Friday Night Videos: Those Wacky Brits
Muse: Knights of Cydonia (2006)
A while back I promised you the awesomest Muse video ever. Here it is! It’s as if the band and the video director saw Firefly and said, you know, what that needs is more of everything. The Vulcan neck pinch I can understand, and I can almost give the Cylons a nod of approval, but unicorns? I can’t believe Muse released this as a single. Bombast plus vocals not starting for some two minutes does not normally make for a hit.
(And thanks to Storme for the suggestion.)
Pulp: Bad Cover Version (2002)
What kind of video do you do for a song about how your old girlfriend’s new boyfriend is just a bad version of you? Do a bad cover version of the song, complete with celebrity imitators. It gets really weird at the 2:55 mark when a Jarvis Cocker imitator shows up, only to have Jarvis himself play Brian May there at the very end.
Since that’s plenty of Britishness for one update, how about a video of French pantomime artist Jerome Murat? For bonus points, tell me how many arms he has.
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Comment by spambrian
I think we should start shooting in The People’s Republic of Socialist Romanistan
Posted on January 19, 2007 at 3:41 pm
Comment by Kat
Actually, I don’t think the Muse video was referring to Cylons. Instead, I think it was a referenc to Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. If you notice when the girl gets rescued from the noose, she’s wearing a helmet. If I remember correctly, those are the same helmets they wore in Buck Rogers.
Posted on January 20, 2007 at 10:20 am
Comment by Jess
I agree, that is the awesomest Muse video ever, as well as one of the best videos of 2006. I have really enjoyed all of The Killers’ recent videos, too, especially “Bones” (directed by Tim Burton). Rock videos are starting to get more creative again. Unfortunately, we also get the bottom of the barrel to counteract the coolness (cf. Hinder, “Lips of an Angel”).
Posted on January 21, 2007 at 12:03 pm
Comment by Stephen
Oh, huh, maybe those are Buck Rogers helmets.
Can I just say that I had never seen the “Lips of an Angel” video before, and I was happier then?
Posted on January 21, 2007 at 8:28 pm
Comment by Jeff
I don’t recognize the robots in the Muse video (though they don’t look like Cylons to me). However, I’m about 99% sure Kat’s right about the girl at the end and Buck Rogers. It’s not just the helmet. Her in that white uniform makes me think of Erin Gray.
(her IMDB page has photos from the show that line up pretty well)
Side note: I kinda like the music… which pretty much proves Stephen right on his hunch that it shouldn’t have been a single.
As for the Pulp video, I officially suck. Not only can I not figure out even most of the artists, I’m not even sure which of the ones I recognize are real and which are being acted. *bows head in shame*
Sorry. Didn’t get far enough in on the Murat video to make a guess on the arms. When you invent that time machine, I insist that you give me that two and a half minutes back.
Posted on January 21, 2007 at 10:29 pm
Comment by Limax
That Muse video was really awesome. I’m going to need to see that again at some point. As for the Pulp video, I figured out some of the ’stars’, but not a whole lot since I usually listen to radio. And with the Murat video, I’d say two. That was a very clever switch he made, though.
Posted on January 22, 2007 at 12:36 pm
Comment by Kat
Damn my curiosity. Lips of An Angel is an insipid video to go along with an insipid song. Blech.
Posted on January 23, 2007 at 10:40 am
Comment by Paul O'Brian
Parts of that Muse video, especially the villain, somehow reminded me of the old Tom Petty “You Got Lucky” video. I wonder if the CD stuff in this will look as weird in 25 years as the LP and cassette player in the Petty video do now?
As for the Pulp video, I think I recognized most of the artist parodies — what was most impressive to me was that not only did they tend to look like their counterparts, they often sounded uncannily like them too. Some of them I even recognized by voice before I got a good look at the face or costume.
Posted on January 23, 2007 at 5:57 pm