Foo Fighters-"Learn to Fly"

In Foo Fighters music video for the song “Learn to Fly,” the band takes everyone’s worst fears of flying and uses it to make a witty, comedic music video with a lot of action packed moments. This movie has a target’s just about every American who has flown on an airplane and highlights on the endless possibilities that could go wrong while in the air. David Grohl, Foo Fighters Lead singer, plays the role of a wide variety of characters all to make a very unpleasant plane flight, seem quite bizarre. In one of his roles, he plays a very obese female passenger who is the type of person no one wants to sit next to on a plane because of her size. The music video shows the passengers awkwardness as Grohl squeezes her way to her seat. The audience can laugh at this situation, as it sometimes is an occurrence that happens while boarding a plane.

In Grohl’s other characters, his purpose was to invoke that same emotional response of laughter and surprise for the viewers of the video. He played the role of a pilot, a young girl madly in love with the band, and the role of himself (as the lead singer of the band). In his role as the pilot, Grohl ends up accidently being drugged with Cocaine that Jack Black (another character in the movie) forgets to take out of the coffee maker for the whole plane, in an attempt to smuggle drugs on the flight. This phenomenon lead to the almost near crashing that the plane underwent, until David Grohl’s true character arose—that of himself. When Grohl played himself, he was fearless, heroic and ready to save the day. Because the movie portrayed him to having those heroic traits, Grohl was able to land the plane at the end of the movie and save the day. The video was successful in making Grohl a star, something that needed to be done so that fans of the band Foo Fighters will see Grohl as a star having all of those heroic qualities in real life. The message behind the multiple characters that Grhol played was that he can be anyone, and do anything, therefore making him successful in the eyes of his audience. While the movie did go on a stretch that anything can truly happen on a plane, it does make a point that with the right mindset, anyone can be a hero and save the day!

Kanye West - Runaway (Video Version) ft. Pusha T

Although Kanye is considered by a lot of people to be a jerk, he does make really creative videos. In his music video “Runaway” his concept is not as straight forward, but his visualizes and the movement within the music video is very appealing to the audience. I know that when I watched the video, I basically paid most of my attention to the ballerinas dancing and what their movements signified. Honestly, I don’t know the reason behind their movements, but at times their movements are sharp and then it at times their movements were very fluid. Whatever the case may be, the ballerinas dancing and Kanye rapping seemed to gel perfectly. The music video is only an excerpt of a thirty minute movie that has more to do with Kanye and his love interest, The Phoenix. The phoenix just so happens to be sitting at the table in this excerpt of his movie.This music video has been raved by many critics as one of Kanye’s best and gorgeous videos he has ever created.

Here is the link to the full link video Runaway by Kanye West:
http://youtu.be/Jg5wkZ-dJXA?hd=1

Bob Sinclar - World, Hold On

The video was so cute and creative to me. In this music video, a little kid uses his toys to combat an asteroid heading towards Earth. In the beginning, the child is making a spaceship with his toys while his other toys come to life and dance, yet he doesn’t take notice. Bob Sinclar, the creator of the song, appears as a D.J using cookies as records to spin during this portion. After, the creation of the spaceship, the boy goes into outer space and destroys the asteroids with basketball. When he returns to Earth, he is greeted with accolade. His mother comes over a gives him a kiss which ultimately wakes him up from the dream. Bob Sinclair did an amazing job with the concept and correlating the concept to the lyrics. Basically, the main point of the music video is that children are the future protectors of the world.

Tighten Up-Black Keys

This video relates to so many things when growing up. Being forced to play with kids you didn't like just because your parents were friends. Everyone had to do that once in a while. This video also relates to the chase of an attractive person. Even fighting over the same person. The video eventually shows how men will digress to childish acts when in the vicinity of an attractive woman. The Black Keys did a great job of comparing the acts of men to the acts of boys. Very similar. The kids start a fight over the girl, and the parents start a fight over the mom. Having said that I think this video just had EVERYTHING! Playground fights, an attractive women, and doughnuts. Also the kids lip-syncing. It gets me every time.

Arcade Fire - The Wilderness Downtown

This next video needs the internet browser Google Chrome to work. It’s described as a “Chrome Experiment” and uses one of Google’s most innovative creations, Google Maps and Street View.



Arcade Fire has created this amazing video, utilizing tools that most bands wouldn’t think to use, such as the different mediums of viewing with Google maps and multiple windows. They even made the music more interactive by adding the drawing tool during a segment of the video. This video is a great example of connecting to the audience with their visuals. Their song, titled “The Wilderness Downtown” literally brings the wilderness, all of the animated trees, into the home town of the viewer. We’re able to reminisce, watching familiar scenery appear during the music video and are captivated by the interactive birds and trees appearing in our old neighborhoods.

Sour - Hibi no Neiro

This Japanese band rounded up a group of his fans from around the world and created this music video, filmed on each of their Macbook Pro webcams. This video would have required immense preplanning, as in each section, none of the webcam videos are cut and edited and everything is timed perfectly.



This video completely relates to this generation. With all of the crazy technology helping to globalize the world and bring people from all across the planet into each other’s bedrooms with the click of a button, every student with a laptop or cell phone understands. The message the video sends about the interconnectedness of the globe and people from all different cultures able to enjoy the same music and even make a music video from their own homes is an amazing sign of peace and long-distance community.

The Chemical Brothers - Let Forever Be

This music video is often described as an acid trip on many websites displaying the video. It shows the daily routines of a girl, while jumping over to her fantasy world and showing the trippy mental state she’s actually living in. The scenes are amazingly choreographed and almost no special effects are used, as actual sets, costuming and cardboard cut-outs are used to create a kaleidoscope effect in her fantasy world. Although some speculate that this song is about a crystal meth’s addiction and how it sucks, that theory hinges on a debate over one lyrical line that may or may not be about the drug. So from a more positive perspective, this video could be about how the day-to-day life can be so mundane that it makes you crazy.

Kids

MGMT took a unique approach to something everyone goes through when they are growing up. That the world is scary but adults seem to forget what it is like so we are on our own in the big scary world full of monsters. The video takes you through a day in the life of a toddler. We are so small and new to the world at that time everything seems scary. By making all the people in the video actual monsters makes the point they are trying to make clear. They use a quote by Mark Twain in the very beginning of the video, "He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby becomes a monster and if you gaze into for long into an abyss. The abyss gazes also into you". This is the point of the entire video. If we become consumed with the monsters of the world, we will begin to become one of the monsters and the cycle starts for another person. This also applies to older people, saying we can use a lesson that we were taught in our lives as children in our adult lives.

Keep Fishin'

Weezer is a band more known for their creative music videos. And this one is no different. What drew me to this video was the amazing use of the Muppet characters. I am a huge Muppet fan. My parents put on the moves all the time when i was growing up. Having said that, i think it is geared toward an older audience, even though there are muppets. The reason i say it's geared toward an older group is because the Muppets weren't really around for the younger generations. The muppet shows and movies were aired in the 70s and 80s. So the younger generations don't get a big dose of the Muppets like older groups do. Even though i think it is geared toward an older group, younger generations would likely be attracted to this video. And who wouldn't be?! Everybody loves the Muppets!

I Believe in a Thing Called Love

This video is not meant to be taken seriously. Most music videos today are targeted towards the younger generation. My generation likes stupid. Why would we watch shows like Family Guy or movies like Jackass? I don’t think I have ever met anyone who didn’t like at least one of these. The Darkness which is the band who plays this song is known for their weird, crazy, random and silly videos. Their goal is to entertain and I think they are successful with their combination of 80’s hair, spaceships, craps, squids, and big fuzzy hands all mixed up in one video. This video may have no substance or message but it is entertaining and humorous. As a younger generation we are still very much young hearted so we seek out things that make us laugh. Some may call it immature but I call it funny.

Black Hole Sun

Estranged thinking and craziness usually occurs in extreme heat, and this is one major point that the band Soundgarden made in their music video for the song “Black Hole Sun.” This video was voted on Groupthink.com for being one of the weirder videos for the 90s, and they were right to label it as such. In the video, the audience is easily able to relate to the mental overload that occurs when in the presence of extreme heat. The characters in this video were meant to look abnormally crazy and insane all because of the “sun’s” wretched power. The reason for depicting the characters as abnormal was to put the focus of the video on the song’s title: “Black Hole Sun.” In this mysterious entity, everything that’s normal and mainstream is sucked out of the lives of the characters in the movie making them as crazy as they seemed. The audience can laugh at this video, especially if they know what it is like to be in extremely high temperatures. In a real life occurrence, our minds truly do go crazy as out blood boils thin, and tempers and personalities drastically change. While the video is obviously an exaggeration of what really does happen when were hot, it is still something to laugh at, which was the videos overall purpose.