Robyn – Page 54 – 5000 Ways to Love You

Betchadupa “Supa Day”

The more mature sounding Betchadupa have the second single off their second album “The Alphabetchadupa” and another video directed by Greg Page. It has a strong guitar pop sound with crunchy garage tones. I like a good crunchy garage.

The video sees the ‘Dupa performing in front of a wall painted in vertical green-grey stripes, looking like a depressed test pattern. There are points of brighter colour from the band – Liam’s maroon trousers, Matt’s red t-shirt, Chris’ red guitar, and the orange Orange amp. With the band neatly arranged along the stage and the camera mainly shooting straight on, it’s a very pleasing rock tableau.

As the band power through their pop pleaser, there’s plenty of rock posing. And this is where the video gets a little interesting. Suddenly part of the screen will freeze. Chris will strike a particularly epic rock pose and he’s paused like that, leaving the rest of the band to play on. I’m guessing the striped background was necessitated by the need to have places to disguise the border of the frozen video. Or Liam and Joe make epic leaps while Joe and Matt coolly play on.

Capturing a band’s live energy is something that Greg Page does really well, but there’s something missing here. Maybe it’s Betchadupa themselves. They seem to be playing their instruments with the energy and concentration of someone having a gym workout. That’s all good, but where is the fun?

Note: below is lower quality but embeddable version of the video, but for a higher quality version, visit Greg Page’s director portfolio at Fish ‘n’ Clips.

Best bit: the brief close-up of the Batman badge on Liam’s guitar strap.

Diretor: Greg Page
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… nursing a beer.

Anika Moa “Good In My Head”

The video sets the scene in ordinary New Zealand. A car rolls down a leafy street, the wind blows a suburban washingline, a seagull squawks, and sheep nibble pasture. Despite the international cliches, you don’t normally see sheep in New Zealand music videos.

And we also meet Anika walking past a wall with an elaborate graffiti mural. She’s wearing a beige duffle coat over a red t-shirt, and as the scene changes (to the rural setting, to the beach) she wears the same clothes, eventually ditching the jacket on the sunny beach.

There’s clever editing between the different locations. A sip from a water bottle carries from suburbia to the West Lynn shops to the beach; a kicked can transforms into a kick into the sandy beach.

And with the exception of the few people seen in the background down at the shops, other people don’t feature in the video. This is a world where Anika Moa is the lone inhabitant.

It’s not a particularly high-concept video, and mainly seems to serve as a pleasant setting to showcase the song. It’s attractive, it’s scenic and works nicely with the song.

Best bit: the busy postie seen reflected in a shop window.

Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Director: Justin Pemberton

Next… freeze frame.

The D4 “Exit to the City”

Putting a band in a car is a pretty ordinary music video trick, but with “Exit to the City”, Greg Page takes things to a whole nother level, mercilessly shoving the D4 into the back of a van.

For a start there’s no green screen or trailer involved. It’s a real van driving through the streets of Auckland. And there’s no attempt to romanticise it as a road trip. There’s the band hunched over in the van, attempting to play the song while they’re hurled about as the vans takes corners. The outside – fairly ordinary looking streets of suburban Auckland – passively passes by the background windscreen.

The van is covered with egg cartons, presumedly to offer a bit of padding as the group is bumped around. But the pulpy protection starts to fall off, with large bits of the van’s bare metal interior exposed in some shots. This band suffers for their art.

The video is amusing, but it never goes for gags, rather letting the focus be the physical comedy of a band desperately trying to stay upright and rock out in a moving vehicle.

As well as the driver and the band, Greg Page is the sixth person in the band, crouched down below the camera, with his hand popping up to adjust a rogue microphone stand, hold up a pedal and finish with an “APPLAUSE” sign. I’m going to randomly declare this to be the most legendary of Greg Page’s videos.

Best bit: the disappearing and reappearing album cover.

Director: Greg Page
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… a space odyssey.

The Black Seeds “Hey Son”

Wellington’s finest purveyors of barbecue reggae have the first of their many NZOA-funded videos, after debuting with the self-funded “Keep on Pushing“. “Hey Son” is a fun one, of the “dressing up in crazy costumes and doing crazy things” type that Blerta pioneered back in the 1970s, or like an above-average 48Hours entry.

So, the Black Seeds have been charged with the offence of “civil unobedience” and have gone down to the office of The Man to sort out this problem. Only the long queues and unhelpful staff mean the only way things will get sorted is with a little comedic violence.

There’s running, jumping, firing soda cans from a vending machine, and use of a rubber stamp as a weapon. There’s also proper martial arts and the use of staple guns like pistols. And amid all this chaos, band member and future Grammy winner Bret McKenzie has a FIGWIT moment as a long-haired fellow in a Michael Jackson-style military jacket.

Meanwhile, Barnaby Weir has gone from smashing up a computer monitor to getting the band to smash up the mainframe. It’s not quite as epic as Dave killing HAL in “2001”, but it’s a lot more entertaining.

Back in the main office, a tardy courier has finally turned up with an official letter cancelling the infringement notice. “We hope this reaches you before you do anything drastic,” it says. I can’t help wonder if this crazy-arse bureaucracy actually wanted the Black Seeds to come and smash up its stuff.

While their later videos were more straight-up music videos, it’s cool to have this goofy adventure as the introduction to the Seeds.

Best bit: the furious rubber-stamp action – DENIED!

Director: James Barr
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… a man with a van and a plan.

519 ways to love you

Subware are starting with the computer-animated man in the mirror

TrueBliss don't give a damn what the haters say — TrueBliss don’t give a damn what the haters say

Stayfree Carefree target the all-important crustacean/bogan crossover demographic

It’s the second anniversary of 5000 Ways to Love You, which is a good a time as any to celebrate and look back at all the videos I’ve been watching. So that’s 519 down (though that is a bit of a back-of-an-envelope calculation) and almost 2000 to go. Crikey.

A year ago, I was entering the dawning of the age of the Feelers, those years in the early ’90s where New Zealand pop-rock bands did rather well. There was also Zed and the trio of female-fronted bands, Stellar, Fur Patrol and Tadpole. All of these groups made their mark with their music videos. It’s wasn’t just enough to stick the band in an interesting place and command them to rock out; videos had to do something.

And heading into the new millennium, it’s obvious that there’s a change in the technology behind music video as camera and editing equipment got cheaper and more digital. The low-budget videos start to look slicker, and the medium budget videos look really slick. The more prolific music video directors started to become well known for their work.

As always, trends come and go, like that period when videos had artistic and/or comedy subtitles. It’s proof that New Zealand isn’t an isolated island; that international trends in music video making are felt here too. Or when indie bands started doing ironic formation dancing (well before genuine pop acts did it sincerely).

But what really makes this project all worth while is the input from other people. Comments from music fans, people in bands, video makers and others with stories to tell; the awesome team at NZ On Screen sourcing those great old videos; and the great people who have gone to the effort of putting old videos online, particularly Peter McLennan and John from SANZ. And a kia ora to NZ On Air and Audio Culture, the very enjoyable new website about New Zealand music history.

And so to the early years of the ’00s, just coming up to Shihad’s Pacifier years and the eve of NZ Idol. It all feels a bit awkward looking back from 2013, but that’s all part of the journey.

— Robyn

Tadpole “Condition Chronic”

“Condition Chronic” was the third single from Tadpole’s second album, an ode to the pain of unrequited love. The video is directed by Wade Shotter, and like his earlier Tadpole video “Better Days”, this one is also based on animation, but the band make a real-life appearance too.

The video is set in a stylish snow-covered forest. Renee is alone in this forest, with a fur stole to keep her warm in the chilly environment. (Though evidently not cold enough to warrant covering her shoulders.) Beneath her wintry wrap, her heart is full of love.

Through the forest we also find Tadpole rocking out. They’re shot in silhouette, black shapes against an orange sky. It’s all about the hair, with dreadlocks, spikes and a mighty clip-on ponytail all getting a workout against the fuzzy sunset.

Nothing much happens in the video. The big climax involves Renee’s heart animation getting pierced with an arrow and bleeding because love hurts. Otherwise it’s a slow, moody video that works with the tone of the song.

The song is ok but doesn’t seem like a good choice for a single, particularly when the frequently repeated chorus lyric “I’m enamoured of you” always sounds like “I’m a man with a view”.

Best bit: Renee’s ponytail power flicking.

Director: Wade Shotter
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… taking a stand.

Stellar “Taken”

This video never quite felt like it did the song justice. “Taken” is a cool, sophisticated and very romantic number, but the video feels like it’s gone for laughs and blokey-sexy instead.

The video opens with Boh Runga cruising down the green-screen motorway, flirting with a couple of unremarkable guys who drive past. Boh makes a pit stop and has her vintage car serviced by the rest of the band who bumble around. Then Boh does some more hooning, proving she’s an independent woman because she drives her own car.

Then we see her driving through a bush-flanked road, standing up in the car and wearing what looks to be a blue bedsheet upcycled into a top. No one is driving the car (because it is on a trailer), but there’s no attempt to explain why this is. Maybe Boh is such an independent woman she can make her car drive itself.

She pulls over and the band are there again to polish her car. The motorway men appear and Boh stands seductively with her bedsheet top. But the blokes aren’t interested in her. They just want the car and are more interested in her petrolhead bandmates.

It all annoys me. It’s like the video is too scared to deal with the emotional sentiment of the song and so has just gone for the great music video cop-out of putting the band in a car. But then the song reached a very respectable #6 in the charts, so perhaps the video did a perfectly good job of promoting the song.

Best bit: Boh puts on her driving gloves while hooning down the motorway.

Next… the forest of unrequited love.

Sola Rosa “Don’t Leave Home”

I remember this video being a staple of the golden age of M2. The song’s title comes as a warning for the star of the video, a skeleton. Even though he’s wearing a sun-smart hat, we find Simon le Bone alone in a desert, buzzards circling overhead.

But being a skeleton in arid conditions has its advantages – no need for food or water. So our skeletal hero sets off, eventually coming to a lush green rainforest. (Yeah, where was that when he was alive?)

He wanders through the forest, finally coming to an inviting waterfall. The down under Skeletor jumps up – soaring high above the clouds – then down into the waterfall. But his dramatic leap appears to have overshot the target, as he ends up in the chilly southern part of the South Pacific Ocean. Well, that’s a change from the desert.

The video, directed by Richard Shaw of Turtleneck, is a pleasingly quirky accompaniment to Sola Rosa’s sassy instrumental track. I’ve been trying to figure out how the video was made and I can only conclude that it’s some sort of stop-motion/puppetry/CGI voodoo.

Best bit: the skeleton’s OMG jaw-drop moments.

Director: Richard Shaw
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… going for a ride.

SJD “A Boy”

SJD’s second video starts with the song title scrawled across the screen in childish handwriting. Only it’s back to front, which automatically makes me think it’s a YouTube copyright takedown avoidance trick. Or maybe it’s just the writing of a kid who hasn’t learned to write left to right. I used to do that.

The handwriting turns into child-like drawings, stick figures with swords, giant rolling heads, morphing cats and other delights. Only the drawings are animated and have a sophisticated flow, suggesting it’s the work of someone who can draw properly.

Primitive stick figures joyfully run around, jumping through hoops. It’s weirdly alarming to see something as simple as a stick figure move so smoothly and naturally. It makes me feel quite inadequate about the quality of my attempts at stick figure.

Sometimes we see an eerie shadow looming over the screen. So who is behind this animation? It’s a boy, of course. We meet the (real, not animated) boy sitting at a desk in a strange CGI room. It seems all there is to do in the room is draw cartoons. And he’s not very happy. Well, with that experience he could always get a job at Weta Digital.

“A Boy” is a groovy number, but the video goes a bit darker (though the lyrics kind of match that tone). It doesn’t take the obvious video promo route, instead making something that is artistic in its own right. But that seems to be an SJD hallmark.

Best bit: the layers of dancing monsters.

Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision
Director: Kieran Donnelley, Dominic Taylor

Next… dem bones.

Salmonella Dub “Tha Bromley East Roller”

Salmonella Dub get all cyberpunk with their drum and bass track “Tha Bromley East Roller”. It feels like the offspring of the Headless Chickens “Donde Esta La Pollo” video, a nocturnal meeting of freaky friends.

It’s all set in a car wrecker’s yard, a quick and easy set for a music video. Among all the heaving masses, we find a sinister preacher man, a cyberpunk Tiki Taane and a Maori warrior doing some mau rakau with a taiaha.

The video also features a performer in a metal bikini, shooting sparks off herself with an angle grinder. It’s all feeling a bit like a Lollapalooza sideshow, circa 1992. But, ok, trends take longer to reach New Zealand. Or maybe this takes place in a post-apocalyptic distant future where young women must wear spark-shooting metal bikinis for practical reasons.

For a group like Salmonella Dub that’s all very outdoorsy, these Mad Max styles actually seem like the logical way to depict the group’s adventures in D&B. There’s the drummer bashing out some tribal beats amid scrap metal, and some tight bass next to a flaming column. There we go – it’s organic…ish.

Best bit: the raver extras, recalling their favourite moments at the Gathering.

Director: Greg Riwai
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… squiggles and wiggles.