Garageland “Kiss It All Goodbye”

1999-garageland-kiss-it-all-goodbye“Kiss It All Goodbye” takes inspiration from Pop Up Video, the VH1 series that combined music videos with pop facts and was insanely popular in the late ’90s. The video begins with one such ‘fact’ – “Garageland members are famous for having personalities like animals”, and the shocking revelation that bassist Mark isn’t just like a tiger, but he wears a tiger mask. Of course, today a dude in an animal mask just looks like a hipster, but kids, back in the ’90s it was really weird.

Mark wanders around Newmarket (and passes a Truetone record store), baffled by strangers’ cruel reactions to his tiger mask. Meanwhile, Jeremy is tormented by many cups of decaf as he waits in a cafe, Andrew G is a football-loving office worker, and a bound and gagged Andrew C fights to escape from a dark room.

Subtitles give us further insight into the four. Mark is very baffled; Jeremy is very tormented, Andrew G really loves football and Andrew C is trying hard to escape.

When the chorus comes along, we take a break from this chaotic world and experience Garageland performing the song in a simple, sepia-tone setting. It’s a nice break because all those subtitles and crazy adventures are a little exhausting.

The video doesn’t quite deliver on the premise. It has a good sense of humour, but it just feels like a lot of effort has been made to set up something that doesn’t really go anywhere.

The four finally reunite at Jeremy’s cafe, sharing tales of man-tiger discrimination, soccer love, daring escapes and truckloads of decaf. The video concludes and threatens “To be continued…” Oh, I hope so.

Best bit: The irate music story owner, banning man-tiger Mark for something terrible that happened “last time”.

Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… they called her the wild hibiscus.

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