Jay Brown “We Are The People”
Jay Brown will release a new single “We Are The People” on June 16th. Her video for the track released this week. It features a home for the elderly where the staff isn’t very kind. They knock cups of hot coffee onto your hand. They bully and scream at you. One man in particular is brought to tears over the way he and his fellow patients are treated. In the end, he takes a stand as do others. They drug some coffee and give it to the entire staff. They then take them outside and tie them to a tree. Once newly awake, the staff find the elderly standing around them when one man steps forever and dumps a liquid out of a gasoline container onto the staff. They’re all afraid now, as our hero pulls out a lighter, lights it, and tosses it at them. Nothing happens, as it turns out they were doused with water. The old man pulls out a bottle and squirts some more at them. This sends the staff into a rage, but they’re still tied up as the old folks walk off laughing. You need to be kind to the elderly, if for no other reason than they deserve it. They have more experience than you, and given the opportunity will put you in you place.
The Head and The Heart “Summertime”
The Head and The Heart released Let’s Be Still last October. That album featured a song called “Summertime”, and they just released a video for it. It is a stop motion animation done using paper. It’s very colorful and vibrant. It features a female character who is out looking for butterflies. She finds one and studies it through her binoculars when a bird appears and eats it. She follows the bird with the binoculars back to its nest where it feeds some hatchlings. The other part of the video follows a mycologist, that’s a person who studies fungi, as he is in a forest of mushrooms. In the end, the female is eaten alive by butterflies, though she doesn’t seem to mind, and the male falls asleep and has mushrooms grow all over him. As the landscape changes and more plants grow, so too do grow our female and male character out of the ground looking happy as can be.
How To Dress Well “Repeat Pleasure”
How To Dress Well’s latest album is What is This Heart?. One of the songs from the album is “Repeat Pleasure”. The video focuses around a very young man who finds out his grandfather is not doing so well. He tries to care for his grandfather at home, which can’t be easy. There is a girlfriend who lives with him and helps out, but that’s not enough for what must be his sister. She arrives and is furious, taking the old man to a hospital. For whatever reason, our protagonist doesn’t believe that his grandfather wants to be there. With the help of his girlfriend, they take him and run away. I’m unsure if he’s trying to take grandpa home or somewhere else, but the old man doesn’t make it. He’s distraught, extremely. There is a scene towards the beginning of the video that shows the young man sitting in the living room with his grandfather lying on the floor. Losing a loved one is tough, struggling to let it go can be even tougher.
James “Moving On”
Around my rivulet of the world James are probably best known for their single “Laid”. If that’s all you’ve heard of them, then their latest track “Moving On” from their upcoming release La Petite Mort may not be what you expect. The video is particualarly beautiful though it only features string. It’s an animated feature where everything is made from string. We find one string person in a hospital bed with a monitor attached. In comes a second, and they hold hands. The hands particularly for me were done very well. Each person’s string continues to wind around until the person is finished, and then the string just goes straight up. For the sick person, the string is shooting up from his or her right foot. The second person sees this and pulls the sheet back. Seeing that the leg is unraveling, this second person grabs the string and tries to keep it from unraveling. The sick one stops this, and let’s the other one know it’s time to go. Together, they sit holding hands and hugging. There is a female character elsewhere dancing and having a great time. She pulls on a string and baby starts to wind. She’s excited and continues dancing with the babe. Back to the first scene, where all that’s left of the sick man is the end of the string dangling slightly above the second man’s hand. He grabs hold, but decides to let go, and stares up as the string is plucked. It’s a well thought up and executed show of how life goes on. One ends as another begins.
Sia “Chandelier”
Last year’s track “Elastic Heart” from the soundtrack to The Hunger Games: Catching Fire brought Sia to my mind’s foreground. It’s amazing when you realize all the songs that she writes for other performers. And when you factor in some of the collaborations she’s done, it’s unusual that she isn’t often mentioned, if ever, with the other leading female vocalists of the day. I’m a huge fan of her latest single “Chandelier” and am looking forward for the summer release of 1000 Forms of Fear. The video for “Chandelier” has me more intrigued. It features Maddie Ziegler of Dance Moms fame. The scene is a rundown apartment in a run down apartment building. There isn’t much in the way of furniture, and it does look dirty and uncared for. There is a toy shark on the ceiling, if you look. In a way it’s almost like Maddie as this miniature Sia lives alone. Her parents aren’t there to see what she’s doing, and without money and transportation she doesn’t have anything to do. So, she stays home and dances. The choreography is, from my uneducated standpoint, quite brilliant. At times it’s a little goofy like something a young girl would do just for fun. At other times, particularly with the facial expressions, it seems more sophisticated and grown up. But, the whole time it is beautiful. To break down every detail would take a long, long time. All I can say is just to watch. If anything, the theme of the song being about partying until you’re swinging from the chandelier can denote moving on to a point of working so hard that you can enjoy where you are at without regard for tomorrow, because nothing is guaranteed for tomorrow, is portrayed at an earlier stage. Before you can get to where Sia is at, you have to go through childhood. That is where our lives begin, where our memories begin, where our learning and skills begin, and where the fire to become who you are is lit. Just sit back, listen, and watch.
