Good Weather For Airstrikes

While this month was a relatively good month in terms of music videos, with great contributions from The Boy Least Likely To (I still don’t know if that was 2005 or 2006, but whatever), Maximo Park, and Kanye West (though it seems that one will never be released), but it took until the month’s final days for us to get a true “video of the month”, which will be a new monthly feature considering the apparent popularity of music videos on this site. January’s video of the month comes courtesy of TV On The Radio and director Elliot Jokelson, who teamed up for the second time with TVotR after the two collaborated on 2004’s incredible video for “Staring At The Sun” (also check out GWFAS’ #8 video of 2005, Jokelson’s clip for Pinback’s “Fortress” - follow link to watch/stream).In this video, a Easter Island-esque (only a lot meaner/scarier looking) head descends from the clouds on a city to more or less engage in a staring contest with a homeless man standing on top of a skyscraper (yeah, don’t ask). Another way one could summarize this video is with a simple “What the fuck?”, as that’s pretty much what’s going through the viewer’s head the entire time. However, it’s a beautifully done clip, and check out the incredible reflection rendering at about the halfway point, remarkable considering this entire video was filmed on only a $31,000 budget. Overall the video just features wonderful cinematography and photography direction, and though I haven’t quite worked out the meaning yet (does the homeless guy see himself in that floating stone head?), I’m sure it’s rich in that department as well.

Video: “Dreams” - TV On The Radio [highly recommended]

Also, in other video news, Death Cab’s newest video in the Directions series, Cat Solen’s clip for “Soul Meets Body”, aired for the first time today, and while it’s kind of boring at first, once you realize the entire thing is just form cuts and wonderful use of dynamic editing and montage; that is, cutting from shots of graphically similar objects to other structurally similar shots with featuring similar subject matter (i.e. the shot from the lamp to the flame, etc.). Also, I’m a big proponent of singing deer in music videos (and bonus points if they’re mounted on the wall), so this is a good time for that also. Watch below.

All in all, good month for videos, here were the top clips January 2006 had to offer:
1) “Dreams” - TV On The Radio [highly recommended]
2) “The Fastest Man Alive” - Sound Team [iPod Compatible]
3) “Marching Bands of Manhattan” - Death Cab (link expired)
4) “I Want You To Stay” - Maximo Park
5) “Soul Meets Body” - Death Cab

NOTE: “Heard ‘Em Say” is not technically a January ‘06 release as Kanye apparently hated Gondry’s video and refused to release it. But you can watch it here anyway, if you’d like.

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