Forgive me if I'm late to the party, but just recently I was exposed to the videos of South African group "Die Antwoord". With a bizarre mix of hip-hop and rave music, Die Antwoord has some of the weirdest and outlandish music videos that I've seen in a great while (perhaps since Aphex Twin's "Come to Daddy").
AMG tells me that members Ninja and Yolandi are merely conceptual artists, and I'm glad to hear that because their videos look like they come out of some sort of post-apocalyptic heroin-infused hell. Take a gander at these three videos:
Baby's on Fire is perhaps their tamest video, but still weird.
Cookie Thumper gets a little stranger...
And then there's Fatty Boom Boom. Featuring a Lady Gaga impersonator wearing the infamous meat dress and Yolandi in blackface, this video is just all kinds of bizarre, including Gaga visiting a gynecologist with some unexpected results (one conceptual artist taking a swipe at another?). If you're going to watch one of Die Antwoord's videos, watch this one. Then be glad that you don't do meth or heroin.
Next in my list of "songs from the 00s that I generally like" is this little track off of Röyksopp's 2001 debut album Melody A.M. Unfortunately this song has been co-opted by insurance company Geiko, but please don't let its use in mainstream television deter you from enjoying it. Röyksopp hail from Norway and have, what AMG calls, a 'chilled-out downtempo electronic' sound. I originally fell in love with this song when I caught the video on Austrian MTV. It very much reminds me (har) of old Richard/Huck Scarry books I poured over as a kid, showing little snapshots of various daily locales and how they function. Once I'd watched the video a few times I began paying attention to the lyrics:
It's only been a week
the rush of being home is rapid fading
Failing to recall
what I was missing all that time in England
Has sent me aimlessly
on foot or by the help of transportation
to knock on windows where
a friend no longer lives, I had forgotten
Melancholy musings and mentions of England? These are the kinds of lyrics (I think) LE would like. There's a definite sense of melancholy throughout the whole album, which is quite good and I highly recommend it. But to go back to where we started, what originally drew me towards this song was the video. I love the style, it's just mesmerizing to watch. I've seen this style used recently in a commercial for some some financial/business firm, but it's most effective here when coupled with good music. Plus it's just kind of cute to watch.
While my compatriot Little Earl is busy presenting his list of songs from the '00s that he likes, I thought I'd go a slightly different route by showing some of the oddest songs and videos from the '00s that I (generally) like. Some entries might just be a bit silly. Some might be both. I found many of these while living abroad so they might have easily been missed by an American audience, so I'm here to bring them into the light. Our first entry is:
DJ Tomekk feat. Lil' Kim & Trooper Da Don - "Kimnotyze"
Yes, witness the bizarre collaboration between a pair of German rappers and an all-American Lil' Kim singing a strangely twisted cover of a song by Kim's former lover Notorious B.I.G. I can't deny that I enjoy it's already-built-in hook or that I get a kick out of hearing German rap (or any non-English rap really). What I perhaps enjoy most about this video is it's almost spot-on imitation of American hip hop videos, complete with dancing hot girls, crowds partying, expensive displays of bling featuring fancy cars all in some ritzy or exotic looking venue (I think here it's Miami).
On that note it's almost not even really an imitation of a hip hop video, more of an imitation of the stereotype. It's like these German guys watched a slew of late 90s/early 00s Hype Williams videos on German MTV (where they still play videos) and then decided to go make their own. The whole thing feels imitated, no doubt helped along by the song itself being an imitation. Who knows? Just enjoy the video.
