I am so happy that Pomplamoose exists. Beyond validating my mangling of the French word for grapefruit, Jack Conte and Nataly Dawn have what I suspect is a more bastardized version than mine and a great cover of Single Ladies by Beyoncé in which they can’t be bothered to sing the bridge because the lyrics suck….Nice!
Here’s what Jason Kottke of the liberal arts 2.0 blog [that's what it says...] kottke has to say about the video –
“What I love about the approach is that it’s showing us a complicated, virtuoso performance, but making it really clear and accessible at the same time. It’s entertaining, but it’s also an exercise in demystification — which of course is exactly the opposite objective of every music video, ever. Their purpose has been to mystify, to masquerade, to mythologize in real-time.”
What Jason is getting at is that this video offers a perfect deconstruction of the myth-making process of pop music because the means of production [video/audio recording] and distribution [the Internet] are now cheap and ubiquitous. Artists like Pomplamoose who embrace the social web are not a subset of savvy marketers, they are disrupters and re-purposers who break the record companies business models. This is a good thing..
reminds me of something written back on Sept 26 ;)
October 14th, 2009 at 10:45 amI don’t think this video demystifies anything. If anything this video mystifies being awkward in front of the camera and blinking.
October 15th, 2009 at 9:59 amI’m not a professional music critic or anything, but this band has all the young passion and energy for good music that I’ve only seen in a few bands in all my years. I hope some big label doesn’t come along waving a million bucks in their face and make them change their sound. Although I do wish them all the success in the world.
November 5th, 2009 at 10:53 am