9/27/2012

Azealia Banks – “Luxury” Video



Azealia Banks is in the news for a not-great reason this morning: As Pitchfork reports, she’s involved in a Twitter feud with Munchi, the producer behind her Fantasea mixtape track “Esta Noche.” Munchi is saying that she used the track without permission, then announced plans to release it as a legit commercial single, and Munchi refused, turning down a five-figure payday on it. He’s been going in on her on Twitter, and she’s responded with “I suggest you shut the fuck up… Seriously.” Yikes!

But here’s a good reason to pay attention to Banks this morning: The smooth and glamorous new video for “Luxury,” a hard and sinuous Machinedrum-produced dance track from Fantasea. In director Clarence Fuller’s video, she poses hard against a black-and-white New York cityscape.

9/26/2012

No Doubt – “Push And Shove” ft. Busy Signal, Major Lazer



Returning ska-pop superstars released their new album Push And Shove this week, and now there’s a video for the title track, a collaboration with Major Lazer and dancehall star Busy Signal. Diplo and Busy Signal don’t show up in the video; instead, it shows the band drunkenly traipsing across a black-and-white cityscape. Sophie Muller, the band’s longtime collaborator, directs.

Colin Munroe - "The Fight of My Life" feat. Pusha T (Official Video)



Colin Munroe - "The Fight of My Life" feat. Pusha T (Official Video) from the mixtape, #UnsungHero. Directed by Philip Sportel for Mad Ruk Entertainment

Joey Ramone – “New York City” (feat. Anthony Bourdain, Reggie Watts, and Andrew W.K.)



Joey Ramone remains the busiest rockstar in the afterlife. Earlier this year, he dropped his posthumous album “…ya know?”, and now he’s back with its accompanying video for “New York City”. Directed by Greg Jardin, the three-and-a-half minute ode to the Big Apple gallops across the metropolis through a series of eclectic cameos. From the likes of Anthony Bourdain, Reggie Watts, and Andrew W.K. to local citizens who pay an arm and a leg to stay within its concrete confines, everyone joined in to lend Ramone a hand. Watch the clip below.

9/25/2012

Neil Young & Crazy Horse – “Walk Like A Giant”



When Neil Young & Crazy Horse debuted “Walk Like A Giant” live during their tour last month, the song frequently edged around the 20-minute mark. The version included on the band’s forthcoming Psychedelic Pills comes in at 16 minutes, but the video for the track fades out at four and a half. Still, it still feels pretty damn epic. It’s the first studio recording of original music we’ve heard from Neil with Crazy Horse since 2004′s Greendale; the clip is a montage of random b&w footage of historical icons (Einstein, the atomic bomb, the railroad, Bigfoot) interspersed with color shots through a kaleidoscope. It’s pretty weird. Of course the song is an absolute beast regardless of its visual accompaniment.

Animal Collective - "Today’s Supernatural" on "Conan"



Last night, Animal Collective, who don’t exactly spend a ton of time on the late-night talk-show rounds, came through Conan and played their frantically dubby Centipede Hz single “Today’s Supernatural.” They brought their trademark total lack of stage presence and performed in what looked like a series of glowing shark mouths, presumably inspired by the Centipede Hz cover art. I wonder how Conan managed to convince them not to play a half-hour jam of unreleased material.

GLEE - Full Performance of "Celebrity Skin"



The makeover-themed episode airs on Thursday night

Hole's "Celebrity Skin" has been Glee-ified. A cover of the title track from the Courtney Love-led band's 1998 album will feature in Thursday night's episode, TV Line reports (via Vulture). Evidently the episode is makeover-themed, so Love's sneered opening line — "Oh, make me over" — might've played a part in this, ahem, theatrically over-the-top rendition.

If Courtney's complaining, à la Gotye, she isn't doing it via her official Twitter account. In fact, Love's account has retweeted more than one comment with links to the video. Tacit approval? No word yet from "Celebrity Skin" co-writer Billy Corgan, either, however clearly somebody had to have granted the show approval to use the track. Though it's kinda fun to imagine Courtney and Billy in the male and female roles here. What do these lovable kids know about "demonology," anyway?

Unnatural Helpers - "Medication"



A man takes his prescription pills and is haunted by melting faces.

Dum Dum Girls – “Lord Knows”



“Lord Knows,” the lead single from the new Dum Dum Girls EP End Of Daze, is one of the prettiest songs to come down the pike in the last few months. And in the track’s new video, from director Christin Turner, all four Dum Dums play veiled witch brides who summon a shirtless dude from a flaming column.

Lavender Diamond – “Everybody’s Heart’s Breaking Now” (Official Music Video)



Official music video for the song "Everybody's Heart's Breaking Now" from the album Incorruptible Heart. Directed by Maximilla Lukacs

Crystal Castles - “Plague”



We first head Crystal Castles’ goth-y, bombastic “Plague” back in July, and now, only two months later, we’ve got a clip to go with it. Directed by Ivan Grbin, the video depicts what looks a woman possessed, flailing violently and helplessly in an empty hallway. Then, there’s an especially unnerving 30-second segment (around 1:54) that inexplicably moves the action to another woman in a ballet studio before shifting back to the original scene. It’s just a really disturbing video, all told.

Kid Koala – “5 Bit Blues” (Official Video)



Proving there’s more use to them then Xeroxing fannies, Canadian DJ Kid Koala enlists the power of a photocopier in the music video for “5 Bit Blues”. Koala and company pair the office prankster’s favorite tool with a FUJI instant camera to print out documents/Polaroid snapshots displaying various lyrics and musical parts (“rain” on a sheet of paper, a picture of a sampler, etc.) as they occur in the song. The end result is an interesting dissection of the interplay between the visual and the auditory. It’s also a far better use of printer ink than scans of anyone’s pasty white derrière, no matter the motive or how well it comes out.

Miike Snow – “Pretender”



A person’s first festival can be an overwhelming experience, something Jean Noel learns firsthand in Miike Snow’s music video for “Pretender”. Noel (the same large-nosed character who appears in the group’s previous three videos) wanders around Los Angeles’ HARD Summer Fest. Along the way, he’s harassed by random concertgoers, dances his face off, and encounters an all-too-brief brush with stardom. Relive your own festival de-virginization (which hopefully didn’t involve leather pants in 90 degree weather) when you click play below.

Green Day: "Stay The Night"



Green Day is giving Sigur Rós a run for its money for the most music videos released behind one album.

We’ve already seen visuals for “Oh Love” (plus its explicit version), “Kill the DJ”, “Nuclear Family”, and now here are some more for “Stay the Night” (via RollingStone.com). It’s another in-studio affair — sans the naked models.

The video’s release comes just a day after Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong revealed that he’s entering treatment for substance abuse. As a result, the band has canceled a number of promotional appearances in support of their new album, ¡Uno!, out tomorrow via Reprise.

9/24/2012

Sigur Rós - Ekki múkk (Starring Aiden Gillen, a.k.a. Mayor Tommy Carcetti From "The Wire")



Sigur Rós' ongoing Valtari Mystery Film Experiment, in which 12 directors create videos for songs from their latest album, continues with a clip for "Ekki Múkk", directed by filmmaker Nick Abrahams.

The video stars Irish actor Aiden Gillen, perhaps best recognized for his work as Mayor Tommy Carcetti in "The Wire", getting close with snails and other forest creatures. Folk singer Shirley Collins provides the voice of a snail. As Abrahams notes on Sigur Rós' website, this is "a taster" for a longer feature film.

Aimee Mann – “Labrador”



Aimee Mann – “Labrador” (Dir. Tom Scharpling)

It’s best if you watch ‘Til Tuesday’s “Voices Carry” video beforehand, but you should be doing that anyway. Some dazzling meta-narrative fireworks here: Aimee Mann, playing herself, playing a younger version of herself, looking just as disgusted as she did in the original video but for different reasons. Jon Hamm, playing Tom Scharpling as a sleazy huckster cabdriver type. Jon Wurster, being as wooden and hammy as the situation demands but somehow still not equaling the pure awfulness of the guy in the original video. Everyone involved in this thing deserves a massive high-five, like the kind that leaves your hand stinging for a few minutes after.

Calvin Harris – “Sweet Nothing” Video (Feat. Florence Welch)



Recently, Florence Welch, of …+ The Machine fame, lent her crazy rocket-launcher wail to “Sweet Nothing,” the new single from EDM anthem-generator Calvin Harris. She also shows up in the song’s video, playing a lounge singer at a dingy British strip club, and she goes into onstage conniptions while her significant other, for reasons I definitely don’t understand, catches a Guy Ritchie movie beatdown outside.

Diplo – “About That Life” Video (Feat. Jahan Lennon)



“About That Life,” the excellent and deeply uncharacteristic new song from Diplo and former PO PO member Jahan Lennon — a track more concerned with strummy psych-rock transcendence than dance-floor insanity. And we’ve already got the video for the song. Directors @LILINTERNET and Jack Cearnal go so heavy on hazy imagery that the video, appropriately enough, comes off looking like the acid-trip scene from a late-’60s movie.