Radiohead
"I Might Be Wrong"


Now this is an odd little beast. No, not Thom Yorke, silly, although he does appear to display more genetic mutations than Wolverine, The Elephant Man, and Donatello (the one that does machines) put together. No, the odd beast I refer to is this, our second clip for "I Might Be Wrong." Earlier in the year we were subjected to a wanky internet-only video, and now they've put together a television-ready clip for the ostensible purpose of promoting their new live EP, entitled -- and this is a left-fielder -- I MIGHT BE WRONG.

Now that *seems* quite sensible. But this clip features the studio version of the song from AMNESIAC, not the live version anyone who shells out for the I MIGHT BE WRONG EP will get. If the video's supposed to make people want the music on the EP, it fails miserably, because (a.) it doesn't contain the music from the EP and (b.) the video itself doesn't make anybody want anything other than a nap. It's boring. It's uninteresting. It's too Radiohead for its own good, much like its predecessor. It features nothing but shots of the band members in the dark. Occasionally, director Sophie Muller reaches deep into the bag of accomplished auteur tricks and pulls out a golden oldie: the multi-image refracting lens made famous by Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody." That sucks, people.

"I Might Be Wrong" is a great single. And the I MIGHT BE WRONG EP is great too (I promise I paid money for it. Really. Honestly. What is this "Mor-Fee-Us" of which you speak?). But this... this, my friends, is crap. Unless you treasure every drop of goo that leaks from Thom Yorke's lazy eye, you can switch on over to BET when this one comes up in rotation. I know I will. For I have a burning need to see "Girls, Girls, Girls" for the 905,678th time.

reviewed by Chris Conroy

Tenacious D
"Wonderboy"


Does somebody other than Spike Jonze wanna do a video I can give a positive review to? I'm getting tired of the taste of his ass.

Since Tenacious D have been making sweet love to the music press for several months now, I'm sure you know their schtick -- two fat actors doing comedic rock music. "Wonderboy" is a delightful sort of Led Zeppelin pisstake, and Spike Jonze gives it a hilariously overblown swords-and-sorcery video to match. Snow, fire, slow-motion, a touch of extraordinarily lo-fi gore, and entirely too many double-exposure overlapping fades add up to a delightful and gleefully retarded package, sealed with a mandolin. Yes, a mandolin. Which rocks a thousand times harder than anything you listen to. The first time I saw this, I was sure it was the worst LORD OF THE RINGS trailer ever. Then, I decided it was the best. When it comes to epic stupidity LOTR is gonna have a hard time matching this shit. Bring it, Bilbo.

reviewed by Chris Conroy

Spiritualized
"Stop Your Crying"


So. This is a performance video. But it's good!

As it opens, Jason Pierce (a.k.a. Spiritualized, ever since he fired all his bandmates in a fit of pique) is standing alone in the darkness, spotlighted in solitary glow and quaveringly singing his verse. Then the chorus hits. The whole room is flooded with amber light and an orchestra, a horn section, a gospel choir, drummers, bassists, and I believe a guy playing the kitchen sink, are all revealed. You see, Pierce used over 100 session musicians to record his most recent album. And every last one of them appears to be in this video. Just the understated and beautiful cinematography of these sections would almost be enough to carry the video -- it's epic and moving and really quite impressive -- but as the song builds to its astonishing climax, the musicians go nuts, tossing their sheet music into the air and smashing everything in sight, including the chairs they're sitting in. Beauty and violence make for wonderful bedfellows -- just ask John Woo -- as fragments of wood spiral through the air in slow motion to the sound of strings and Pierce's quiet, stone-faced refrain: "Come on baby, stop your cryin'."

It's damn cool.

And without MTV2, I would go mad.

reviewed by Chris Conroy

The Strokes
"Last Nite"


We're not hip.

Not only is this the first review we've written in almost three weeks, but it confirms our status of "behind the curve." We're now officially the last internet publication that even farts in the general direction of music to mention The Strokes. I'm lead to believe that they are quite popular at the moment, or something. Mind you, everyone who ACTUALLY loves their album is a music critic and they got their copy for free already. So as of last tally, IS THIS IT? has racked up a whopping 9.5 units sold. The half-count is a guy in Minnesota who thought it was porn on DVD and returned it to Sam Goody the next day.

In any event, please allow us, the Ministers of Uncool (what happened to us? Just last month, we were the darlings of Astralwerks...!) to give these haircut-needing pansy boys a much-needed smackdown. Sure, "Last Nite" is actually a nifty song, and everyone likes electric guitars. By God it's un-American not to. But nobody likes Roman Coppola, or art-school dropouts pretending to live in the past, and this video gives us nothing but both -- "clever" direction that would have you think this was filmed in the late 70s and an uninspired performance by our indie darlings, who are reported to be absolutely incendiary live and who are therefore clearly phoning it in here. I'm sure there's a REASON they're phoning it in, mind you; it's not because they spent "last nite" snorting coke with Alicia Keys and 66% of Destiny's Child in the back of their new jet on the way to Rio on the record company's tab. I'm sure their vacant stares and stumbling gaits are a clever and ironic hipster "FUCK YOU!" to MTV or something along those lines. In which case I must remind them that the ultimate "fuck you" to the video culture was delivered back in 198-fucking-4 by The Replacements (please, please, PLEASE know what I'm talking about, readers) and that their laziness is not doing the trick.

Also, for no good reason whatsoever, Roman Coppola keeps intersplicing the footage with two frames of something stupid, like a game of tic-tac-toe or the night sky, in the process ruining the only coherent effect the video pulls off (its shitty decades-old variety show art direction). I'm sure there's a point to THAT too. Fucking film students.

I'm not asking for pyrotechnics and coochie dancers here, all ye collected Strokes. I'm just asking you to make a video that doesn't scream "We're snot-nosed indie brats." Unless, of course, under all the crap hair and vintage clothes and carefully-cultivated stage presence you really ARE snot-nosed indie brats. In which case I have no more time for you. Get yourselves back to whatever East Village basement you crawled out of and come back when you've got a schtick that didn't get old with Iggy.

reviewed by Chris Conroy