Tuesday Morning Music Videos

The first video today is from Spoon, who, while releasing some of the most challenging and entertaining music of the past few years, have suffered the same video fate as their early influences The Pixies and Pavement–they make bad videos. You get the feeling that Spoon just don’t care, though, similar to the sentiment offered on the commentary track on Pavement’s video DVD Cinema Stars. This clip for the best track from Gimme Fiction, “The Two Sides of Monsieur Valentin,” (mp4) takes a literal interpretation of a line from the song and runs with it. It’s one of their better videos yet, but they would definitely do well to give Michel Gondry a call.

Speaking of Pavement, Stephen Malkmus’ video for “Mama” (wmv) is great–when I first heard the song, I instantly thought of Big Star, but the video has altered my perception of the song. Now I can’t get the image of the Asian Annette Funicello lip-syncing the song from my mind. But that’s not too bad.

Next is “Wraith Pinned to the Mist and Other Games” (mov) from Of Montreal’s new and great record The Sunlandic Twins. It’s incredibly cute and humorously violent (see the still), and works well with the song.

Finally, The National’s record Alligator is bound to work its way into marathonpacks’ year-end top 20, mostly due to my witnessing of their live set, the force of which changes even the most tentative listeners into fans. This is a rather claustrophobic, superimposed performance-based clip for the screaming “Abel” (mov) that offers a brief insight into lead singer Matt Berninger’s magnetic stage presence.

Filed under: music video  Of Montreal  Spoon  Stephen Malkmus  The National