We’re not ones to start the weekends off with a slow jam, but once you see this clip, you’ll understand why we made an exception.
Rock stars really do have it better than the rest of us, at least for the video shoot. Huge house, beautifully manicured lawns, and a gaggle of spaghetti strapped T-shirt hotties watching your every move, with lustful anticipation. The girls here don’t really do anything other than stare wantingly, but then again they don’t really have to do anything more than that, do they?
Man, we bet they had fun doing the auditions for this clip.
Two words: dolphin boobies. That is not a misprint.
The synth-pop scene has been positively flooded with shitty bands in the last couple years, poseur tools who think whacking a few notes on a synth and acting snotty is all you need to do. But even the simplest kinds of music take sophistication to pull off naturally, and Hey Champ understand that better than most. They also understand astronomy and science fiction, as their (awesome) album Stars is littered with references to steampunk and the Uranus moon Trinculo. Fortunately, those brainy moments are wrapped in some unforgettable hooks, and “Neverest” is one of the hookiest songs the band’s done yet.
And the video…where to start? The band are trapped in some neon pyramid, performing the song for some strange warlord who’s flanked by two topless babes…with breasts shaped like dolphin heads. Your girlfriend will love you for putting this in her iTunes library, but you should probably keep her away from the video, unless you absolutely want to make sure that you don’t get laid tonight.
This is the video we’ve wanted to post since this column was formed. If you’re of a certain age, then you remember that there wasn’t a single rock station that let the 5:00 hour on a Friday go by without playing this song, all because of five simple words: “Nothing matters but the weekend.” Well, it wasn’t just those five words, of course. The song itself is one of the most cleverly constructed new wave songs of all time, stuffed with Farfisa organs, triple decker harmonies and a pogotastic back half (the ‘Switchin’ to Glide’ part). One interesting footnote is that the song was produced by Bob Ezrin, and was his first project after finishing The Wall with Pink Floyd. Hey, if we were Ezrin at the time, we’d want a follow-up project as far from Roger Waters’ psychosis as possible, too.
As for the video, it was assembled by Kings guitarist Mister Zero, editing decades of footage of the band playing the song (including their lone appearance on “American Bandstand”) into one big video megamix. It took him over three years to assemble, and truthfully, we’re surprised it’s here; Zero told us that they were still fighting with Warner Music for permission to post it. Looks like common sense finally won out.
The UK pop charts might be more forgiving than ours when it comes to inane novelty hits (two words: Crazy Frog), but by and large, the Brits have maintained their affection for melody. Most of the plastic American pop stars are eaten alive on their charts – they love American rock bands though, embracing the Pixies well before we did – while the ones who embrace the Beatles’ affinity for songwriting are handsomely rewarded. Who knows, maybe the real reason is more nationalist than this, that the UK population simply likes UK acts, but you have to admit that the Brits have a much greater love affair with pop in the classic sense of the word than we Yanks do, particularly today.
Which is why our video of the day has reached #17 on the UK pop charts, and doesn’t have a prayer of being a hit here. But that doesn’t make it any less awesome.
If you had told us that “The Bike Song,” from UK It Boy producer Mark Ronson, was a long-lost cover from some Nuggets-era band (think “Green Tambourine” by the Lemon Pipers), we would totally have believed you. (It was actually written by a Zuton and two members of the Dap Kings.) The song has an effortless sunniness to it and one of those instantly memorable choruses, marvelously sung by the View’s front man Kyle Falconer. Who are the View, you ask? They’re a Scottish band who were poised to ride the UK wave of the mid-’00s along with Hard Fi, Franz Ferdinand and the Arctic Monkeys, but Falconer was busted for possession, their US tour was canceled, and that was that. If you’re an Anglophile, though, go hunt down their song “Street Lights.” Good tune. Not as good as this one, but good just the same.
The video for this is a throwback, consisting mostly of Falconer and Ronson (that is Ronson with the blonde hair, right?), you guessed it, riding their bicycles. Spank Rock, who looks a bit like Mos Def’s geeky little brother, joins the fun, and then boom, three gorgeous girls on bicycles. That whole ’60s look…it makes us tingly. Have Friday, everyone. Good luck getting this one out of your head.
