Twitter? Maybe? Oh, and Sylvain Chomet, of Triplets of Belleville fame, directed this. FYI.
“So Many Pros”—Snoop Dogg
Because there aren’t enough nods to 1970s blaxploitation cinema, like, anywhere, Snoop finds a home in this week’s best of roundup.
“Candy Sugar Rush”—Slow Knights
Scissor Sisters lead guitarist Del Marquis has embarked on a side project and it’s called Slow Knights. Fortunately, these new jams have the same kicky kiki energy we’ve come to know and love from the Sisters, and this video has the good vibes to match. Here’s your week’s ray of sunshine.
“Shame”—Young Fathers
The lead (and only) actor in this video is Joshua Hubbard, and he goes for it. This week’s best solo performance winner is Young Fathers by a mile.
“Dream Lover”—The Vaccines
They had us when the space cruiser showed up on screen. The Vaccines are on a mission to obtain the Dream Lover, which, if touched, transforms into your heart’s deepest desire. But will they make it past the all-seeing eye and weaponized fembots?!
“The Grid”—SBCR
Have you ever wished a revenge thriller could just be condensed into the training montage and subsequent action-packed climax? Well now SBCR has you covered! But it’s kind of NSFW for some pretty heavy violence.
“Ship to Wreck”—Florence + The Machine
Wow. Florence Welch is continuing her screaming exorcism of all the demons she took on between albums with the Machine’s third music video for How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful. Welch recently broke her foot when a stage dive ended poorly at Coachella. We don’t want anyone to get hurt, but we also want our musicians to be truly rock star and go all in for their art, which Welch is clearly willing to do, regardless of the medium. Respect.
“Baggage Man”—Sizarr
Sizarr wins this week for most interesting animation, because we rarely get to see people imagined as the preserved husks of citizens in Pompeii. Oh, come on. You weren’t thinking that, too?
“Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely”—Kingship
The only problem with the song and video for Backstreet Boys’ “Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely” was that it wasn’t a rock opera visualized with drawings that look like they were torn from Alejandro Jodorowsky’s forsaken Dune storyboards. Now everything is right with the world and balance has been restored.
“Ingen Hejd”—Joy
This one … well, it’s just pretty wild! If Nicki Minaj slammed her energy together with M.I.A. the resulting frequency would probably sound like Joy. It would look like her, too, if frequencies could look like anything. Regardless, this girl is on some bananas shit, and we want to celebrate such forceful individualism.
No comments:
Post a Comment