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“David Bowie on ‘Extras’ ”
David Bowie
stage.ifilm.com/video/2774948loomia_si1 You step down to the boozer for an innocent pint of plain and the next thing you know the old crowd there is ridiculing you with gusto. David Bowie exercises the fine art of humiliation in this deliciously malevolent episode from the British comedy series “Extras.” Comedian Ricky Gervais is the pathetic schlump of a sellout TV actor enduring insult and Bowie, oozing charm and venality at once, improvises a song that calls to mind the era of “Hunky Dory,” only as if it had been written and directed by the mischievous Dennis Potter.
“Suddenly I See”
KT Tunstall
www.mtvu.com/music/playlist/
KT Tunstall ambles through a semi-animated toy landscape before spying herself playing a Gretsch White Falcon guitar. From that moment on, the light-hearted clip highlights the vaunted guitar
in all its glory, finally sending it on a celestial voyage, borne to the heavens by brightly colored birds.
“Monkey Suite”
Madvillain
www.adultswim.com/williams/music/chrome/videos.html
Madvillain is the collaboration between mixer-producers MF Doom and Madlib. Their discographies include innovative work with Danger Mouse and Ghostface Killah. This video, directed by Daniel Garcia and Version2, features an animated representation of Doom and owes
a certain debt to Jiri Trnka and the school of Czech stop-motion animation. Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis” is alluded to as well. It’s a classy rap, with inventive word play that “got what it take
to get it through your thick
melon.”
“Murder”
The Big Sleep
www.youtube.com/watchvLFeP6jgsy4M
A strange enigmatic video that hints at ecstasy and a meltdown in a nuclear power facility. Maybe. Directed by Andrew Blackwell, it carries the same curiosity factor of an early Antonioni film. Odd elements abound -- a small metal device that delivers paradise, profiles shot in a window’s reflection. And while the viewer is trying to make sense of it all, Sonya Balchandani’s vocal track is all but buried under a wall of guitars. Still, you want to make sense of it and view it again and again. The Big Sleep is from the current pop and rock mecca of America, Brooklyn.
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