March 2014

Sometimes the best music video strategy is no music video.

Pearl Jam broke through on the back of a Single Video Therory: There was the classic "Jeremy" and then that was essentially it before fully re-embracing the traditional video on new album Lighting Bolt. 

Metallica didn't bother to make any videos for their first three albums. And they finally did let the cameras roll, the result was "One," an eight minute opus laced with film footage and dialogue from the 1971 film Johnny Got His Gun. And it was awesome.

And here we have Ray Lamontagne. He waited five albums and 10 years to release his first ever music video. And while I think we can all agree its not weighted with the same importance as either of those other examples, it's a sign that even the most organic and hermetic artists need to have some sort of visual, something to stake out a space on YouTube aka the world's biggest jukebox.

It's hard to shed a tear for your original MySpace friend Tom when he's apparently proof that $580 million can't buy you friends, but that doesn't stop Berlin pop act Anatopia from endeavouring on a Film Noir search for Tom and the colorful and creepy social network that changed the world (and then disappeared).