Twenty-something
May 22, 2016 9:16 AM   Subscribe

Sometimes a music video completely recontextualizes the song. Pet Shop Boys' most recent single Twenty-something is one thing when you just hear the song, but the video makes it something else entirely.
posted by hippybear (20 comments total) 17 users marked this as a favorite
 
Wow. I'll say. Since it's Sunday morning, I had time to process this FPP correctly: First, listen to the song with a black screen. Second: Watch the video.

I have no objection to the video, other than its oversimplified story line--but that's the standard for music videos, so its not much of a criticism. But, wow. What a vastly different and more fascinating melange of meanings my brain concocted in response to the song/lyrics the first time! It's like reading a book and then seeing a movie and thinking "That's not how I pictured it," but an order of magnitude more so.
posted by kozad at 9:43 AM on May 22, 2016 [2 favorites]


That's not how I pictured it.
posted by bongo_x at 10:06 AM on May 22, 2016 [1 favorite]


wow.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 10:37 AM on May 22, 2016


Song: Huh! Sounds like old school pet shop boys, the glossy cynicism, the social critique, almost feels like it could've come from the new staging of American Pyscho that just finished up in Lomdon

Video: WELL, that's more sincerely pointedly leftist and critical and damning than I was expecting
posted by The Whelk at 10:45 AM on May 22, 2016 [6 favorites]


wow
posted by Thisandthat at 11:01 AM on May 22, 2016


I’ve always loved the multiple meanings of Pet Shop Boys songs. I’m With Stupid makes no overt political references in the lyrics, but they’d pair it with images of Tony Blair and George W. Bush in 2006.
Is stupid really stupid
Or a different kind of smart?
Do we really have a relationship
So special in your heart?
Brb buying tickets for Fox Theater show in October…
posted by migurski at 11:16 AM on May 22, 2016 [1 favorite]


I was a little disappointed in Twenty-something when I listened to it on the album, a little too straightforward (and perhaps a little out of touch). The Pet Shop Boys are often at their best when their fangs are out, and it felt too gentle on record, but yeah, the video really helps pull the meaning out of the song.

migurski, agreed. I'm With Stupid is remarkable, a pairing of serious political commentary and world-leader slash fanfic told entirely in code and innuendo that's totally avoided in the video. Nobody seemed to like it at the time, but that's a song that's held up well.
posted by eschatfische at 12:09 PM on May 22, 2016


Listening to the black screen video, I'm struck by the fact that they've nicked bits of the chord progression from Henry Purcell's Cold Song (from King Arthur, used by Michael Nyman for Memorial, best known for its use in The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover. I have no idea whether this is relevant. Yet.
posted by Grangousier at 12:30 PM on May 22, 2016 [2 favorites]


The lyrics. And yeah - the song on its own has some things to say; the video on its own does too; but the combination of them together is greater than the individual parts and sparks some unusual connections. Great FPP.
posted by naju at 12:31 PM on May 22, 2016 [1 favorite]


(The last track on Super, "Into Thin Air" is my favorite. It's quite a solid album.)
posted by naju at 12:35 PM on May 22, 2016


That's not how I pictured it..

Because that's not what it is. I don't think the music video changes the meaning of the song. The song is clearly about middle/upper-middle class youth disillusionment. I think the "power" of the music video is the juxtaposition of those lyrics against a completely separate lived experience.

I don't fully understand the intent of this juxtaposition. Is the juxtaposition meant to highlight the struggle of ex-cons/poverty/minority communities and bring a greater awareness to that, or is the juxtaposition merely hijacking that experience to mock the young predominantly white existential experience?

Separate but related, I found it really interesting that (as a white kid listening to a english white electronic duo) I didn't notice the massive Latino influences in the music on the first listen. On the second listen with the visual cultural queues it seemed like a completely different song to me and I had to go back and double check it wasn't mixed differently for the music video. I am definitely doing a small privilege/culture check because of that.
posted by mayonnaises at 12:40 PM on May 22, 2016 [4 favorites]


I think the juxtaposition is pretty clear Society chews up, spits out and exploits youth. Mostly by promising them extravagant things if they make huge sacrifices it's just that what they promise and what sacrifices they ask for is different for your class level
posted by The Whelk at 12:54 PM on May 22, 2016 [7 favorites]


There's no one "right" interpretation of course, but personally I don't think anyone is being mocked or any experience is being hijacked. These are two experiences that on the surface are drastically different from each other, but the song+video is drawing threads between them. The parallels between the start-up hustle and the drug hustle, and what motivates people into either; being young and coming to realizations about the ways the deck is stacked; the sense of being trapped and forced into doing things you don't want to because of the way capitalism cuts against you. We're all compromising ourselves (and exploiting others in turn) to survive.
posted by naju at 12:56 PM on May 22, 2016 [3 favorites]


to mock the young predominantly white existential experience?

This may just be a thing my brain has done with PSB songs, or might have something to do with the way Tennant does wistful so very well, but I think his own younger self/cohort is always one of the lenses in these pieces*. (Particularly in this case, if you listen-watch in the context of his own twentysomething in the 70s in the earliest throes of the War On Drugs.)

*In fact, in this song like many others, there's a quiet dissertation on masculinity running through them that I wish I had more time to think about.

I didn't notice the massive Latino influences in the music on the first listen

Chris Lowe is such a genius that there's often an entire second narrative in the music and you kind of have to be a music genius yourself to know it.
posted by Lyn Never at 1:27 PM on May 22, 2016 [6 favorites]


Listening to the black screen video, I'm struck by the fact that they've nicked bits of the chord progression from Henry Purcell's Cold Song (from King Arthur, used by Michael Nyman for Memorial, best known for its use in The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover. I have no idea whether this is relevant. Yet.
I hear it. On first listen, though, what came to mind was Mono's "Life in Mono".
posted by infinitelives at 3:11 PM on May 22, 2016 [1 favorite]


For a band from the UK, they (or their director) did a far better job capturing my city than most. The lyrics and all are nifty, I certainly had no problem listening to the song twice in a row, but damn that video is far more accurate than any tourist who visits for Comic Con or takes their kids to Sea World and the Zoo or rides a jet ski in Mission Bay will ever understand.
posted by librarylis at 3:40 PM on May 22, 2016 [5 favorites]




Also the start-up hustle itself being particularly shady and non-law abiding, both publicly and underground... the parallels are interesting. So much of tech and start up culture is just a bunch of macho cowboying and goldrushing.

PSB are always disconcertingly masculine in a way that makes me feel oddly comforted. Like the spiritual despair that I feel in the face of modern masculinity is not just my own.
posted by stoneandstar at 5:53 PM on May 22, 2016


The Univision link really completes the story. Excellent post.
posted by gryphonlover at 5:59 PM on May 22, 2016 [1 favorite]


Wow. I got chills watching that.

Seconding librarylis: this does a better job capturing the depth of San Diego than any visit to the Gaslamp or La Jolla would. I recently went back after a long time away, and found downtown completely unrecognizable. The unrelenting march of gentrification had wiped everything away and overlaid it with luxury condos and soulless bars. But if you head east towards Golden Hill you can find first traces of this world, and then find yourself immersed in it. I loved the shots looking west towards the wealth of downtown and Coronado from Barrio Logan and Logan Heights.

Great song. And that Univision link introduced me to Prayers' rendition of West End Girls, which is great. Also, holy shit:

Prayers lead singer Leafar Seyer, a.k.a. Rafael Reyes...The 40-year-old Mexican-American began gangbanging with the Sherman Grant Hill Park 27 click as a teenager. In 1994, he opened up Pokéz, a San Diego staple and alternative restaurant, and eventually started Diamond Dogs, an art and music collective for retired gangsters. He started Prayers in 2013.

I used to go to Pokéz all the time in high school! And when I went back earlier this year I found it still open and unchanged. Amazing. If you ever visit SD, make the trip.
posted by Existential Dread at 2:58 PM on May 23, 2016


« Older Elderly BASIC programmer yells at moon debris   |   How the Pentagon punished NSA whistleblowers Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments