TV Killed the video star

7 Television Commercials

Radiohead

EMI Distribution

The…

7 Television Commercials

Radiohead

EMI Distribution

The music video is quickly becoming a lost art. I can still remember a time, growing up – a time before reality shows – when music videos were actually played on music television stations. A time when I could turn on MTV and find out what’s new in popular music. That time, unfortunately, is gone, but there are still great music videos being made. This is evident in the DVD collection of Radiohead videos titled “7 Television Commercials.”

Music videos can be viewed as television commercials for albums. The seven television commercials included on this DVD are singles from two great Radiohead albums: 1995’s The Bends, and the 1997 classic, O.K. Computer. They are the result of the band collaborating with different directors in the production of a visual representation of their music.

Each music video is both unique and innovative while still expressing the idea of the song. The animated clip for “Paranoid Android,” directed by Magnus Carlson, is based around a character named Robin. Many unusual things happen to him in the video: He goes to a bar where Radiohead is playing and gets drunk, then watches a politician chop off his own arms and legs, and later plays ping-pong with an angel.

In the clip for “No Surprises,” lead singer Thom Yorke is featured wearing a glass helmet on which the song lyrics are reflected. The helmet slowly starts filling up with water until Yorke is submerged for 57 seconds. The end result is very effective in conveying a feeling of suffocation.

The most interesting video, “Karma Police,” features the viewer in a car with Yorke in the back seat. The car is chasing a man who falls to his knees in exhaustion toward the end, only to find that the car had leaked a trail of gas. The man then sets the trail of gas on fire, which eventually reaches the car and leaves the singer trapped in flames at the end.

As great as this video compilation is, it could have been better. The biggest complaint is that it clocks in at only 34 minutes, containing only seven music videos. Radiohead has released several excellent videos that could have been included in a second edition of this compilation, such as those for “Go to Sleep” and “There, There.” Let’s just hope that Radiohead blesses us with a second volume of television commercials in the future.