I have included this piece in my portfolio to highlight my enthusiasm to try out new and experimental ways of writing an article, and my ability to write well under severe time constraints and pressure.
The original article can be found here.
This review was written less than 45 minutes after the broadcast of Death Cab For Cutie's video for "You Are A Tourist" - the world's first live broadcast music video. This therefore makes this the world's first review of the world's first live broadcast music video.
It’s always exciting to see a “world’s first” event, especially when it involves matching up art and technology in a way that gets people interested in both, and opens the door for similar ventures in the near future. In some ways it’s surprising that no-one’s thought of doing something like this before, but while a live Lady Gaga or Britney Spears video may have received more attention and more views it would have lost something in the process. With a band like Death Cab for Cutie the focus is always on the bands output, rather than the band themselves and that’s why the focus was never going to be on what happens in the video, more on the production of the video itself. This is simultaneously good and bad for Death Cab. Yes, we all got excited about the new video for their new album – something that I don’t think has ever happened for a Death Cab song before – and it was very cool to watch it and know it was live. But after that it just becomes another music video on TV and it has to be able to compete with all other videos. And unfortunately I really don’t think this one does.
It’s always exciting to see a “world’s first” event, especially when it involves matching up art and technology in a way that gets people interested in both, and opens the door for similar ventures in the near future. In some ways it’s surprising that no-one’s thought of doing something like this before, but while a live Lady Gaga or Britney Spears video may have received more attention and more views it would have lost something in the process. With a band like Death Cab for Cutie the focus is always on the bands output, rather than the band themselves and that’s why the focus was never going to be on what happens in the video, more on the production of the video itself. This is simultaneously good and bad for Death Cab. Yes, we all got excited about the new video for their new album – something that I don’t think has ever happened for a Death Cab song before – and it was very cool to watch it and know it was live. But after that it just becomes another music video on TV and it has to be able to compete with all other videos. And unfortunately I really don’t think this one does.
Death Cab have an inconsistent track record with videos. “Soul Meets Body” was nice and fit the tone of the song well, and “Sound of Settling” did the same in a clever, innovative way. But though “Grapevine Fires” had some great animation it never really seemed to match up that well and kind of took too much attention away from the powerful, emotive lyrics and gentle melody of the song itself. And “Title and Registration” was just creepy. What’s notable though is that they are always trying to do something new, something that stands out from all the others. And the new one still does, even without the “live” gimmick. Unfortunately its experimental nature just doesn’t quite work as well as you’d hope.
The video itself was mostly a standard “playing through the song” video with some fancy lighting effects and dancers around it all. And that’s no surprise – I think that sort of video would have been predicted by anyone beforehand. But it really highlights the amount of editing and retakes that are usually involved in such videos. Shots just seemed a little too wide and movements too rehearsed – something we wouldn’t notice in a live show, but we are not used to on screen. Modern music videos (not to mention everything else on television and in films) are shot, re-shot, edited, focused, synced, dubbed and a whole host of other things even before a further load of after effects are stuck on them. And their made so well now that you (usually) don’t even notice them. Which is why it felt so strange to see it all done in one take.
I know it seems stupid to talk about all the things that weren’t there because they can’t physically be done in a live video, but my point is that in an age where we are so used to seeing videos of bands in extreme close ups with quick cuts, cgi and all that other stuff, Death Cabs “playing the song” video just can’t possibly hold up. Which is why I was a little disappointed when I realised that is all the video was going to be.
I really hope that this starts a new wave of live broadcast music videos, because I’d love to see a director put together a single shot video with a storyline or a meaning. Now that we’ve been introduced to this new idea of making a music video something exciting that you get to watch happen in real time along with everyone else it would be interesting to see how other directors and bands would incorporate other ideas with it.
I am saying all this assuming that Death Cab have actually recorded this and will be releasing this exact video to be shown on all music television channels afterwards. It would be extremely brave of them to make it a “one time only” viewing that you had to be there for, but it would be much more artistically satisfying for the audience (those of us who didn’t miss it at least...).
Back to the actual video however, other than the live concept there wasn’t really anything that special about it. The dancers were good, but went on a little too long at the end. The song has one of those slow fades with only one or two long notes and all the synchronised dancing was just too energetic and didn’t seem to fit it that well. The lights around the instruments and in the bandmembers suits just seemed a little tacky – like they decided at the last minute to make the band look more interesting and couldn’t think of anything better.
But really my main problem is that it never really felt right. It was always going to be there in your mind that you were watching this as it really happened, that was what made it interesting and cool in the first place, but you hoped it would still draw you in and represent the song well. But the set looked like a set, and the band looked like they were miming and everyone looked like they were trying to move in to the right positions and do the same thing they’d done in rehearsals. It looked the same way a stage show looks when it’s been filmed and your watching it back. Something’s missing that kills the illusion that you’re trying to enjoy. The green curtain comes up and you can clearly see the way everything’s been put together to create it and it takes all your attention away from anything important going on.
However none of this really matters because Death Cab for Cutie have broken new ground, made music, video and internet history and turned the standard music video in to an event that people can be excited about. It doesn’t matter that it won’t be watched as many times as a Lady Gaga video – and possibly even discussed less than one. They turned a music video in to something new and exciting again. For five minutes thousands of people all over the world were watching the same music video for the very first time, all at the same time. And probably only 75% of them were hoping something would go wrong.
Hopefully more bands and artists will follow in Death Cab For Cutie’s footsteps and create live music videos. And in time those making them will become more familiar with the process of creating a video in a single take, and more daring with their ideas so that we can enjoy big musical events like this, with great new music videos, along with a whole world of fans.