Parasite Single “The Hunt”
With their latest single “The Hunt” due out April 25th, Parasite Single have released a new video. The video follows German actress Katja Danowski as a frustrated, lonely woman. The video opens with Katja laying on a bed in a mattress store. She sits up and looks over at Parasite Single playing at the other end of the store. We continue to follow her through work, eating some peanuts, and even at the laundromat. Always, the band are off to the side just jamming away. She decides to get her hair done, go put on a dress, and make her way to the off-track betting locale. She sits there chewing gum deep in thought. Finally, she makes her way to a restaurant where the band are playing. She decides to get up and just let loose. I guess it is dancing, but she sort of looks as though she’s spazzing out. Nonetheless, it ends with her standing there, hair ruffled all about, just catching her breath. She peaks over at the camera, and I believe underneath the hair blocking her mouth there is a smile. Or at the very least she’s laughing because she realizes we have noticed her and that she looked a little ridiculous. Life is empty if we’re not chasing after something. Therefore, you need a hunt. Even if it’s just looking for what will make you happy, you have to keep hunting.
We Are The City “Friends Hurt”
Canada’s We Are The City have released their second album Violent. Their latest video is for the album’s single “Friends Hurt”. Along with its honesty about it hurting when friends hurt, the song gives us a video featuring the band mates. We see them individually in little rooms furnished like bedrooms or living rooms. The set for each member has been built to rotate. So when the rotation begins it looks as though the person on screen is climbing the walls or ceiling. I’m not sure they always knew which way things were going to rotate as some times they took unexpected tumbles. It does show how difficult it would be to get anything done if gravity repeatedly changed direction on us. I guess that may be one way to describe how you feel when your friend is hurting. You can’t always get a grip on how to settle them, and it makes you feel uncomfortable in the way pain does. In the way that you want it to just end already rather than take the effort to go through the frustration of having to climb the walls, traversed the ceiling, and finally end up back where you started, firmly on the ground.
Grayce “I Love You…But”
I remember possibly the first, but definitely the last, time that I heard someone say to me, “I love you…but”. This outraged me only because you should never say something like that. If you have a grievance, state the grievance and end it with the words “but…I love you”. To me, the but after “I love you” is actually an admission that you don’t love the person. At the very least, you don’t love them anymore the way that they expect you too. That’s fine, feelings change, people change, sometimes you need to move on. However, if you’re at a point where you are saying or hearing “I love you…but”, then it’s probably time to rethink the relationship. Grayce’s “I Love You…But” just seems to prove my point. She literally sings that she has been looking for reasons to stay together, and that she doesn’t love “you” anymore. It’s not about proving others wrong, because then you’re worrying about the wrong people. You need to prove yourself right, which sometimes means that you admit you deserve better. Now, in her video for the song it almost seems like she gets the truth of it out when she goes to audition to perform at a club. We cut between scenes of her on stage alone singing at an audition for a vocalist, passionately, and scenes where she is arguing with her boyfriend over various things. He flirts with other girls, gets super jealous and violent, and just doesn’t seem worth it. We do also see some scenes from better times in their relationship. That’s the thing, you don’t start dating someone because you have a terrible time with them. You always start out having fun, but that’s harder to do when things get serious. Effort doesn’t always lead to fun, but usually it gets you to where you need to be. That’s harder done when someone else isn’t putting in their effort but still refuses to let go. Letting go is a difficult process, but sometimes it is the one you need.
Childish Gambino featuring Problem “Sweatpants”
Childish Gambino continues to push his album Because the Internet strong. His latest video is for the single “Sweatpants” which features Problem. Basically, the concept for this video is Gambino is experiencing a Groundhog Day type moment, like the Bill Murray film. We see him enter the far door of a diner that is moderately filled. He’s got an unhappy look on his face, but makes his way to his booth where he sits down. His three friends are already there and chatting it up, but he doesn’t say anything to them. He simply looks them over, then stares at the waitress who pours him a glass of water. He gets up, goes to the jukebox, walks past a table with three guys drumming with their knives and forks, around another large table of socialites, and out the near door of the diner. Outside, he starts to text, looks right to see a man puking, and left to see a couple making out. He turns around, and enters the same door he left out of only finds that he is in the diner on the far side again. He comes in, moves to his table, and sits down. Here’s the twist, he looks again at his friend only this time his friend has Gambino’s head. Cue the waitress, the water, the move to the jukebox, the drumming table, socialites, back outside. The man puking now has a Gambino head, as does the woman making out. Enter again through the same door he exited, but finds himself inside on the far side again. Everyone has a Gambino head now. So he makes his way to his seat, sits down, and slams on the table with the lyrics “I give a fuck about my family name”. This stops everything, and all the other Gambinos in the diner are no staring at this outburst. The last minute of the video jumps to Gambino out in the woods singing with a few other people dancing around a bit of the way off.
Atmosphere “Kanye West”
I have to admit, at first I made the mistake of thinking that this was a new video for Kanye West called “Atmosphere”. I couldn’t understand why I hadn’t heard anything about this. But I quickly caught on and realized that this is Atmosphere’s “Kanye West” off of Southsiders. The video follows a crime spree of an unusual nature. We begin with a woman sitting in a Mercedes Benz next to an older, Japanese man. She’s having him practice saying “Put your hands up”. This unlikely love duo go about working as a team to rob small convenience stores, gas stations, and pawn shops. The woman likes to go in first and set up an inside control/lookout. The little Japanese man with the shotgun comes in next and holds the place up. The woman draws her gun and keeps the customers in check while money is placed into a bag. They just repeat this, only changing their motive to beat up a gas station clerk, Slug himself, who tries to pull a fast one and draw a gun of his own. This all leads to quite a standoff in a small pawnshop. When the Japanese man draws his gun, it’s as though all the employees have weapons of their own. The woman doesn’t let it be known that she is on this game, so she acts like a scared customer. The Japanese man then grabs her as a hostage which leads to everyone else lowering their guns. Just before they exit, the woman grabs a dress from the rack. They run gleefully to their car, though they didn’t get the money this time, and speed off down the road. In truth, I believe the man is getting his tail pulled. The younger woman has conned him into committing these crimes, and he is desperate to have her in his life. What this has to do with Kanye West, I just can’t say.
