Deadlines/Brief

Music videos are so 80s/90s, right? They belong with the era when MTV screened wall-to-wall vids instead of 'reality' TV? Try telling that to the millions who bought Gangnam Style; were they really simply loving the music? 1.6bn (and still climbing) have viewed the video on YT, not to mention the many re-makes (school eg, eg2), viral ads + celeb link-ups (even political protest in Seoul) - and it doesn't matter how legit it is, this nightmare for daydream Beliebers is making a lot of money, even from the parodies + dislikes. All this for a simple dance track that wouldn't have sounded out of place in 1990 ... but had a fun vid. This meme itself was soon displaced by the Harlem Shake. Music vids even cause diseases it seems!
This blog explores every aspect of this most postmodern of media formats, including other print-based promo tools used by the industry, its fast-changing nature, + how fans/audiences create/interact. Posts are primarily written with Media students/educators in mind. Please acknowledge the blog author if using any resources from this blog - Mr Dave Burrowes

Wednesday 23 February 2011

Joy Division's Control via S.Africa

Interesting vid; cheaply made, the vid relies on getting the most from the monochrome/B+W look, with a strange concept approach fitting the detuned dance track. The track itself is Joy Division filtered through Depeche Mode, which may partially explain the loudhailer (a common leitmotif in DMode vids and covers, both shot by Corbijn, whose influence on this vid is stark and strong), though described here as 'darkwave township house', adding a specifically S.African touch to two widely known genres within this hybrid. I'd read it as a play on race, with the white suit and whitening flour (black liquid is also applied) key signifiers, but could be entirely wrong!
The track, and vid, are featured on the website for the achingly hip mag Dazed and Confused.

No comments: