viz.

Image Credit:  Screenshot from YouTube

H/T:  Hampton Finger

Lucky for you and me that before I started working on my blog post today that my friend Hampton asked me if I’d seen the new OK Go video for “This Too Shall Pass,” and thus I stumbled onto a much more interesting debate than any engaged in by any Texas Republicans running for the governorship.

The above video does a great job of catching the audience’s attention, as it features an enormous and complex Rube Goldberg machine (apparently created from a collaboration between the band and Syyn Labs) that not only moves a car and drops a piano, but also contributes to the song by playing music at one point.  While the song itself is pleasant, the video’s visual interest overwhelms it, especially as the lyrics themselves aren’t terribly memorable.  Considering that OK Go first achieved major success with their clever video for “Here It Goes Again,” in which they do a choreographed dance on treadmills, this video simply seems to fit into an artistic identity that the band has built for itself.

However, what is interesting to note is that, prior to releasing this video yesterday, the band had recorded a video for the song with the Notre Dame marching band that was released in early January.  Why this video didn’t go viral as their new video (the latter of which already has generated 1.2 million YouTube hits, more than the previous one) is because their record label, EMI, initially refused to allow the first video to be embeddable on other websites.  As noted by several websites, this created a controversy.  The band responded not only by writing an open letter to their fans on their website, but also by publishing an op-ed in the New York Times authored by their lead singer Damian Kulash.  His argument considers the power of music videos as artistic statements and financial cash machines, and asserts that EMI neglects both interests by prohibiting embedding.

He starts off the article by asserting his band’s interest in their videos as an extension of their art:

My band is famous for music videos. We direct them ourselves or with the help of friends, we shoot them on shoestring budgets and, like our songs, albums and concerts, we see them as creative works and not as our record company’s marketing tool.

However, what’s also interesting to note is that he represents the videos as much as branding devices as a creative product when he alludes to how his band is “famous” for the videos.  OK Go has profited financially from viral Internet success, and Kulash isn’t afraid to admit it.  However, his warning to EMI is particularly potent.  While they make money from making people view the videos on YouTube, they miss out on the long-term benefits of viral success:

In these tight times, it’s no surprise that EMI is trying to wring revenue out of everything we make, including our videos. But it needs to recognize the basic mechanics of the Internet. Curbing the viral spread of videos isn’t benefiting the company’s bottom line, or the music it’s there to support. The sooner record companies realize this, the better — though I fear it may already be too late.

Kulash’s eloquence here is directed towards the bottom line:  the band and EMI will only profit if people are interested in the band, and online videos now serve the purpose that radio once did.  However, the “This Too Shall Pass” also raises questions as it builds onto the low-fi aesthetic of their famous “Here It Goes Again” video, which now has almost 50 million views on YouTube.

OK Go - Here It Goes Again from OK Go on Vimeo.

They’ve also played into a curiosity about their video by posting a series of making-of clips on their YouTube channel in a way that reminds me of the also-viral Old Spice commercial from the Super Bowl, “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like.”

A part of this commercial’s success lies in its lo-fi appeal as well as its success.  The advertising company behind the commercial admitted in an interview that the commercial was made in one take with no CGI, something that seems almost as impossible as OK Go’s Rube Goldberg machine.  I think there’s something fascinating about the mix of viral Internet advertising and old-fashioned creative trickery that also speaks to a desire for an experience with the real (which may be a part of the appeal that The Hurt Locker has over Avatar, and why Roger Ebert is picking the former for Best Picture) in the midst of technological innovation.  “Home made” art, as OK Go describe their video, just may be more appealing than anything else, especially as the emphasis is on the performance over the technology.  (Maybe this is why State Farm’s logo is hidden in the video on the truck that starts the dominos:  advertising is best done in a subtle and artistic fashion.)

As a teacher using technology and as a researcher interested in its implications, I wonder what such desires reveal in my students, and whether the use of high technology works best for them when it is least explicit and obvious.