Wednesday, August 1, 2007

New Video: White Stripes, "You Don't Know What Love Is"


The White Stripes have released a new video for "You Don't Know What Love Is (You Just Do as You're Told)". The song will soon be available as a single. The video was directed by the Malloys, who also directed the videos for "Icky Thump" and "My Doorbell". They also worked with Jack on the the race car concept version of the Raconteurs "Steady, As She Goes."

Frankly, as much as I love the Stripes, this video isn't doing much for me. Maybe my mind has been permanently warped by such atrocities as "For Reasons Unknown" from the Killers and "Build God, Then We'll Talk" from P!atD (warning: their video contains pornomime) that anything that doesn't leave me twitching and asking "WTF?" bores me. But, I don't really think that's it--though the video might have been improved with the addition of barbecuing singing human heads on chicken bodies.

Instead, it's just sort of...generic. It's like something I'd expect to see in a retrospective on the 1980s, when the art of music videos was still new and simply having your favorite band strolling along on a beach while singing was novel. It's not bad. It's a pretty setting and has some nice cinematography, but it is rather bland.

I suppose when everyone expects something weird and shocking from you, the best way to shock people is by being unspeakably mundane.

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