Archives for posts with tag: MTV

It appears that if you really want to get your music video seen, it’s best to not tell anyone who made it.

Enter the iamamiwhoami viral video series, featuring surreal imagery and dark, atmospheric electronic beats. So far, three videos have been released, each without any credit to the artist behind the music or the visuals. There have been a number of guesses (Nine Inch Nails/Trent Reznor, The Knife, Lady Gaga, Klaxons, Christina Aguilera[?]), but with no proof one way or another.

All we know is, they’re pretty awesome, and we’re excited to see where this viral series goes!

Guesses in the Trent Reznor camp have some weight to their claims, considering Reznor’s use of viral marketing for his Year Zero album, but everything at this point remains a guess. The Knife seem likely, considering they’ve emerged from hibernation with their avant-garde opera about Charles Darwin, “Tomorrow In A Year”, and of course, Lady Gaga has been heading towards the deeply strange over the course of the last year, so she’s in the running as well.

Our personal hope is that Taylor Swift has a dark, twisted side that we’ll see at the end of this viral campaign. Fingers crossed.

Go to iamamiwhoami’s YouTube page for the two other videos.

The music video has gone through a recent renaissance. Not on MTV, though, which now more than ever is a reality show-only channel, but online. Perhaps that doesn’t sound shocking in writing, but looking at the breadth of artists who are using the music video in innovative ways, it seems that the internet is evolving the video star.

Let’s start with something released this week by Pitchfork-loved NY band Yeasayer, whose “Ambling Alp” was released to anticipatory reviews and general bloggage the other week. They dropped the single alongside AmblingAlp.com, which is an interactive video, with a link to the MP3 of the track, and haunting ambient music (screenshot below). It’s an interactive “anti-video,” as it’s not synced up to the single at all, but still promotes the track, which is a post-Animal Collective world music-via-Brooklyn jam worthy of the praise it’s received.

From amblingalp.com

From amblingalp.com

(As a note, this reminds us a lot of the Arcade Fire’s brilliant Black Mirror video-site)

Next up is Oakland’s own Wallpaper, whose bizarre viral videos garnered the Auto-Tuned songwriter internet attention while recording his LP “Doodoo Face” last year. His official videos have gone the surprising route of embracing lo-fi grit in contrast to his slick yet self-aware R&B. His most recent video, “Getting Drip,” busts out some 80’s greenscreen and VHS effects with surprising aplomb. It’s not quite a viral video, but it goes to show that good ideas will work, even on VHS.

Finally, LA avant-pop genius Pop Levi saw the potential in YouTube and made a brilliant split-screen video for ‘Semi-Babe,’ which needs to be opened in two windows to get the full effect. Splitting the audio into two videos means that there are phasing effects not heard on the original single, adding a fun bit of chaos to the pop track.

Pop Levi Semi Babe

All of these videos see artists adapting to the internet, much like artists had to when MTV announced the prominence of the video back in the 80’s.

We’ll have more to say about this music video renaissance next week, so check the blog for a more in-depth analysis of what this means for music marketing and new artists making online video for their records!