Music Video

BROKEN PEACH (2009-)

October 20, 2023

Did you have a house in your neighborhood that, whenever October 1st rolled around, it went from being what looked like a normal abode to a creepy funhouse?

That is BROKEN PEACH in music video form.

I’ve posted about BROKEN PEACH before and this was meant to be a repost, but I’d like to extoll them more. They’re a rock & soul band that has built up quite the following since forming in 2009.

When Halloween rolls around they get out their garb and spend a hell of a lot of time crafting some of the finest covers with the most engaging choreography to make the punkiest, gothy videos ever.

As someone who has a significant number of compilations solely dedicated to goth covers of pop songs, I can safely say that they put most of those covers to shame. BROKEN PEACH are endlessly inventive; they take twists and turns when they didn’t need to! I endlessly wonder how they find the time to plan and practice all of this out, while still putting out their own original work, as this feels like it’s on the level of drumcore work.

Granted, over the years I’m sure it has become somewhat easier as they have found their very signature look and uniforms — which I’ll note, they had pretty much out of the gate with their earlier videos — stance, choreography, personality (in a great sort of goth group way), and cadence. However, they’re always upping their game, and I’m always in awe of the results. They’re endlessly engaging, amazingly energetic but still tightly maneuvered, and their production and costume design is so finely tuned. Most importantly? The music always is fist-pumping, boundless fun.

They just released their latest Halloween work, their cover of BLONDIE’s One Way or Another. Please, click their YouTube links to check out their full song history. My personal favorites are Personal Jesus. Tainted Love and Don’t You Want Me and now, of course, One Way or Another, but they’re all great! Also, check out their non-spooky works, especially the soulful automaton-centric video for I Miss You!

TILLY AND THE WALL – “Bad Education [NO CONTENT]”

June 12, 2023

If you aren’t familiar with TILLY AND THE WALL, they were a brash Omaha, Nebraska band from the early naughts. Sadly, they dissolved about a decade ago (~2013) but goddamn they had a good run. They were the absolute perfection of idiosyncratic indie-pop, featuring a a number of tap dancers in a way that actually didn’t feel cloying but emphasized the backing work. Hell, they were even featured on SESAME STREET!

I think I faked it, oh did I fake it?

I managed to see them at Lincoln Hall — if you’re ever in Chicago, I can’t recommend the venue more as they’re so accustoming and their sound system will blow your mind — and it was beyond fantastic. It’s one thing to hear them tap, but it’s another thing to see them tap, and they even had pedestals for them!

I’m tugging at the seatbelt; I’m jumping out the saddle.

This is a remix, based off of their remix album ‘That Remix Sucks’ but obviously, none of them suck. This song is an endless parade of beats and echoes and awkward pauses and physicality and bodies and more, and I love it so much.

This is the original, not the NO CONTENT remix, but still great:

POSTSCRIPT

Similarly, from the same album, CSS’s remix of “The Freest Man” from the same EP endlessly floors me.

THOSE DARLINS – “The Whole Damn Thing” (2012)

June 9, 2023

THOSE DARLINS were two women who created the band they wanted to hear in the world. Then one died of cancer — Jerri, the front-person, on the far right — far too early, but before she died they released three amazing albums: a self-titled one, “Stick it In” and “Screws Get Loose” (with the helping hands of two others).

As you might expect, the band is done.

“The Whole Damn Thing” is a song about unapologetic appetites, all wrapped in under three amazing alt-country minutes, and — no pun intended — it is aural comfort food for me. I can never get enough of it.

I was lucky enough to see them at Chicago’s Lincoln Hall — a fucking amazing, but oddly endlessly pristine, venue — when they were touring their poppier album “Screws Get Loose” and goddamn it was so much fun.

I’m burying the lede here a bit, but if you have the chance to see a band perform? See them. Make the effort. Life is short and you never know what will happen and you never know how a performance will impact you. (Also, you can always just walk out if you don’t like it! That’s a thing you can do!)

“I’d like to let you I ate the whole damn thing!”

SNOG – “Cheerful Hypocrisy” (2015)

May 26, 2023

While SNOG can compose devastating works — see “The Ballad” and “Old Atlantis” — “Cheerful Hypocrisy” from the album “Compliance” aurally bounces. It’s pure bubblegum until the lyrics pop.

While the songwriting is quite progressive, although it does contain satirical use of slurs that I’m not too keen on, I’m not sure I can say the same for the video, which seems like a bit too much fetish well-wishing.

I’ll be honest: Despite the obvious STARSHIP TROOPERS riffs, I don’t love some of the phrasing, and I hate some of the lazy ALICE IN WONDERLAND tropes, but it’s still one hell of a song. Just be glad I didn’t extoll the song where he’s basically being spanked for four minutes straight.

“WAR GOING GREAT!”

SNOG – HOORAY!! (1998)

May 21, 2023

What sounds like a peppy electro song is a surprisingly dour and nihilistic track, which is SNOG in a nutshell. Nonetheless, it’s immaculately constructed and perfect to sway to.

(I’ll note that there’s an entire remix EP of the song, which is how I’m justifying posting this as well as “The Ballad”, both of which are on “Buy Me… I’ll Change Your Life.”)

“Hurry on madness. Hurry on, disease. Hurry on insanity. Hurry on, please.”

FOETUS – [ADAM]

May 9, 2023

“(Not Adam)”

As previously mentioned, Thirlwell is a consummate composer, and “(Not Adam)” — from his 2005 album LOVE, as well as the (NOT ADAM) EP — finds him firing on all cylinders: the rolling percussion, the screaming strings, and especially the harpischord; it’s an amalgam of aural hedonism.

I will note: the following video is a bit disturbing in phantasmagoric ways and not exactly safe for work; it’s basically a twisted fever dream. Kind of surprised it was even made, frankly. I do enjoy it but I am a pretty messed up individual.

“As serious as cancer, as subtle as a heart attack.”

JUNO REACTOR – “Pistolero” [Mr. Black] (2013)

April 14, 2023

This might as well be called the “Coachella remix”. It’s all about hedonism, self-promotion, the worst parts of club culture, exploitation of others, and patched together by stock footage. It’s basically THE WHITE LOTUS: the music video — without repercussions, however, so many reverberations — but damn, it still bangs. Maybe listen to it while viewing other browser tabs.

Gotta admit: I absolutely love the person throwing fingers in a NASA outfit.

SOFT CELL – “Tainted Love” (1981)

April 5, 2023

Granted, this week of “Tainted Love” songs has run longer than a proper week, but I couldn’t go without mentioning SOFT CELL’s cover, which is the quintessential version for Gen X’ers and always guaranteed a good turnout on the dance floor.

Featuring Marc Almond and David Ball, it’s perhaps this is what SOFT CELL is best known for. It even set a Guinness World Record for longest stay on the Billboard Hot chart.

Perfectly programmed, expertly composed, it’s an absolute earworm that will never die. The video is oddly queer phantasmagoria, even for the 80s, but also completely fascinating and compelling.

COIL – “Tainted Love” (1985)

April 4, 2023

Even though this is the most languid cover of “Tainted Love”, I have so much adoration for it. It’s so evocative and has so much heft, a quality which I always loved COIL for. They managed to aurally imbue queer anguish into it, which is a goddamn feat. While I know it was specifically recorded for the AIDS/HIV pandemic — yet another pandemic that still isn’t over! — it works on so many other levels.

“Everybody is looking for something. I traveled the world and the seven seas…”