Both this song and this music video just feel very much like the right way to begin the first Monday in October. On the one hand, the landscape appears peaceful. On the other hand, it’s hard not to feel like chaos is right around the corner. It looks like a dream but it could be a nightmare.
Enjoy!
For today’s music video of the day, we have a cover (by Kevin Bias) of the main title theme from Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. As I’ve often said on this site, The Shining is one of my favorite horror movies and I think it has one of the best scores to be found in a non-Italian horror film.
This is taken from Bias’s own description of the video on YouTube:
Written by Wendy Carlos & Rachel Elkind
Cover of the original from the opening credits of Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 film ‘The Shining’.
Equipment: Alesis Ion, Ensoniq Sq2, OP-X PRO II emulation software
I pre-recorded my own sound effects and ambience which are not reflected in the visuals in the video. All of the visual takes seen in the video are the takes heard in the audio and mixed using Sonar X2.
If you like this cover, be sure to check out Kevin Bias’s YouTube channel and subscribe!
Welcome to October!
Since this is the first post of our annual Horrorthon, it only seems appropriate that today’s music video of the day should be for one of the most haunting songs ever written. Originally recorded by Tears For Fears and then covered by Gary Jules for Donnie Darko, Mad World is a beautiful song and, if you ask me, an appropriate song for October. After all, it’s a mad world out there.
I do have to admit that I usually absolutely hate anything a cappella. Seriously, I usually find a cappella music to be one of the most painfully boring types of music around, second perhaps only to gospel and folk music. However, I do like Pentatonix because they’re not as a self-important as most a cappella groups (as far as I know, they’ve never done a 10-minute version of I’ll Fly Away) and they’re from my home state of Texas. (Y’know, home of the chainsaw massacre….)
Enjoy!
This is a gorgeous video. The American landscape is haunting. In this video’s YouTube description, the cinematography is credited to Leslie Satterfield.
Enjoy!
Today’s music video of the day is for a cover of The Verve’s The Drugs Don’t Work.
I like the video. It has definite drowning feel to it, which is appropriate for the song.
Enjoy!
I like this video, largely because — as our longtime readers should know by now — I have a thing for motels. I find them to be fascinating. Whenever I see a motel, I wonder what drama is going on in each and every room. Seriously, the roadside motel is one of the greatest things that America has given the world.
This is a gorgeous, well-directed video, full of atmosphere. It’s like Wes Anderson’s Psycho.
Enjoy!
I danced for like an hour after I watched this video.
This video pays homage to Nancy Sinatra’s video for These Boots Are Made For Walkin and was choreographed by Kayla Kalbfleisch.
Enjoy!
Jessie Frye is a singer from my hometown and personally, I think she definitely deserves to be better known. So, as a part of my humble attempt to spread the word, here is her just released video for No Sleep. This video has a new retro feel (it’s deliberately filmed to make it look like something you might stumble across on an old VHS tape) and it has a lot of nice shots of the Dallas skyline, which is something that I really appreciated. You can always tell that a video’s been shot in Dallas when the Bank of America Plaza appears in all of its neon green glory.
Getting no sleep in Dallas? That’s something to which I can relate.
Enjoy!
Tom Waits recorded this version of Cole Porter’s It’s Alright With Me for Red Hot + Blue, a compilation album that was put together to benefit the Red Hot Organization, a non-profit organization that raises money for AIDS relief and education.
Probably the best known of the songs to come off of Red Hot + Blue was U2’s version of Night and Day. However, Waits also brought his own unique style to Porter’s lyrics. This video was directed by filmmaker Jim Jarmusch, who has also featured Waits in several of his films.
Enjoy!
In this song from her 1992 album, 99.9F°, Suzanne Vega sings about a lost relationship. Apparently, this song was inspired by a relationship that Vega actually had with someone who from Liverpool. He and Vega met in America when she was 18 and they fell in love, just for their relationship to end when he had to return to his home.
Today, this song makes me think of my friends and family in the UK and how I look forward to someday getting to see them again.
This video was directed by Howard Greenhaigh. Greenhaigh has several videos to his name but the one he’s probably best known for is Soundgarden’s Black Hole Sun.
Enjoy!
Through the Shattered Lens