I've known at the back of my mind that Patrick Wolf was putting out a new album soon, and I finally headed over to Youtube to watch the video for the album's first single, "Vulture," which was released in April.
Patrick Wolf describes the video as "an intimate portrayal."
I am going to direct the video for the new single "Vulture" by myself.. I may be mad... but I just want to deliver the most intimate portrayal to you of the dark self destructive place in my heart and groin that the song was written from..... Let's just say it just may have to go on x-tube rather then youtube for its debut! [via Wikipedia]
The caveat always added to my fondness for his music is that I am quite undecided on him. The video spells it out neatly; he features himself, in dramatic black and white, in three leather-heavy costumes. The "dark, self-destructive place" in Wolf's heart looks like bondage, elves, and looking like Morrissey. Watching the video, though, makes me uncomfortable not because of the explicitness but because it comes across as explicit for narcissism's sake, an "intimate portrait" made so that he could watch it over and over again and marvel at himself. Wolf is a good looking guy, but we don't want him to know it. It's like watching Morrissey without the explicit understanding that after decades, there is going to be an element of camp. To Morrissey, you can say, "Oh, Moz. What a douche." To Wolf though, the message is "Yo son, calm down." A product of the millennial generation satuaration with constant affirmation, perhaps, taken to new heights in the life of a prodigy? Whatever it is, he thinks it's all art when in fact the video comes across as posturing.
But the song is good!
No comments:
Post a Comment