Here’s our music director Hailey on her new picks for this week’s regular rotation:
Halfway into the quarter, we’ve started up our Youtube channel again! Now the Weekly Rotation will be up on Spotify and YouTube! In addition to the Weekly Rotation where all the songs will be listed–starting with the best and music videos, and finishing with some solely audio tracks–there is now a playlist for the “Top 10 Music Videos”. This list will be update more sporadicly. The list is curated and rated by me, Hailey Feller, who uses her best judgement to pick out the worthy contestants. The songs come directly from the Weekly Rotation as a new way of highlighting some favorites. They aren’t ranked 1-10, simply put here from what was first in the rotation, so to begin in no particular order, here are the songs on List #1:
“Kill the Sun” by Motherfolk is a song about time passing. This works perfectly with their montage of live performances. You can tell they love performing and playing music. Playing is a lot of hard work but there’s always time to goof off.
The music video for “Favorite Nightmare” by Blanks opens with the memories of his relationship done in a filtered film effect. Then, he wakes up from the nightmare and realizes it was just a dream. The memories start out really happy but then disappointing situations start to appear too. Due to this, his past relationship was his “favorite nightmare”. The music video almost depicts it as a Groundhog’s Day type scenario where he’s constantly waking up and realizing it was all just in his head.
“Catch Me If You Can” by Kelsy Krater feels almost like a horror or murder mystery parody. Everyone is in fancy clothes, almost like it was her wedding and she killed the groom. In the setting of this nice mansion, her bandmates dress up as well and partake in the action.
“Lonely Always, CA” by Me Nd Adam creates an alternative/fake feeling of LA by filming parts with a 90s camera and others with an obvious greenscreen displaying the good parts of LA. The Me Nd Adam band roams around LA to film this music video. I get a sense that the band is from the midwest and came to LA because that’s where they thought they could make it big, but when they got there they were hit with reality. LA isn’t as ideal as the media makes it seem. But I think overall, they seem to have a good time.
“Out of Love” by Busty and the Bass is a fun 2D animation. It’s very colorful and creative, though the music video doesn’t fully reflect the song’s lyrics, it definitely pairs well with the vibe. The transitions are very smooth and it takes the bowling plot to a whole new level. I’m not quite sure why they chose bowling as the theme of the music video, but it creates a very playful and strange atmosphere.
“Devil on My Shoulder” by Kelsy Krater is displayed by Kelsy and a little monkey being missing criminals on the run. It tells a short story, and the monkey is an interesting character to include. I believe the monkey represents the “devil on [her] shoulder.” If I remember correctly, just from watching things from pop culture, the type of monkey it is is known to be greedy and steal.
“Brick by Brick” by American Authors is super fun to watch and listen to. It’s a very positive, upbeat song. I really like how they displayed this simple message in a simple setting -the main singer of American Authors doing Jenga while the crew throws different colors and objects at him off screen- symbolizing no matter what gets in your way you can still pick yourself up and keep growing. Though American Author’s is a well-known band and has the ability to do something more upscale, the whole music video is extremely playful and has a comforting homemade feel.
“Daylight” by Joji and Diplo is a very strange music video but very playful as well. The setting is a director’s set and Joji and Diplo are crew members dealing with all these celebrities with huge amounts of plastic surgeries and fake tans. The set has all of these bright colors and outfits and everyone’s having a good time, even though it’s a long day at work. Then suddenly, Joji ends up in the middle of the desert in a tent and you hear this robotic “wake up” and suddenly I wonder if it was just a strange dream he had.
A very different mood from “Daylight”, “Run” by Joji is displayed through him trying to escape a neverending limo filled with celebrities and appearances that represent some aspect that comes with fame. It cuts between him struggling in the limo and singing laying down on the cracked floor as his face slowly cracks as well. Like “Daylight”, it ends with him waking up to the same robotic voice like it was a dream or a memory. It’s not clear if he’s in the same environment as the end of the last video but I would presume so. Then Joji sits down and opens a folded, old picture from his wallet. It’s a car in the middle of the desert or mountains with what seems to be a cracked window, portraying a correlation to earlier in the video when he escaped the limo by breaking through the back window.
“Checklist” by MAX illustrates “boyfriend boot camp” in a very colorful way. His girlfriend checks him in and there he learns to be a proper boyfriend. There is a very simple color scheme for the video–yellow, blue, and pink- making the video very bright and fun.
Top 10 Music Videos – List #1 – fall 2020
To listen to the Weekly Rotation check out:
WEEKLY PLAYLIST – fall 2020 on YouTube OR WEEKLY ROTATION on Spotify.
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