Radiohead
"Pyramid Song"


The first video for Amnesiac is slowly rising into the public eye. At the moment, it's only airing on MTV UK, but of course your friends on the Internet have snagged it for you (you'll find a link at the end of this review). The song is a dirge in the classic Radiohead big-depressing-ballad tradition -- think "Exit Music (For A Film)," "How To Disappear Completely," "Street Spirit (Fade Out)," etc. Even if we've heard it all before, though, it's still working rather well, and the song's dramatic punch is definitely strengthened by its haunting video. "Jumped into the river / black-eyed angels swam with me," Yorke warbles, as in the video a ghostly computer-generated sprite (strangely reminiscent of the logo creatures from U.N.K.L.E.'s Psyence Fiction, which Yorke guested on) leaps from the wreckage of an aircraft carrier and plunges down through the sea into a sunken city, exploring the greenish depths with a single flashlight. The animation's inventive and quite striking (though I do get the feeling that its impact can't be fully appreciated in the digitized copy I watched), and while the video would've worked (perhaps better) in live action, it also would have been prohibitively expensive, so ta.

If you're not a fan of Radiohead's brand of melancholia, this probably isn't going to do much for you (unless you're an animation buff). If you are, however, I'm sure you'll fall deeply, navel-gazingly in love with it. To check it out for yourself, -click here-.

reviewed by Chris Conroy

Bjork
"It's Oh So Quiet"


Ladies and gentlemen, two historic events in one day: I return from the seeming grave, and in the process, I give out my first five-star rating. We all know and love Spike Jonze. And how could we not? BEING JOHN MALKOVICH. Weezer's "Buddy Holly." The Beastie Boys' "Sabotage." Fatboy Slim's "Praise You" and the neo-classic "Weapon Of Choice." But "It's Oh So Quiet" is one of the jewels of his crown. As with all classics, there's very little to add to the ongoing critical dialogue, other than that Bjork (who probably wouldn't have been allowed to kick all that ass in DANCER IN THE DARK had she not gone with this clip) managed to make 1995 a great friggin' year on the strength of this video alone.

If you aren't familiar with it, then

(1.) I hate you, and

(2.) Basically, Bjork just covers an old big-band standard while alternating from pixieish reserve to all-out musical-number madness. And I mean "madness." When the mailbox starts to dance, you know you're watching music video history.

Don't ask me why I even bothered to write this when I admitted right up front I had nothing to add to its legacy. All I can say is that it made me dance like a moron in my dorm room today, and that's a ringing endorsement in my book. I don't give five stars lightly; Bjork should cherish her all-important victory. ;-D

reviewed by Chris Conroy

Linkin Park
"Crawlin" (American Version)


I've got to hand it out to Linkin Park. They have done a pretty awesome transition between the I'm-too-lazy-to-make-a-video-so-I'll-make-a-footage to the cool-blue-video situation. Obviously, they had to have the basic components for any good punk rawk video that is quality and oh so 2k1; the pretty model-like chick to enhance the mood, various clips of the band playing, and some gore and sadness.

Don't be mistaken, this is a great video nontheless, but I must complain. Although I've seen this visual twice, I am so compelled to review it. I'd like to take a quick glance on this girl's side. "Hi! My name is [probably] Nicole! I am a model but I like punk rawk, so I'll be in a video of the music mentioned above! I am pretty and all the guys want me. But no no no, my life sucks! I know I have a lot of money and I am suicidal because I get [or got] good grades in high school and I have enough knowledge to be the President. But no no no, my life sucks! They do! Because it sucks to be so loved by everyone! Everyone likes me! So I can't be sad!"

...

One day I'll hunt those people down and shoot them. Until then, enjoy this great video, because it's Linkin Park, and it's pretty, and if Miss Model wasn't in the video it'd get 5 stars.

reviewed by May

Sum-41
"Fat Lip"


This is a great song, and an even greater video. The setting is a backalley/parking lot where there are a bunch of punks hanging out. In between shots of the band playing they show a girl getting her head shaved, a little boy pimping with two older girls, a skateboarding robot, the band doing funny dance moves & couples going at it.The video is funny & lighthearted. Some of the shots and original ideas are really great and it keeps the video interesting. You probably won't notice everything until you see it a couple times, so you'll actually want to see this more than once. Overall the video (like the song) gives the message that being an individual & not following trends or society is cool, which makes this video really... well, cool.

reviewed by Lindsay

Saliva
"Your Disease"


This video gets on my nerves. Big time. In the very beginning- for some unknown reason- the lead singer speeds away from a cop, even though the cop isn't even after him. Maybe I missed something, but I think this guy just has an overdose of testosterone in his veins. As he speeds along (what a sexy badass) we see various large breasted pierced girls in leather pants give this guy with "sunset gold" highlights alluring looks. Eventually the entire band is united in a club where even more good looking females are drooling over them. Like I said this video gets on my nerves, it ruined a good song for me.

reviewed by Lindsay

Uncle Kracker
"Follow Me"


Most people know this guy as Kid Rock's old DJ, but he has talents of his own as well. This video is sweet which I give the guy props for considering his hard rock reputation. He isn't afraid to write a love song. My favorite part of the video is when they show 3 different people (a teenage girl, a woman and a man) listening to this song and they all picture different artists singing it (a boy band, Lenny Kravitz-look alike..) It shows the different perspectives on the same song. Also Uncle Kracker isn't "big pimping" in this video which I like. Unlike some artists (Shaggy "Angel") when he writes a song about one girl, the video is about one girl. There are a lot of different characters and some humorous shots which is why I gave this video four stars. It's too bad MTV rarely plays this video, you'll have a better chance of seeing it on VH1.

reviewed by Lindsay

Travis
"Turn"


Part three of the Modern Rock Hoedown (Scroll to the Alien Ant Farm review, it explains all).

OK then. This video's a bit behind the curve. In it, the band walks into an arena the day after a political party convention and plays to an empty stage as the camera makes them look very important, and there's a thing with video footage, and apparently it might renew our faith in democracy or something? That I'm not sure of. Anyway, Travis plays in an empty arena after a political party convention. That I am sure of. The problem is, all the party conventions happened many, many months ago. And while this video actually was semi-poignant when it started airing during the Great Indecision of November 2000, it's a wee bit dated now. Even I'm a wee bit dated in reviewing it, since it did start airing those many months ago. But whatever, it was on CTN during my period of half-hour surveillance, so reviewed it shall be. Travis are about as crafty a modern rock band as we have right now. They get compared to Radiohead a lot, but so does every other band who does or does not play guitars, so we're going to leave that one by the wayside and simply say that they've got a way with a pop song. And the video's pleasingly poppy too, with its epic camerawork and emotionally charged setting. All it amounts to, really, is something keen to look at while listening to the nice power ballad.

To be honest, I don't know why I'm giving this three stars, other than to ingratiate myself to the band when they inevitably take over the world with their next album, The Invisible Band (watch them like hawks, people. The Scottish cannot be trusted). But as the reviewer, I am all-powerful, so let's all get used to it and save ourselves some trouble.

reviewed by Chris Conroy

Fuel
"Innocent"


Part two of the Modern Rock Hoedown (See previous review).

Oh dear. *Sigh* Perhaps the problem with doing a Modern Rock Hoedown is that in the current state of rock, absolutely nothing new is happening. Even U2, a band who'd spent the last ten years doing whatever the holy fuck they wanted, is back to slappin' a time-delay on Edge's guitar work and singing about Amnesty International and suchlike. U2's a good analogy here, because Fuel seem very much in the vein of their early stuff -- bad haircuts, worse pants, and overemoting into the camera. Remember Bono bellowing "Pride" into the mic in that video? Well, the lead singer of Fuel (whose name I can't be arsed to look up) one-ups him here, staring directly into the camera and shaking violently while bellowing out his uninteresting lyric. And when he's not doing that, he's making photocopies of himself. I shit you not. I found it to be a vaguely ridiculous gimmick on the cover of Tori Amos' from the choirgirl hotel (note: a great album otherwise), and boy, it ain't any livelier here. It's probably got some statement about being an individual or something attached to it, but whatever, that's not coming off too clearly, and besides, I'd've thought Blondie's (the lead singer, not the other band) oh-so-alternative nose ring would've covered that front. Even the lighting (cool, mechanical blue) is unoriginal. This video gets one star, and only for its occasional use of rectangular and circular mattes over the lens, which is actually a bit neat looking, except that occupying the visual area while they do it is a guy in leather pants. *Sigh* again...

reviewed by Chris Conroy

Alien Ant Farm
"Movies"


Just because I felt like it today, I'm going to kick off the first Modern Rock Hoedown: me knockin' back reviews of three modern-rock videos in a row. Just to keep it interesting for myself, I limit it to videos seen within a half-hour period between whatever music channels I get in. And the videos must be for songs that are currently in some kind of state of relevancy -- much as I'd like to toss, say U2's "With Or Without You" in or something, I won't, because it's practically classic rock at this point. In the future, perhaps I'll do a Hip-Hop Hoedown, or a Sultry Underage Female Hoedown, and I'm sure we all got the pun there. Anyway, this is all secondary, let's get to the review.

The premise: ummm, a band plays, on a nice soundstage with a big Hollywood backdrop, as vintage film clips occasionally take over the frame. As does the lead singer, who I believe is the first pop star to steal Robbie Williams' "I-have-a-head-wound-scar" haircut, only this guy does it intentionally. Who knows why. Anyway, they play and sing and stuff, and the lead singer with the just-south-of-entertaining haircut does funny things, if you consider sticking your tongue out and smelling your armpit funny. It's really just kind of sad, a very tossed-off declaration that "Yes, we *are* in fact yet another pop-punk band, and see, we have the irreverent attitude to prove it!" Ah well. To their credit, the song ain't bad. It's a mite generic, but it still gets the foot tapping. The video, on the other hand, gets the eyelids tapping. The rating of "Merely Adequate" was invented for this sucker.

reviewed by Chris Conroy

Crazy Town
"Butterfly"


I was never looked upon freely when I was jesting at this video. I'm usually a sucker for boys with tattoos (see my lingering obsession with mr. kiedis from the chili peppers bunch), but all of us has her or his limits when it comes to piercings, and hello, a little over the edge here?

But oh, yeah, I'm reviewing the video, not the band. I think. Will somebody hit me hard with a metal appliance the next time it's on? I need to go down deeply. This video is precisely why I despise MTV. Its ability to rawk one's shoes are so high and expected, but it just fails. Tough. "Come my lady, come come my lady" which is always replacing the O with a U and removing the E, reminds me of Lit's "Miserable". But that's not even in discussion. Move on.

What's up with the asian chick? Do you really have to drool over her man? Must you try and deny the fact you are pierced from head to tummy just so you wouldn't have the boyband look? Well, guess what! You still look like a boyband guy! And so does your so-called MC. Oh no you won't fool me with that psycho gaze. I'm still in the mood to bang you down with my chair. Take that!

One thing I'd like to clear out before I jump off the soapbox and run to play some actual music-- You are NOT Linkin Park. You are NOT Papa Roach. You are NOT Limp Bizkit (not that I appreciate them enough). You are NOT any other hyped alt rock band.

I am in mercy and I shall hand out a star for you, for trying really badly to be compared to my Mike, Chester, Brad, Phoenix, Joe & Rob.

Disclaimer: There are no stupid songs, only stupid people.

reviewed by May

Dave Matthews Band
"I Did It"


When the news hit the street that the new DMB album would feature tight arrangements and a heightened pop sensibility, there was widespread consternation. "Where are the noodly guitar jams, and ten-minute wank sessions, and unending songs without a point?"

(Dear reader -- can you tell I ain't a DMB fan?)

Of course the real question that underlies all this is: "Hey... if they're not farting around and being goofy anymore... does that mean they no longer smoke the ganja?"

Never let it be said that The Davester is not all about soothing the fears of his peeps. "I Did It" is probably the most openly hallucinogenic video since Queens Of The Stone Age's "The Lost Art Of Keeping A Secret" (the difference being that watching that scary-ass video makes you feel dirty... wait, maybe there isn't a difference after all), and it definitively demonstrates that Dave still considers 4:20 PM a hallowed sacrament. Love bombs, flying trash, and rich wood panelling abound here. Ahem. Don't ask me what wood panelling has to do with getting stoned, but dammit, it's certainly here, and in a video like this, everything has something to do with drugs.

In addition to all this madness, we get a just-barely-there subplot of Dave's weird paranoiac fears re: his bandmates becoming taller, more popular, or better-dressed than he is. Or so I gather. Really, they're just kind of there, doing some stuff, and Dave kind of talks the lyrics at them (which makes no sense), and they talk the lyrics back at him (which also makes no sense), and then he moves on.

It's also the first Dave Matthews Band video with hoochies, if I'm not mistaken.

Anyway, since I've got no love for the DMB, I'd love to trash this video utterly. But unfortunately, I can't. The effects are nifty, the colors are flashy, and that shot of Dave flying out of the dumpster at the beginning rocks me right out; so really, the video accomplished all it was meant to do, which is give you something pretty to look at while the insidiously viral songcraft of "I Did It" seeps into your head and hijacks your parietal lobe, remaining there for hours and days on end and making you do... horrible things... that you don't want to do, and please, Dave, don't make me kill again, I --

Or maybe it's just me.

Ahem. Again.

reviewed by Chris Conroy

Gorillaz
"Clint Eastwood"


After stealing Eddie the rights to review this video, I lightly hit myself. This video probably doesn't deserve me, but I'll act this one out. Coffee, Gorillaz on winamp and a squeaky clean keyboard.

Great. Deep breath. The video, amazing. I first took time to watch it after someone recommended it to me. I thought it'd be just another video on the rap scene, with bits of music. Not my taste, sire. I was sitting and shaking my head at the beginning. Animation? Rap? Are you kidding me? Gorillaz? Tsk tsk, what a name. But as I delved slowly into the video, more and more, I realized just how great it really is. Really now, how many animated videos did you see that really caught you crazy? None, I'll say. Great lip-sync beat, especially.

Stereotypical, you'll say? Well, that's the Blur singer (as you knew, or didn't?), and he's British himself. Ah-ha! No stereotype is better than one made by the stereotypee (?) himself. And it's funny, because even when I was told who it is, it still took me a while to perceive that, oh, stereotype. Don't say funny, because you wouldn't get it either.

The concept of this video is, maybe, the whole lack of it. A graveyard, gorillas dancing? I haven't figured out a fragile moment out of it. But then why does it take us all by a storm? Why does it hit charts high? Because it's just pure genius! Take a few animated characters (see: Daft Punk), put some great people behind them, distribute to the world, and see what happens? Poof! High charts, great success, selling out.

But do we care? No! Because in all of us there is this dire need to watch this video over and over again, to listen to the pretty senseless lyrics (from the way I look at it, which in some forms was called twisted, and yet), to hum the addictive tune, and to smile our ways out of it. So let's all break down together, record this video and deny our now beginning and neverending devotion to a band made by very talented pens and some colourful creative markers.

reviewed by May

Janet Jackson
"All For You"


My oh my. We've been taking tips from brother Michael, haven't we? Everytime I see this video starting, (just before I switch channels), this line comes up in my head-- "Hey Ms. Jackson, are you for real?"

Seriously. Have we been into surgery lately? Because that's all I can think of. My head spins around. So Janet was looking bloody normal on the former "Doesn't Really Matter", well, as much as I could say for her; But come on. This video showcases the great difference in Janet's face (moving on- horrible to horrendous). But I'll leave that unspoken, because I'm just being mean. Oh yes.

Not that the video is any better than the shape of her face. This Jackson girl decides that dancing can never be overdone. Well, that's what she thinks. I, at least, am sick of seeing her wiggling her butt. This video starts out normally (for a video in general), Janet in a train, alright. Now she gets outside, and boo! Guess what we're doing? Wiggling! Woogy woogy, wiggy wigg'. And so we move on. 1 minute of consistive, annoying, boring dancing in the train station background.

Now we go out to the city. Walk, walk... Wiggy! Woogy woogy. I believe this is the point I break out and cry, because I know I could never be so fierce and perpetual like Janet's spirit and face. Oh well, back to moping.

*Click*

reviewed by May

Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds
"As I Sat Sadly By Her Side"


Hey folks! See that bit in the sidebar that says "We won't play favorites"? Well, umm, I'm kind of tossing that one out the window for a moment, in that I'm playing a favorite by bringing this song/video to your attention, because it's by one of my favorite bands in the world and you wouldn't be encountering it otherwise -- this sucker's getting zero airplay on *any* Stateside music channel.

"As I Sat..." is a beautiful little song about disillusionment, and hating the human race, and kittens. In the video, Cave testifies like a gospel preacher to an empty room filled with mirrors (okay, so maybe it's not so empty) (there's nary a Bad Seed to be seen here, which is a shame, since they're a colorful bunch of folks and one of the greater band units of our time), while images flash across the surface of the glass, making for some fine-and-dandy lyrical parallels. Some frames of this video are so beautiful they hurt; some are a bit ridiculous, especially when Cave's getting a bit too into his pelvis/booty shake -- don't ask me where that comes from. He's an Englishman, they think differently from us Yanqui pigs. Anyway, the whole affair's really very delicately pretty, the piano riff's killer, and you owe it to yourself to check out somebody you wouldn't otherwise hear from. You can watch clips from the video, or the whole damn thing, at www.nickcave.net. Go forth and do.

reviewed by Chris Conroy