Saturday, April 14, 2007

It's Oh So Plagiarized

Time for this week's music video update!!

First, I take you back in time, to 1995. Michael Jordan had just returned to the Bulls after awkwardly playing baseball, the WB network made its debut, paving the way for Dawson's Creek and The Wayans Bros., and Bjork released this video, reflecting the joy America was feeling, directed by Spike Jonze:



There's so much to love about this video. Jonze's slow-mo verses and real time chorus is spot-on, the sets and costumes are right out of a Broadway musical (the only other place that delivery men are that happy, and I dare you to put a dancing mailbox in a music video and have it not be awesome.

Well, apparently Feist shares my admiration. You may remember Feist from such bands as Broken Social Scene or the single from her solo album, "Mushaboom." Here's the video for her latest single, "1 2 3 4."



Alright. Same bleak intro contrasting with the color and energy of the rest of the video. Same haircut. Same crane shots. But I don't want to label this video a complete rip-off. I mean, though they both end with the focus completely on the singer, Feist's video is somehow able to hide all of the dancers behind her small frame. That's sort of cool. And it is one continuous 3-minute shot, which is always impressive, but haven't we seen that somewhere else?



Maybe it's Patrick Daughters, "1 2 3 4"'s director, that should watch his back. I just checked out the video he directed for the aforementioned "Mushaboom." Once again, it's the same fucking video!!!! And while I think both Spike Jonze and Wes Anderson have grounds for kicking his ass, Daughters better keep his eye out for a petite Icelandic woman. When Bjork hears about this, it's not gonna be pretty!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

great post and great blog!