Suicide looms large as a way out, but love and passion also make appearances as ways through life in this powerful commentary on what singer/songwriter Sam Feeder views as the death trap of toxic masculinity.
"Delilah" may feel like the final chapter in the current Odyssey between director Vincent Haycock and Florence Welsh — ending where we began back in "What Kind Of Man" — but it's one of their most impressive clips yet. The setting is a seedy LA hotel where temptations and evil abound, but so does rebirth, as Florence gets imbued with a spirit that leads her above and beyond all that danger.
Vincent Haycock, director: "We filmed ‘Queen of Peace’ and ‘Long & Lost’ in Scotland, one of my favorite places I’ve ever been to or filmed. The coast of Scotland is breathtaking, beautiful and harsh, an aesthetic mix that both Florence and I have been very interested in during the making of these videos. The Scottish people are amazing and especially the town of Easdale, the small island that we lived on and filmed. We shot in the winter and it was cold, brutal and endlessly inspiring, which I think really helped the story of Florence’s struggle with her family, the younger innocence vs. the feuding violence of the men around her, etc. The end of the video was done in a single take, at the very last seconds of light during a stormy barge ride on a freezing sea. The effort and focus on both the actors and crew was so amazing, Florence delivers one of my favorite moments to date and it’s one of my proudest technical and narrative accomplishments."
Wise men enter prison with a brave face, but they also leave with fear as they step out into the unknowns of freedom. That's the crux of this short story of a music video Woody Harrelson as a long incarcerated man reconnecting with his daughter — played by real-life daughter, Zoe Harrelson — and the rest of his life.
"Song For Someone" serves as a thematic tie-in with Sundance series RECTIFY, about a perhaps innocent man who gets freed after 19 yers on Death Row.
A lot of things in this single-shot video are restrained compared to Flo's previous one. But this may be the calm before the storm. Director Vincent Haycock views the ongoing narrative as an interpretation of Dante's The Divine Comedy — he calls this clip "the first circle of Hell." If this is truly the start of a swarm of clips from this artist/director pairing, we may be in for a memorable journey.
How big, how blue, how beautiful, and how simply effective this refined tease to the new Florence + The Machine. A sensual, catharctic dance that could hold its own in any classic amphiteather.
First off, don't pay attention to the bullshit headlines about Johnny Depp being in the new Paul McCartney video. Not that they aren't true — he has a cameo in a performance set-up with Sir Paul and some blues musicians — but we've been there and done that. Go watch "My Valentine" which is All Depp, All The Time, or the star-studded "Queenie Eye" video. In this case, Johnny Depp is the least notable thing about this video, which I mean as a compliment to all involved.
"Early Days" imagines the story of a rock band from the roots-up, sprouting to life far away from money and fame — and far away from The Beatles' Liverpool hometown. We're down in The Delta, circa the late 1950s, where a mixed-race band is defying all kinds of odds to reach a level of purity, success and maybe even a little peace.
A hazy beach jaunt with a young lover segues into the noir nightime drive at the side of an older man, and then back again, until it all ends up afire in this evocative comeback for Lana Del Rey.
I daresay the age of the lyric video may be nearing the end, since the goal of most of them is not to let you learn the lyrics, but to have a cheap/quick visual to get get the song onto the world's #1 jukebox, YouTube. Also, reading sucks.
Lana Del Ray takes a different route here, presenting a loop clearly taken from the beach video she was spotted filming with director Vincent Haycock.
Call it a teaser. Or a visual. But it's definitely cooler and more evocative than most lyric videos.
