Call us old school and laugh at our archaic amount of patience, but we watch music videos. They provide the perfect marriage of sound & visuals, and after the string of pop acts coming out with visually epic pieces of video, we might have raised the bar too high for one of our favorite ensemble hip-hop groups: The Roots.
While not a historically strong act for music video treasure (then again, “The Seed 2.0″ could have been ?uestlove flipping through a phonebook and that’d be fine, since that jam is slammin’ on its own!), we love their live performances and overall discography – but we were so underwhelmed by their new music video for the single “The Fire” (off their new album How I Got Over), we couldn’t help but dissect why.
See the 1:50 mark as Mr. Brooklyn prods Pouty-Face to ‘taste his buddy’, then there is some awkward tongue-poking, and Pouty-Face fiercely spits in his direction. Powerful, huh? We were hopeful that things would start getting interesting, or at least better, once that random girl in the Tank Girl goggles shows up. But no. She weeps and then they cut to some graphic head-shooting. Hurm…. statement perhaps?
Sorry if you guys love this vid, but we just had to ask “Huh?” after watching it. Feel free to sound off your opinions: join us on Twitter and Facebook for the conversation. Don’t get it twisted, we love the song; John Legend does what he does best, the lyrics are deep and intentional, but this video just makes us confused… and not in a good “Lost” or “Inception” kinda way. “The Fire” just goes out for us with this flaming pile of… footage.
Here’s what the director, Rik Cordero, had to say: “The Fire” chronicles a post-apocalyptic death march set in 1945 during the final stages of World War II in Europe. After a cataclysmic event renders the war futile,? a paramilitary splinter group — led by a Kurtz-like figure known as The Commodore — forces the transfer of young men who will be used as labor…and food. The last survivor of the march receives? a mysterious White Box which holds the key to survival.“
Sorry, Rik. We’re going to have to say ‘no’ to this one.
