Ok Go

Ok Go, get out of my mind!

/ Shane / 2 Comments

They did it again! Unbelievable.

I talked awhile ago about three awesome videos (and extremely catchy songs!) by the band Ok Go, and how unbelievable it was that they could continue to make such cool videos for little or no money. Well, I don’t know if they just happen to be on my specific brain-wavelength or what, but they turned out yet *another* video that I happen to think is awesome:

Those of you who have known me for a long time will of course be reminded of the Sledgehammer video from college (I can’t link it because youtube yanked it because of copyright infringement on the song, so you’ll have to take my word for it. Anyway, it was stop action).

Ok Go’s videos always involve extremely long and complicated choreography taken in one shot, so this isn’t so different. However, consider that the shooting took so long that the sky goes from day to night and back to day again before the video is over. I just can’t get over that. And I love that they incorporated the night time into the video.

There’s one other interesting aspect to the video: Orange Bill. As reported here, there was a goose (affectionately dubbed “Orange Bill” for obvious reasons) that just would not stay out of the camera shot. At first they tried to get rid of the thing, but it just wouldn’t leave, so they eventually just ran with it. Watch the video again, you will see plenty of Orange Bill. This might sound crazy to some people, after all, why would a goose want to be on camera or know anything about cameras at all, but actually my cat is the same way. She tries to worm her way into any picture she can. So I can totally believe it. And besides, there is a reason a goose might like to be on camera: instant fame! Check out Orange Bill’s facebook page, or buy an Orange Bill t-shirt!

(Alright, I will admit that I wasn’t too keen on the video with the trained dogs. So maybe we’re not 100% on the same page.)

Ok Go

/ Shane / Leave a comment

Quite some time ago, there was a music video going around the net. The band was Ok Go, and the song was “A million ways”, A.K.A. “dancing in the back yard”.

[Edit: embedding has been disabled on this clip, so you’ll have to click through to watch. I highly recommend you do so!]

Okay, so 4 guys dancing around in their backyard for a cheep, but pretty awesome, music video. I really don’t think it would have been popular if the song hadn’t been good too.

But no big deal, videos like this go around the web all the time. However, Ok Go was no one hit wonder. Pretty soon another video came out, “Here it goes again”. This one became even more popular than the previous one, and established them as the masters of the “one scene shoot”, where they complete all the choreography without cutting the video, or editing. This video was even more awesome than the last, and you’ve probably seen it, though you might just know it as, “the guys on treadmills”.

[Edit: This one has disabled embedding as well, but if you haven’t seen it, you should definitely click through!]

This led to all kinds of things, and in particular, an appearance on the MTV Music awards, where they performed the dance live, with some awesome treadmills that said, “Ok Go” on them.

Not only is that video pretty awesome, but I really love the song. Again, I think that you can have the coolest video in the world, but if the song sucks, you’re not going anywhere. So the popularity of the video is somewhat of a testament to the quality of the music.

Time passed, and Ok Go disappeared from the radar. I don’t think anybody was really too surprised at that; that kind of Internet fame is like catching lightning in a bottle. They had managed to harness it not once, but twice, and they should be grateful, right? Wrong. Not content to fade quietly into the dark, they went out and made ANOTHER AWESOME VIDEO.

“This too shall pass” features all the usual stuff: a great song and one long take of something overly complicated. In this case, rather than an elaborately choreographed dance, it was an elaborately choreographed Rube Goldberg machine.

World, take note! Ok Go will not be ignored! They will continue to be awesome until you sit up and listen!