On August 29th 2012 my good friend Mr. Johnson and I saw Gotye live in Calgary. It was a good and unique show I really learned to appreciate the direction of Gotye’s music. The man uses a variety of percussion instruments and uses such sounds as the primary building blocks of his music; it really showed that he was a drummer in another band. Also on an unimportant side note, it was the first time I had ever been anywhere in Calgary where women outnumbered men.
One of the first songs Gotye played was “Easy Way Out.” The performance was accompanied by an animated video of a man running and quick shots of flash backs involving some kind of alien bug performing tests on this said running man. The colors were all red and black and it was a charming visual aid to a short and sweet song.
Easy Way Out
Truth be told, I was not a big fan of the song “State of the Art” going into the concert, however Gotye’s live performance was enough to change my mind on the matter. Like so many other Gotye songs “State of the Art” is built around the rhythm, but live, wow, the bass in “State of the Art” live shakes you, literally. In addition I had never seen the animated music video belonging to “State of the Art.” A family is overcome, consumed and transformed by their new high tech musical devise the “Cotillion,” which is not a real thing... I think.
State of the Art
Things took a turn for the strange with the song “Seven Hour Backseat Driver.” Having never seen this video or even heard the song before I was in for a bit of a surprise. The song is an instrumental but judging from the video it is a song about sexual frustration and acceptance. An elephant is functioning as a car hire for a black bird when they enter a shady part of town where she sees too much. There is a barrage of implied sexual imagery and needless to say I was not expecting this. However I was entertained.
Seven Hour Backseat Driver
“Dig Your Own Hole” is the bonus track from “Making Mirrors.” As a consequence I had never heard the song before. This is the video that made me want to compile all of Gotye’s animated videos and say something about it. I really like this video of black and green. A film noir, drug induced space train adventure. The individual motions of animation and the still images in this video are in theory simple production, but the creative process is heavy. It is charming the simple and realistic way the cigarette moves in the shadowy figures mouth, and the way it burns green and stands out draws our attention to it. The conflict as strange and confusing as it is, is strongly felt; this man is trying very hard to avoid that... head thing? The running animation with the perspective spinning creates a feeling of chaos, and also inescapability. It is a really good video, my favorite... well second favourite.
Dig Your Own Hole
There were a few songs I was hoping to hear when I went to see Gotye. It was safe to assume he would play “Somebody I used to Know” so I held little suspense surrounding that song. The song I had my figures crossed for was “Bronte.” I love the song “Bronte” and part of the reason is the fantastic animated video it has. A song that is essentially about the loss of a pet, the mystic wilder beast in the video add that level of child like magic that the song is trying to provoke. There is a touch of “Princess Mononoke” here.
Bronte
So here we have five delightful animated music videos from one musical artist. How many musician produce this many music videos that are fully animated? Other than Daft Punk or Gorillaz? I like the art direction in all five of these videos. I know they are using flash a lot here, I do not know if that matters to anyone, but flash is the tool of amateur animators, take a trip to newgrounds - http://www.newgrounds.com/ if you do not believe me. There are so many videos there that are very well crafted and are the hard work of amateurs. What does this about Gotye? I believe he is given some struggling animators a chance to shine by letting them create his music videos. And to that I say, good work.
Inviting additional artistic talent and direction from additional mediums of art is the perfect way to enrich everyone’s creativity, for imagination feeds off of itself. I think Gotye is probably a hell of a great guy; he has found work for his colleagues in a different field of creativity and has simultaneously benefited from it by gaining such unique music videos.
If you thought Gotye was a one hit wonder with “Somebody I Used to Know” I have to strongly disagree. There is a lot of good stuff going on here, and in every possible direction.
P.S.
I will always be partial to the “Dig Your Own Hole” video. I first saw it in concert with my good friend Mr. Johnson and we have a running joke about a space train who sells drugs and works as a DJ (long story), and this video had a train, seemingly in space, and seemingly with drug inspired imagery. What are the odds of all of that coming together on the night of August 29, 2012? Good times.
Gotye – “Somebody That I Used To Know,” is becoming increasingly popular and it seems like everyone is talking about it, so I should talk about now before it ends up getting over played or too obvious of a song to talk about. For those of you not heard yet Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used To Know” is a really good song.
Gotye, if that is his real name, (it is not, Wouter De Backer) is a Belgian born Australian gentlemen who writes music with all sorts of instruments. He has become rather popular recently for a variety reasons. The less relevant though interesting reasons include the fact he has some resemblance to the great Robert Plant, and his singing voice is somewhat like Peter Gabriel or Sting. More importantly Gotye is doing his small part to push music forward in a different and very good direction.
Like many people I did not discover Gotye until his huge hit “Somebody That I Used To Know,” however he did have some measure of success prior to his recent stardom, and songs like “Hearts a Mess,” are very good. However nothing in Gotye’s life would have predicted the world wide popularity of his recent hit “Somebody I used to Know.” In fact I think he says it better than I can in this interview;
"It hasn’t been by conscious construction to fit the current mould of pop music. It’s taken me by surprise; I really didn’t think this song to be a pop cross over song.” - Gotye
It does seem random at times why some songs become so popular and others do not, but in this example I think there is a very simple explanation; “Somebody That I Used To Know,” is that damn good. People cannot ignore how good of a song it is and it is just that much better than his previous work so it is getting just that much more attention. Just enough extra attention as is necessary to make a great leap up the charts and into pop radio.
Also I really like the part about him talking about “Hearts a Mess,” in the interview. I found it very amusing that some women were brought to tears when he forgot to play his, at the time, biggest hit at the 2008 Laneway festival. I do not find joy in the fact that some girls were so upset, but rather I find it awesome that they were able to feel such powerful emotions connected to a song. That is what music is all about, the way it moves us.
As for the song itself, other than the fact it is really good, it is a song about not letting go of the past. It is bitter referring to someone as “Somebody That I Used To Know;” Gotye reduces that person to a pawn of the past, yet at the same time he resents it himself. There is a duality when letting go of someone, it is easy to end up hating them as much as you love them. That is, after all, the way of things and Gotye captures that well. But there is a perfect added touch that Gotye himself was aware was necessary, another perspective.
Australian pop singer Brambi sings the second chorus in “Somebody I used to Know,” and wow... just wow... what a difference she makes. A second perspective of someone new unable to love the person unable to let go of their past, that just says so much. Heartbreak is like a poison that spreads; it comes from one ruined relationship and can just as easily haunt and destroy the next. And the line “I don’t want to live that way,” that carries a lot of weight to me, I look around myself all the time, and all the burdens I have adopted in the hope of making things better and sometimes all I can think is, “I don’t want to live this way.”
When I first heard “Somebody That I Used To Know,” it was with my brother watching the video on youtube, I thought it was good until Brambi showed up, then I thought it was great, but.... there is one thing that is missing. As soon as Brambi finished her chorus I was on the edge of my seat thinking “oh man this is going to be awesome when they sing over top of one another!” and then they didn’t, and they don’t. Now I’m just some guy who listens to a lot of music, but if me sitting on a coach can figure this out why can’t the producers? I’ll forgive the song writer Gotye, he has already done so much and sometimes it takes an outside perspective to nitpick little ideas to make slight improvements, that’s what a producer is supposed to be able to do. So why didn’t they sing overtop of one another as the conclusion to the song, and you all know after hearing the song that I am right that is the logically conclusion and a fantastic idea. Oh well I guess I just know a lot about music... obviously.
So like me, you might as well start enjoying Gotye now before he wins a bunch of awards and gets the radio play six months from now that he deserves right now.
And until next month, keep on rocking in the free world.
