Dance Friday.

It is Friday morning, and I'm exhausted. If you are feeling similarly, here are two dance pop videos that will serve both as eye and ear candy.

Tiger Love: Gio Gio



I've been looping this all week at work. Not sure why the imagery of sliding around in raw egg makes me feel less bleary-eyed, but whatever works, right? It also reminds me of this milk-pillow-fight video by Para One.

The Amplifetes: Somebody New



How nobody I talk to knows about this band is beyond me. They have made me dance more than any other band has in the past 3 or 4 years, and are probably my favorite discovery of the year; I don't understand how they're not through-the-roof famous. If you heard the song first, you'd never think that the lead singer looks like this a well-dressed Brooklyn lumberjack. Brilliant.

Starkey - Lost In Space

I sadly don't usually read my GBH emails all the way through and click on every single link - it's usually more of a skimming for parties. But when I do click on every video and MP3, I'm rarely disappointed. GBH emails led me to this priceless gem a little while ago, and today was no different. When I started listening, I got into a very nostalgic, summer 2005 mood because it sounds a lot like Hide & Seek. Then the pace picks up a little and the visuals get more dreamy (space aesthetics are oddly present these days).



About halfway through, the thing explodes into a mass of heat and pressure and not being able to breathe. Picture post-rock meets electro. It's like getting rear ended by a car made of fire.

I'll stop typing now. Watch!

Kiss Me Forever

Alexandre shared this music video with me last week, and I've been thinking about it since then. It's called Kiss Me Forever, by Julien Doré. He was raving about the song and video, and when I watched it I understood why. It's pretty catchy, and makes you want to do a silly dance or pump your bike tires and zoom down the street. The video though is the best part - it's a kind of loony mix of spring colors, cold, and said silly dancing. And a bichon frise. The slight silliness, slight Frenchness, and particular style of catchiness all reminded me of M's video for Qui de nous Deux.


JULIEN DORE : KISS ME FOREVER (2011) by artemis181

Most of all, it reminded me of the fact that it's May, and bright pops of color are showing up in store windows, yet New York didn't seem to get the memo – it's been cold and rainy since March. Watching Kiss Me Forever makes me not care as much.

Shark Ridden Waters

Neal is on an aesthetics roll lately; he recently sent me this video for Shark Ridden Waters by Gruff Rhys* --



It sounds like a boppy version of Iron and Wine, with a hint of 70s. Similar to Joanna, I'm mostly taken by the video itself - it's shot beautifully and features this French actress Roxane Mesquida, whom I embarrassingly know nothing about. She is pretty captivating, and reminds me a little of Parker Posey (at least in this video). The whole thing blends the absurd, pretty and wistful seamlessly, which doesn't seem like an easy thing to do. Well done.

The inspiration for this album (Hotel Shampoo) is really interesting; in this bit he talks about it while setting up a domino-style layout of hotel products he'd collected from 15 years of touring. Cool stuff.



* Gruff Rhys was once the frontman of Super Furry Animals, which Neal also introduced me to years ago.

American Trash

I've lately been very music- and lifestyle-nostalgic for 2007. A visit to GBH.tv did the trick - check out this video for American Trash by Innerpartysystem --



As GBH put it, this is what it would look like if Adbusters made a music video. Pretty spot on, with the rough cut-out and overlayed mostly-pessimistic, sometimes-political text. The aesthetics also mildly reminded me of some other stuff I saw at MoMA last week - a bunch of hilarious posters from Guerrilla Girls, who are these gorilla-masked (I see what they did there) feminist artists who formed in the 80s and appear to be going strong today. Anyway, enjoy. It made me want to go back to the Dafterparty in the middle of the day.

Little Comets - Joanna

I am going to show you a music video that my friend Neal sent over. It's the debut single of a new band called Little Comets, and it's called Joanna. Already off to a good start, right? ^_^



Isn't that one of the most magical things you've ever seen? The colors and lights and scenarios remind me of what I see in my head when I read The Elephant Vanishes or After Dark. It reminds me a lot of how I used to feel in 2007, which is interesting because the album was mixed by the same dude who worked with MGMT.

There's not a lot out there about Little Comets yet, but I loved this line from their Wikipedia page: They are described to play 'kitchen sink indie' music, citing Debussy, Roald Dahl, Ella Fitzgerald and Paul Simon as influences. That might make some people's eyes roll out of their heads and out the door, but I was in a good mood.

Kinda Vampire Weekendish, no? Which also makes sense given the Paul Simon influence, I guess. Take a listen; what do you think?

The Sea and Cake: Weekend

Late this year I got a recommendation for The Sea and Cake's most recent album (which is actually 2 years old). I hadn't really thought about them since I was in graduate school, so I was excited to have a listen. I'm not through hearing the whole thing yet, but so far it's a bit more poppy than their usual chilled-out sound. It's pretty fantastic. I came across this video a few weeks ago and wanted to share. I'm not the type to miss the season I'm not in, but it's one of the most perfect music videos about summer and that carefree, young feeling that I've ever seen.



I started reflecting on this past summer in New York, which was filled with bike rides, barbecues, record stores, balconies, brunches, Brooklyn, bloody marys, and World Cup games (lots of good things seem to start with the letter B). It made me smile and want to listen to Mark Ronson and The Beach Boys as well, which I listened to a lot. Enjoy! And give the rest of Car Alarm a listen.

Yelle La Musique

I was just perusing the video section on GBH.tv and found this new Yelle video for La Musique:



This thing mesmerized me. Not only is Yelle's sound a lot more mature since I last heard her material, but the video seems to match it perfectly. I knew it was going to be a pretty interesting video from the beginning – it starts out with cut-outs of sumo wrestlers moving around on planets in a galaxy. Then you spot the heads of Kanye and Michael Jordan in a corner, and the entire thing explodes into cut-outs of pop culture icons moving around and dancing in a watercolored fade all over the place. Everything from the Brazil Jesus statue hula-hooping to Clint Eastwood, the Taj Mahal, and Justin Bieber have cameos. At one point a flaming car flies from the sky into a camper, which then explodes into a mountain of kittens. Paris Hilton sits on a huge version of her chihuahua. Popsicles fly through the air as cats play guitars on icebergs. Finally at 1:20 I realized that the whole thing was strikingly similar to the feel in one of my favorite videos of all time, Leave Me Alone by Michael Jackson:



Usually I question interpretations that are this close, but then I saw the Yelle video close with this little nod:



Awesome. Especially since Bubbles is heavily featured in his video. Thumbs up to Yelle, can't wait to hear the whole album. She's playing Highline Ballroom on 4th November; buy tickets! If her performance was incredible 3 years ago, think of how it will be this time around with this new material.

Lady Gaga feat. Beyoncé and whole bunch of other brands

Mike was kind enough to notify our office that the video for Telephone, by Lady Gaga feat. Beyoncé was released. It's nine minutes of flashy, entertaining stimuli:



Something that's hard to miss while the video rolls are all of the brands. Some look like blatant product placement, most notably Beats by Dre (susprise, they collaborated late last year); Virgin Mobile; and Polaroid (double surprise, she became a Creative Director @ Polaroid back in January). Others seem to be there for fun (the Pussy Wagon, Wonder Bread, and Miracle Whip). Here are a few I was able to catch:

Beats by Dre





Virgin Mobile







Diet Coke & Chanel



Plentyoffish.com and HP



I don't know how to classify this one, but it made me really, really happy. The Pussy Wagon from Kill Bill Vol. 1:





Polaroid:





Wonder Bread:



Miracle Whip:



I'm sure there were more that I didn't catch; feel free to leave your own in comments!

EDIT | Check the Buzzfeed article too; they caught one I missed (Little Debbie)!

HEARTSREVOLUTION

My intention for today was to share my February column with you, but the scanner room is currently occupied by a Very Important Phone Call. Instead I will provide entertainment in the form of a HEARTSREVOLUTION video. Heron wrote about HeartsChallenger last summer on our House of Naked site succinctly:

HeartsChallenger is a baby pink specialty truck from L.A. It operates in the same spirit as your typical neighborhood ice cream truck, but comes with some extra goodies. Founder Leyla Safai stocks the truck with rare ice cream brands from around the world, along with products such as Cobrasnake tee shirts, magazines, buttons, various mixtapes including some from her band HeartsRevolution and even toys.

So, a band. That's what HeartsRevolution is. a great band. This type of music (and video) usually has only been seen coming from Europe (namely France), but these guys – as Heron mentioned – are from Los Angeles (EDIT - There seems to be a little bit of confusion... someone commented this morning saying "Actually, the video makers are French : B. Lattanzio, J. Demery, G. Berg (but Latanzio lived a bit in L.A)." but GBH.tv says "This is some seriously slick LA shit (even though it looks like it was filmed in Barcelona or some other European city) being brought to you by two guys named Jean Demery and Bastien Lattanzio". I seem to trust both sources somehow... which will it be?) I saw their video for C.Y.O.A. this morning via GBH.tv and could not stop hitting play. I was excited to be able to understand the screaming Japanese in the beginning. The girl is cute, the colors are bright and the backdrop is the type in which I hope to find myself this weekend.


Enjoy, guys. Put on your silver RBK Customs and start dancing.

Magneto

I am about to share something very embarrassing. I wasn't going to post today because I would have been making stuff up, and a couple of really cool things are happening this week so I was going to wait for those. Sanithna (happy birthday!) reminded me of this today though, and I think I have to share. Even though it is very, very embarrassing.

When I was 7 or 8 years-old, my favorite song for about 2 months was called Vuela, Vuela by a boy band called Magneto. I guess they were the other version of Menudo or something. I just searched the video, and well... here it is.


Seeing those dance moves and picturing myself being enamored by these guys in my silly youth... well, I hit the ceiling. About once a week something happens that makes me laugh so hard tears stream down my face. This was this week's. Last week it happened twice though (once because of this and once because of a patio furniture incident).

So, I wonder if these dance moves could ever be brought back. Fashion seems to cycle around a lot but I don't know if there is any hope for this Vuela, Vuela material. anyone?

Hadouken!

I am still going nuts over here, so here is some visual and audio stimulation to hold you over. I have been watching this video since mid-May and have no clue why I haven't written about it before. It's a band called Hadouken! from Leeds. I guess they fall under grime (their MySpace page says indie/metal/garage. Get ready for low fi paper cutouts on a neon background.


GBH put it well with "Leave it to the fucking Europeans to finally get the rock and hip hop cross-over to work." I'm going to have to agree. In any case, I've got to love a band that named themselves after a Street Fighter move.

Army of Lovers

I will wait until I return from South America to talk about it; I want to include photos with stories, and my camera cable is at home. But anyway, hello from São Paulo!

I've been in such a good mood here in Brazil that I wanted to surround myself with more related stimuli last night. I remembered watching this video all the time when I was eight or nine years old:


Isn't that cute? I fell asleep with that playing last night.

Onto my point. I then started thinking about all the other videos I had seen when I was that age. All I watched on television in Puerto Rico at that time was a channel called The Box. I have no clue if they had it in the U.S. or not. It was a music video channel where everyone voted by telephone on what would play next. While videos played, you would see the three competing videos on the side, with their vote scores tallying up in real time. It was so exciting for me. I don't think I was ever allowed to vote, but I used to cheer on my favorite videos (usually either R.E.M.'s Losing My Religion or Guns N Roses' Don't Cry) and guess what the winning video would be.

At one point, these videos by a band called Army of Lovers played all the time. People kept voting for them. I had forgotten all about Army of Lovers until the name popped into my head this morning. I remembered enough to search for the two videos I would see all the time, Crucify and Obsession. I found both on YouTube, thank goodness. I started watching them and couldn't stop giggling at how ridiculous they were. catchy, but ridiculous.


The first thing I thought was that the girl in this video looks a lot like this underage go go dancer I see at dance parties in NY all the time. I then thought to myself, "This is what I watched when I was eight years old?"

So, I am curious. Does anybody else remember this band? I looked them up on Wikipedia and read that some of their videos were banned on MTV (but that they were quite big in Europe for a couple of years). Anybody? Ha, I can't stop watching these. They're great.

Colorsmash

I can't stop watching this video for Girls by Calvin Harris.



Was it American Apparel's thing with blocks of solid-colored merchandise to start this trend? I recently saw a Feist video with a similar concept, too.