Opshop “No Ordinary Thing”

2004-opshop-no-ordinary-thingOpshop return with “No Ordnary Thing”, and it sounds like they were listening to a lot of Radiohead when they wrote it. The song is perhaps best known when it was used on Outrageous Fortune when Aurora died. Boohoo.

The video is largely animated, set in space. It opens with what looks like an eclipse, only it’s revealed that the large object blocking the sun is actually a car tyre. We soon discover that there’s whole lot of stuff floating around in space. But this isn’t standard space junk – it’s very ordinary bits and pieces of everyday life on earth. Things like a doll, a petrol pump, a t-shirt, and a flickering neon sign advertising “X GIRLS”.

But a curious thing is happening – the objects seem to be getting unwrecked, unsmashed. Then we discovered all the junk is heading for one spot and – ohh… – it’s rebuilding planet Earth, which we presume has previously exploded.

This is like one of those really rubbish deux ex machina episodes of Doctor Who. And somehow it’s only the accoutrements of Western life that are heading back, suggesting this repaired Earth will have remote African village huts made of laptops and sneakers.

Back on the rapidly reconstructed Earth, we find Jason from Opshop in a playground with his daughter. He’s taking photos of her, implying that the only thing that can bring a fractured world back together is a father’s love for his daughter. Well, that’s nice.

It feels like the song is so strong that it doesn’t really need the video. People who like the song will like it regardless of whether or not there’s a pair of sneakers floating in space.

Best bit: the “X GIRLS” sign, bringing some cheap thrills into space.

Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… on the road, yet again.

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