Love Letters
by Metronomy
Album: Love Letters (due March 7, 2014)
It's so funny how the music video works. Some have such impact, some have no impact, some you watch again and again, others you can barely remember. Some evoke such emotion and imagery that no matter how any times you hear a certain song those clip images come to mind, even years later. Having said all of that, I feel almost silly having not known. I should have known. How ridiculous of me. I know lots of music clips, but only someone who is considered royalty of music video making could possibly have made a clip that is not only clever, but also made me fall a little in love with a song that I didn't have as much interest in before I saw the clip.
Michel Gondry is the one I speak of and has worked with such an array of incredible artists, big names and big clips you would remember, even if you think you don't. So when I pressed play on 'Love Letters', the latest clip from Metronomy, I guess I should have immediately spotted the Gondry feel; the quirky set, the array of visuals, the need to keep watching just-to-see-what-happens-next. I should have also known only someone with the talent of Mr Gondry would have the ability to take an incredibly retro sounding song and make an incredibly retro feeling clip, without feeling overdone or costumey or kitschy or old or fake. It's none of those things and a little bit all of those things and that makes it just so vintagey good. (I know vintagey isn't really a word, let's just be clear about that, alright?)
The vibrant hand painted rotating set takes the band from car to studio to forest to stage and back again, but it's the intelligent angles and well placed visuals that make it a clip you want to watch again and again to see what you missed last time and to make it that little but more interesting, it was shot in one take. While the song didn't grab me at first, it was after the third watch of the clip I found myself singing along, loving every chord, every chant of "love letters"...and that's the cleverness of music video making. You can take your twerking and your girls and your silhouetted shots and you can keep 'em. Just give me a vintagey(!?) song and a Gondry clip every day and I'll be happy.
Jo Michelmore gives the 'Love Letters' clip four Presets heads out of five...
