The hard rockin’ “Ain’t Got You” was the final of Dead End Beat’s four funded videos. And this one starts with something truly terrifying: ’90s style tattoos. I thought I’d successfully blocked out all those Celtic insignias, barbed wire motifs, marijuana leaf art, and “tribal” expressions. But in mere seconds this video has brought back the full horrors of the era.
The animated video starts with this showcase of ink, revealing that a tattooed spider has come to life and sets about wrecking havoc around town. There’s also something that looks like a cyber praying mantis, that obviously has issues with the spider.
After a bit of chasing around town, the cyber mantis strikes down the spider, as well as the Sky Tower. A black substance (tattoo ink? spider goo?) oozes all around the city. And from this goo springs a whole lot of new spiders who set about building a giant web to trap the mantis. But instead being devoured by the spiders, the cyber mantis just flies away.
The video is all bad-ass attitude. With the song being such a full-on rock experience, it would have benefitted from having the band actually performing in the vid. But for whatever reason instead we had this “when good tattoos go bad” situation. Perhaps the crazy spider serves as a cautionary tale against the dangers of getting bad tattoos that seem cool.
Best bit: the fall of the Sky Tower, the most original use of the landmark in a music video.
Next… a muddy game show.