A twofer of a video for Everthing Now tracks "Put Your Money On Me" and "We Don't Deserve Love." The "Money" side is a bit more fun, featuring a cameo by Toni Collette as the corporate exec who lures the band into crass commercialization — perhaps as a means to pull off a casino heist? — but the lonesome "Love" side might prove to be more resonant in the long run.
The song might sound ABBA, but the lyrics and the video make it seem like we shouldn't get too accustomed to our instant-gratification culture, especially if the future is as barren and dire as it looks in this video.
"I'm not interested in something that's not all-in"...
Return to the Reflektor ball with Arcade Fire and director Khalil Joseph with this music video "Porno" and the corresponding feature-length film The Reflektor Tapes, chronicling the creation and subsequent tour in support of the group's ambitious 2013 album.
"Porno" is a haunting multi-layered piece, ping-ponging from bliss to chaos as it jumps from the recording studio in Haiti to an arena stage and back and forth again.
This is about as off-the-cuff and loose as we've seen Arcade Fire in a video, with frontman Win Butler shooting this lo-fi mix of band performance and literally musical art.
Off goes the hair, on goes the bra and so Spider-Man actor Andrew Garfield's gender-swap journey begins...
A honky tonk crowd greets him with uneasy stares that, of course, leads to outight brutality. But, there's an escape hatch of music, even if it's just in his mind... Soaring choreography transports him from the on-the-floor pummeling to a place where his tormentors are nothing more that a dance troupe ushering him to heaven, which in this case is a catharctic climax on-stage with Arcade Fire.
Hopefully he's also up there rocking with Hedwig...
You know Andrew Garfield as Spider-Man; Arcade Fire knows him as one of their bigger super-fans. So, not a huge surprise to see the actor will appear in the band's upcoming video. But, the location (Coachella) and the teased set-up (Garfield is in drag/disguise) both likely rank as unexpected.
This is an unofficial music video I've created for Joan of Arc by Arcade Fire (from their new album, Reflektor). Footage from the following films was used in this video: The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928), directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer; Jeanne d'Arc (1900), directed by Georges Méliès; and Häxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages (1922), directed by Benjamin Christensen.
He sells flowers on a streetcorner all day, comes home for a spaghetti dinner, prodding his youngest son to speak spanish and his eldest to spare him a drive to his friend's house. At nightfall they all mine different dreamscapes, but she's at the center of all of them — only existing in their thoughts until they hopefully meet on the other side.
Actress Greta Gerwig feels the spirit in this dance explosion for Arcade Fire "Afterlife," with multiple settings that are indeed more like a traditional music video than a "live" performance.
2) Why should lyric videos stop at just one song? Especially when your source material is the feature film Black Orpheus, thus providing ample material to take you through the whole album.
So, if you enjoyed the "Afterlife" lyric video, you should love this expanded version for Arcade Fire's entire new album, Reflektor...
It's billed as a lyric video, but it's something else really: It's a recut of the classic Brazilian Carnival film Black Orpheus to play more like an ode to music's immortal powers.
The stars came out for the Arcade Fire TV special that aired immediately after the band's Satruday Night Live premiere and is now streaming online via The Creators Project @ YouTube. James Franco, Ben Stiller, Bono, Aziz Ansasri, Eric Wareheim, Bill Hader, Zach Galafianakis and Michael Cera all make cameos in a sort-of late night variety show that's funnier, weirder and less serious than you might expect.
Not many bands have the clout to get something this iconoclastic on broadcast TV, but even fewer have the balls to take this kind of risk.
