Trying To Be Cool with Phoenix, Canada and a Double-Dutch One Take Video
Imagine a funhouse designed by an acid-eater fan of Rube Goldberg, Andy Warhol and Salvador Dali. Then imagine precisely plotting out a one-take video filled with delightful nonsense. Then, halfway through, you say fuck it, and the dancers come out for a huge routine that would make Stanley Donen proud (or envious).
But, wait. Throw all that away. What's really going on here is a controlled experiment in chaos. Two cameras taking turns shooting a continous 16 beats for a one take "relay race" of a one-take video.
I like to think it's a comment on the continual one-upmanship in the music video world. You need a stunt to get noticed and after a while you're faced with the challenge of what comes next — go ask OK Go, who went from backyard dance routine to dance routine on treadmills to a Rube Goldberg extravaganza to a dog ballet to a musical roadshow to, shit, let's just let the fans make a video.
It's a forever escalating/exhausting war of trying to cool and get attention, with every victory more shortlived than the last. And that is a very beautiful, or scary thing.
