When Karaoke Attacks

January 29, 2009 2:58 AM

The video for Metronomy's A Thing For Me features a psychotic karaoke ball. Single Link Music Video.
posted by minifigs (20 comments total)

Liking the album. Hadn't seen this video. Cheers.
posted by nthdegx at 3:14 AM on January 29, 2009

The directing team's other videos are similarly oddball/genius/fun.
posted by progosk at 3:30 AM on January 29, 2009

Huh, I was going to come in and snark about how horrible that song was, and that the video wasn't that cool, but if nthdegx likes it I'll go back to my rocking chair.
posted by cjorgensen at 4:56 AM on January 29, 2009

And take your suckable toffees with you!
posted by nthdegx at 5:01 AM on January 29, 2009

The drawback of the conceit is that it emphasizes how silly the lyrics are. On the flip side, it's a delightfully silly video-- I wished they'd used more of the wrong words on cards, but....nice.

These guys are from London huh? I thought you had to be canadian to make falsetto electropop?

Oh and browsing through youtube led me to this remix which is now my jam.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 5:24 AM on January 29, 2009

My enjoyment of the quirky, innovative yet charmingly amateurish video was kind of sullied by awareness of the fact that I was essentially watching a bunch of rich kids frolicking around in a palatial new-england manse.
posted by delmoi at 5:28 AM on January 29, 2009

And in fairness, cjorgensen, I know what you're getting it. This isn't my favourite tune on the album by any stretch. I prefer Heartbreaker, of which there is also a nifty remix.
posted by nthdegx at 5:30 AM on January 29, 2009

My enjoyment of the quirky, innovative yet charmingly amateurish video was kind of sullied by awareness of the fact that I was essentially watching a bunch of rich kids frolicking around in a palatial new-england manse.
posted by delmoi at 5:28 AM on January 29

YAY, let's talk about this!

Those who complain about the preppieness of indie rock, particularly the deliberate swathes of sweater and raquetball imagery in people like Vampire Weekend and This Is Ivy League, I maintain that you are being silly. On the one hand they are crafting a fictional persona which pays homage to things like Metropolitan and John Cheever. On the other hand they are making some decent music (unless they suck, in which case ignore the class issues and hate them for sucking).

On either hand, it's a pointless critique-- like hating 80s metal musicians for referencing witchcraft and satanism--and it makes one look squeamish. Dislike rich people if you must, but don't take it out on the musicians.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 6:00 AM on January 29, 2009

On the one hand they are crafting a fictional persona which pays homage to things like Metropolitan and John Cheever.

Are they? Or are they actually just a bunch of rich snots riching it up? The video has a kind of amateur quality and it looks like it could have been made by some friends screwing around. On the other hand, wikipedia indicates this is a "real" band that's released some albums. And apparently they're from old-england, rather then new-england.
posted by delmoi at 6:25 AM on January 29, 2009

My point is whether they are rich kids or pretending to be rich kids is irrelevant to their musical output. They are artists making art. If you want to mount an argument that all art should be made from a perspective for and about middle and lower class people only, and that Jane Austen, Wes Anderson, Degas, the Strokes, and anyone else who comes from or takes as a subject the upper classes, is morally corrupt, well, go ahead--that is a viable opinion (albeit a starkly boring one). But just going UGH RICH KIDS is a kneejerk response to a false interpretation of the essence of rock and roll.

Rock is not class warfare, and gritty authenticity is not primary, or even preferable, within the genre. It's just music, and can be made (and well) by and about anyone or anything.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 6:57 AM on January 29, 2009 [1 favorite]

Er, replace Degas with some painter who paints portraits of rich ladies really well. I obviously have no clue about paintings. :-/
posted by Potomac Avenue at 7:00 AM on January 29, 2009

Welcome to Metafilter, where silly electropop vids get parsed for class consciousness undercurrents. I love this place.

Also - This Is Ivy League is a great band. Never heard of them prior to this post, so thanks Potomac Avenue. Please post more great music comments for my delectation.

Also - Metronomy are fun in that hey-the-coffee-just-kicked-in kind of way, so yay also Minifigs!
posted by Lipstick Thespian at 7:15 AM on January 29, 2009

Are they? Or are they actually just a bunch of rich snots riching it up?

- By jingo, Jeeves- did you know that this so-called Doctor House isn't even a real man of medicine? I say, if one can't take the old Greek muse at face value, then, speaking as a gentleman, I find her qualities unladylike. And traipsing about in masks invites such complications - it pains one, Jeeves, to think!

- Yes, Sir. I'd imagine it does.

- Right, I'm off to The Drones for a bit of the, ah, what's that other muse-

- Terpsichore, Sir.

- Right! Off to "rich it up," as the Americans say!
posted by kid ichorous at 7:34 AM on January 29, 2009

I was just noting that, even if your music isn't that good, you can still always get hot girls for your video. Now that's what rock and roll is for.
posted by fungible at 7:42 AM on January 29, 2009

RICH PEOPLE SUCK. AMIDOINGITRITE?
posted by eyeballkid at 9:20 AM on January 29, 2009

Thanks Lipstick T, glad you like 'em. What really made me think of TIIL is this song, which is tres Metapropos imo.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:21 AM on January 29, 2009

I particularly enjoyed the mondegreens ("hive goth" etc.).

a palatial new-england manse

Surely this is old-england, where they're from? The interiors could work either way, but I think the masonry exterior was definitely British -- and that's a cathedral in the far distance, not a church.
posted by dhartung at 12:05 PM on January 29, 2009

My point is whether they are rich kids or pretending to be rich kids is irrelevant to their musical output.

Ridiculous, musical choice has always been as much about self expression and cultural signifiers as any sort of intrinsic musical quality. If that wasn't the case they wouldn't have bothered with the whole Wes Anderson/Preppy schtick in the first place. What I'm saying is that that schtick is dissonant with the zeitgeist. Or at least my zeitgeist, whereas I might have found the foibles of the rich as quirky or entertaining a couple months ago I now find them loathsome.
posted by delmoi at 12:41 PM on January 29, 2009

I don't get it. That song was horribly and completely painful to listen to. There ought to be a limit to how much irony is allowable in a song, even in indie rock. Not that this was even rock.
posted by kanewai at 2:23 PM on January 29, 2009

yo, metronomy is totally DOPE!
posted by mariolapinski at 9:59 PM on January 29, 2009