"Egg!"

[teenygozer]

In keeping with yesterday's Animation Theme, here's Peter Gabriel, circa 1986, and his highly animated music video for "Sledgehammer."

Click to view

I was lucky enough to have attended two of Peter Gabriel's stage shows, and the experience was more like watching performance art than your a typical rock concert--he is truly no mere rock star, but an artist.

Comments

[chelseagirl]

I remember this so vividly and my brain is having trouble accepting that it was *that* long ago.

Street of Crocodiles? There's a Bruno Schulz book called that, any connection?

[teenygozer]

Yeppers! Wikipedia sez:

Street of Crocodiles is a 21-minute-long stop-motion animation short subject directed and produced by the Brothers Quay and released in 1986.

The Street of Crocodiles was originally a short novel written by Bruno Schulz, from a story collection published under that title in English translation. Rather than literally representing the childhood memoirs of Schulz, the animators used the story's mood and psychological undertones as inspiration for their own creation.

Also:

The "unofficial" DVD version of the Nine Inch Nails video Closure contains a clip in which Mark Romanek, the director of the video for Closer, explains that the video was heavily influenced by this animation.

Ooh, I may put that up next. DISTURBING!

[ljs]

I've always loved that video. :-)

[teenygozer]

It's filled with JOY! And sperm. o.O

[chicklet_girl]

I feel like such an oldster when I see that video, because my first instinct is to hold it up to a bunch of whippersnappers and say, "Do you understand HOW MUCH WORK went into this? That isn't CGI, mister! That took some DAMNED HARD LABOR! Now get off my lawn!"

[teenygozer]

Heh, that's generally my complaint about CGI: it looks TOO DAMNED EFFORTLESS to be real!

You know it's funny--this sort of over-the-top, carnivalesque thing would actually be a natural for CGI, and CGI is fairly inexpensive, especially if it doesn't have to look realistic. One could have a ton of visual fun with it, and yet nobody's doing it. Today's music vids tend to be lacking in terms of whimsical imagination--which they usually make up for with overt sexuality (I'm looking at YOU, Little Miss GaGa.) I say that as someone who sat down and watched every single music vid of the Top 25 Billboard hits of 2009 (after watching DJ Earworm's mashup "Blame in on the Pop" a thousand times.)