Frankie Cosmos - "Art School" (Official Music Video)

Earlier this year, Frankie Cosmos (aka Greta Kline) released her excellent full-band LP, Zentropy, and we didn’t really give it its proper due here. It’s absolutely fantastic, one of my favorite albums of the year. Not many people can extract so much emotion from songs that rarely travel over a minute in length, but she manages to create a whole world in just 18 minutes. Kline distills wisdom in whispers and platitudes, alternating between intimately personal details and grand dramatic statements that only she could pull off with such sincerity. After releasing a billion or so albums on Bandcamp prior to Zentropy, she had a firm handle on the songwriting side of things, so working with a full band allows these tracks to stretch their muscles. They sound self-assured and confident, which contrasts nicely with the lyrics themselves, which are mired in uncertainty and doubt. “Art School” opens the album, and it now has a very goofy video, which was directed by Sophia Bennett Holmes. Kline acts (?) like a Justin Bieber-obsessive: she watches the “Baby” video on repeat, jumps around on a bed that’s surrounded by Bieber posters, and even turns down a photo of boyfriend Aaron Maine to put all of her attention on the pop singer.