Music Videos
Of course, I’m referring to that cool song by The Coup:
Though I also like the similarly titled “We Are The One”:
Love this one!
P.S. This clip is a little different from the actual music video. I tried to put the music video up first, but the great big record company made sure that it would disappear right away. The clip here is part of a short film that Kate Bush made (also starring Miranda Richardson) called The Line, the Cross and the Curve. The IMDb has the best description of this plot:
A singer struggles to dance well in rehearsal with her band. A power outage leaves her alone in the studio, reviewing her life, when a mysterious woman appears through the mirror and gives her a pair of Red Shoes. The cursed shoes dance beautifully, but endlessly. The singer is drawn irresistibly into the fey world beyond the mirror, where she must redeem three magic symbols from the mysterious woman in order to obtain release from the cursed shoes.
Dailymotion has the whole film in seven installments. “Eat the Music,” in my opinion, is by far the best part.
Though I think the Utah Saints’ treatment of this song is more exciting musically, since I posted it two days ago, I’ve been repeatedly turning to the original, “Cloudbusting,” especially to watch the video. What I really like about this song/video is the ambitiousness behind it. Although Patti Smith had ventured into the story of Peter and Wilhelm Reich a decade earlier in “Birdland” (on the album Horses), Kate Bush’s piece was much more a pop song aimed at mainstream success, which makes it even more interesting that it dealt with this subject matter. (That’s one great thing about Kate Bush: she so often bases her songs on unusual and intriguing subjects – not a common phenomenon in pop music when she reached her peak of popularity in the mid ’80s (when this came out) and probably even less common these days.)
For those who don’t know what “Cloudbusting” is about, Wikipedia sums it up nicely:
The song is a look at a special relationship between a boy and his father. It describes psychologist Wilhelm Reich’s arrest and imprisonment through the eyes of his son, Peter, who wrote his father’s story in A Book Of Dreams, published in 1973, on which the song is based. Wilhelm Reich is the inventor of the cloudbuster….
The music video, directed by Julian Doyle and conceived by Terry Gilliam and Kate Bush, features Donald Sutherland playing the father, Wilhelm, and, most famously, Bush playing the young boy, Peter.
There is a very interesting review of Cheb i Sabbah’s new album, Devotion, at Ethnotechno. A couple of excerpts here:
Devotion, like the record of this name, is concerned with participating in the Self. What should also be expressed, as has been with all of Sabbah’s work, is the necessity of evolution in these art forms. Hence while these eight songs are based on traditional, indigenous songs and ideas, he has made the presentation of the music completely unique . . . .
In fact, what is true of “Jai Bhavani” is what separates all of Sabbah’s work in Indian music: Turn up the bass and drums, keep the melodic aspects (flutes, strings) woven within the texture of rhythm, and cap it off with some of the most beautiful vocals around. Hence the hypnotic rhythm created both by the drums and Rana Singh’s voice on “Koi Bole Ram Ram.” What Sabbah has done in his forty-four year career in turntablism is understand how to bridge numerous things, generations and cultures topping that list. Taking Singh’s lyrics about the essence underlying divine names, he moves it from a ritual gathering to a dance floor (another form of ritual gathering, really). Music that was important for one culture’s mythology becomes relevant to the world . . . .
Throughout his nine-year career on Six Degrees, Sabbah has redefined the way we experience the folk music of India, Pakistan, Morocco and Algeria. He has brought it up to date for a technologically-inclined, digitally-consumed Western audience without sacrificing an iota of integrity. That is, he has made the very notion of devotion sonically relevant to people who would have otherwise never happened to experience the rich traditions of these cultures. As the title aptly suggests, every one of these sixty-two minutes is filled with devotion. Regardless of the form you may or may not subscribe to, the essence is right here.
Along with the review, Ethnotechno were good enough to post Cheb’s new YouTube clip – a nice snippet of interview and good (albeit brief) concert footage:
P.S. According to Six Degrees, the release date is January 29. They provide a free download for one song, Qalanderi.
Also found via Pull Up The People… This is M.I.A.’s “World Town” set to Bollywood (and Kollywood) film clips. This is fantastic!
A couple of months back, I wrote a post on Nazia Iqbal, a singer from the North-West Frontier of Pakistan who is very popular in that area and in Afghanistan. That was a more traditional example of Pashto music (if I’m not mistaken), and this is something a bit different. Personally, I think it’s great that she’s branched out and is trying some kind of fusion, with a modern dance beat, etc. (Actually, it sounds much more Punjabi to me – which would make sense, I guess, if it’s based on an Indian song, as the notes at YouTube say – called “Ek Pardesi Meri Dil Legaya”). I also do appreciate her attempt at English. (People are saying it isn’t very good(?), but from my perspective…I’m simply charmed by the accent.)
Judging by comments at YouTube, some Pashtuns are quite offended at her departure from their tradition, not to mention the dancing. Personally, I think that’s really too bad (not that they would care about my opinion – I shudder to think what some of those same people would want to do to me, if they met me). And actually, I’m very glad we all have a chance to hear and see such fine Pashtun singers.
Regarding, the dancers, I would agree on another point, that maybe they’re not so great, but I think they liven up a bit more in this video than in others that I’ve seen – though that also seems to offend some people more (oh well).
I do think it’s strange that Nazia Iqbal would want to fill her videos with dancers who aren’t nearly as pretty as she is. But maybe those are just my standards. (And I guess the dancers are a little younger – maybe that’s part of the reason? Who knows…)
Anyway, I’ve enjoyed this one; I hope other people do too.
[P.S. Six months later, revisiting this post with a much more extensive Bollywood education… Of course it’s based on Ek Pardesi Meri Dil Legaya! That makes it even more amusing…
It’s the official video for “Paper Planes.” And she’s selling hero sandwiches in downtown Brooklyn. So how could I not post it?
Dances on the Footpath 