Video Picks: virtual bands and the Johns’ teeth

I’m being a bit lazy tonight with these picks. Neither is exactly unknown, but they both just kinda strike my fancy.

Gorillaz: Feel Good Inc. (2005)

The concept of a “virtual hip hop group” fascinates me way more than it should. The people behind this music (who include two former members of the Talking Heads, BTW) have gone to great lengths to create an entire world around the virtual band members.

All of the videos I’ve seen so far have pretty much fallen into the can’t-look-away category, but I like this one best. I think it’s a combination of the music itself and Murdoc (the bass player) in the video. The animation of him playing the bass fascinates me. As usual, the jerkiness of the compressed video gets in the way. Oh well.

They Might Be Giants: Ana Ng (1989)

I’m cheating a bit on this one, because it’s in the “100 greatest” post that Stephen referenced when he started all this. I can’t help it that other people have good taste, though. 🙂 The comment there that I love is that this video “stars the Johns’ teeth”. It’s so true. That and the dance. I’ve seen variations on the dance show up in a few of their videos.

I’ve never looked it up, but I’m fairly sure the set is on a firefighters’ training ground (plain brick buildings with big single-digit numbers tend to give it away). This is yet another one where the video works better if it’s properly keeping up with the music. So many of the visuals (including the teeth and the dance) line up with the song’s beat.