Category Archives: music video

Music Video of the Day: Came Back Haunted by Nine Inch Nails (2013, dir. David Lynch)

Posted on by Valerie Troutman

And if the viewer is epileptic, then they might come back having had a seizure and their driver’s license temporarily revoked because they didn’t see the warning onscreen that lasts four seconds.

What was David Lynch and everyone else involved thinking?

To add to this stupidity, there is another video for this that doesn’t do that, and is more interesting. That one is essentially a remake of the video for Bastards Of Young by The Replacements. The difference is that it’s a reel-to-reel instead of a speaker.

Jeez…if only there were some way to indicate to anyone coming across the video before they started playing it that it might cause seizures. It’s a real shame that YouTube doesn’t let you change thumbnails or anything like that.

Oh, but the idiocy doesn’t stop there. Remember that YouTube has an autoplay option. That means somebody could be listening to music, it moves over to the next video, they happen to be looking away, turn around, and have completely missed the warning. If it is a playlist on the iOS app, then you don’t even see the description. In fact, the description on YouTube videos don’t show up on the YouTube iOS app if you don’t click on the video, and then click for the description.

Here’s what it looks like if you do a search on the iOS YouTube app:

Here’s what it looks like after you have clicked on the video:

As I’m sure you already know, even the web interface while showing part of the description by default, is very easy to miss or is offscreen entirely at times unless you scroll down to look at it.

The flashing begins at six seconds–immediately after the warning–in case you were wondering.

Here’s a congrats from Uwe Boll wearing a wristwatch in his adaptation of Bloodrayne to everyone who made this video the way it is.

If you’re unhappy about what I said here, then here’s another part from Bloodrayne to tell you how much I care–courtesy of Michael Madsen.

I’m not even linking to the video. You can watch the Bastards of Young version below. And look at that? They were kind of enough to tell you in the title that it is only audio. That’s very important, but putting a warning in the title of a video is too much work. Not that it would’ve mattered anyways because plenty of people don’t even read the titles of YouTube videos before clicking on them. Just wow.

Music Video of the Day: Crazy Clown Time by David Lynch (2012, dir. David Lynch)

Posted on by Valerie Troutman

That’s as weird as I remember when I watched it for the first time, then never watched it again till I went to write this post.

It’s the bad horror movie cliche of idiots partying if it were trapped in the David Lynch universe. It’s also a music video that is already a literal music video. It’s also Lynch reworking Rockit by Herbie Hancock. You’ve got Lynch shown in brief shots on a TV as he orchestrates nightmare fuel with his music. It’s the same music video–just Lynchified. I have no problem with that. As for the meaning, as usual, have at it for yourself.

This is one of those music videos where I have to mention the YouTube comment section. Apparently, a gamer who goes by the name Crendor must have brought this video up, so a lot of people watched it about a year ago. As usual, they felt the need to announce what brought them there. There seems to be some argument over how these people could have not known who David Lynch is. David Lynch has essentially been out of the spotlight since Mulholland Dr. in 2001. How is it surprising that people around the ages of 16-25 wouldn’t know who he is? The only thing I can point to as a reason how Lynch could have shown up on some kid’s radars is the Twin Peaks inspired game, Deadly Premonition, that came out in 2010. I have included the “FK in the coffee” scene below.

I only know who David Lynch is because I happened to catch Blue Velvet (1986) on late night cable when I was in middle school, and I fell in love with his work. Twin Peaks was also on the air for its original run when I was in elementary school. I only knew of it then because I believe there is an episode of The Simpsons where Homer is watching Twin Peaks, and it’s somebody dancing with a horse at night. If you weren’t around in the 80s or 90s, then it’s perfectly reasonable to not be familiar with David Lynch.

Finally, I have included the behind-the-scenes video for it below.

Three of the actors are Emily Elicia Low, Chris Pounders, and Pandie Suicide.

Christopher Gray did the casting for the video. He and casting associate Christopher Gonzalez have worked on many movies and the upcoming new Twin Peaks.

Shakana Beatty was the casting assistant on the video.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Good Day Today by David Lynch (2011, dir. Arnold de Parscau)

Posted on by Valerie Troutman

This time around, we have a French crew who put together a music video for David Lynch.

Director: Arnold de Parscau
Cinematography: Jonathan Bertin, Antoine Bon
Actors: Elia Blanc, Jean-Christophe Bouvet, Brigitte Aubry, Sarah Barzyk.

The video is your typical downbeat commentary on modern family life–or lack there of. There are two interesting things to note about it.

First, it features prolific French actor Jean-Christophe Bouvet.

Second, it is edited from/or into a short film by Arnold De Parscau called Tommy that also came out 2011. I have embedded the film below.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: I Know by David Lynch (2011, dir. Tamar Drachli)

Posted on by Valerie Troutman

I don’t know if David Lynch still does this, but at least for awhile, he held music video competitions for his songs. That is the case with this music video. The following people worked on it according to the officially posted video:

Director: Tamar Drachli
Actors: Adam Horowitz & Vaan Nguyen
Director of Photography: Tom Goldwasser & Nadav Gordon
Camera Operator: Tom Goldwasser
Costumes Designer: Leeat Ramon
Compositing: Roi Werner
Online: Shahar Naor

It goes on to give some background on the competition:

“Almost 450 were entered into the competition to create the official music videos for David Lynch’s single ‘Good Day Today / I Know’m released on Sunday Best Recordings http://www.sundaybest.net

This fantastic video directd by Tamar Drachli was chosen by David Lynch as the winner for ‘I Know’ from a shortlist of 10 finalists.

The response to this competition was amazing with almost 450 videos published and some fantastic creativity and talent on display.”

That’s a lot of music videos to go through.

Based on what little I can turn up, the cast and crew are from Israel, or at least have connections there (the taxi has Hebrew characters on it). The one that stood out the most is Vaan Nguyen. The reason is because there is a whole movie about her father called The Journey of Vaan Nguyen (2005). I haven’t seen it myself.

I can find next to nothing on the others. There is a website for director Tamar Drachli, but I can’t get it to load. I can only view it in the Google Cache, which shows me she has directed some other music videos. There is also a website for costume designer Leeat Ramon.

Just to clarify one thing about the credits, it does say Adam Horowitz with a ‘w’, not a ‘v’.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Lights by Interpol (2011, dir. David Lynch)

Posted on by Valerie Troutman

This is the second music video for Lights by Interpol. It was made a year after the Charlie White one in 2010. That one looks more like an induction into the cenobites. This one looks like a guy repeatedly pressing an emergency button, which may or may not have sexual connotations. That’s all I can give you.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Shot In The Back Of The Head by Moby (2009, dir. David Lynch)

Posted on by Valerie Troutman

I’m going to need a little help, and even then, I can only tell you what I see. Here is what Wikipedia says about the video:

“The music video for the song, directed and animated by David Lynch, was released on April 14, 2009 on Pitchfork.tv. The video contains crude drawings of various objects and landscapes, such as cityscapes and factories. The music video’s plot follows a man, whose lover is a woman’s head. An unknown person shoots the man in the back of the head, murdering him. The woman’s head jumps on the killer and murders him. The video concludes with drawings of the night sky as the video fades to black.”

I see us being introduced to a dirty and dank city before we enter an apartment where a man enters from the bottom of the screen–jiggling while he does it. Why is he jiggling? I thought of masturbating at first, but after watching the video a few more times, it feels more like anticipation then anything else. Then a floating head come up, reaches him, and disembodies one of his arms when it cuts outside.

That’s followed by an arm holding a gun that comes in and fires a shot at the man’s head. It’s ambiguous as to whether it actually blows his head off or not with that shot. I believe that was the intention because you do see her head appear right over his. However, you also don’t see it travel around his head. That’s immediately followed by–we assume–the killer leaving the building. We have to assume it is the killer seeing as she’s a head and we have no real reason to believe he isn’t dead–at least dead in his head.

More city follows before cutting to a shot that looks like it’s from Rabbits (2002). It also looks like a guy with a missing head that is smoking off the top of it. We then see what I believe to be the American flag in the background underneath all the black lines. You could also see it simply as stars in the night sky. Smog travels across it before we cut to a guy walking.

Then what looks like the guy from the beginning, minus the top of his head, appears to be looking at us while the flag continues to wave in the background. Then the man dives down to the bottom of the screen. Note that depending on how you look at that shot, it can be seen as her diving downwards where his head would be.

After her head flies across the city, we see his disembodied hand pass over the flag.

Feel free to interpret it as you please. It’s Lynch after all.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Thank You, Judge by BlueBOB (2001, dir. David Lynch)

Posted on by Valerie Troutman

What a mess it is trying to narrow down David Lynch music videos. If it isn’t undocumented, then it’s mis-credited to Lynch.

BlueBOB was a group composed of John Neff and David Lynch. The video has Naomi Watts, David Lynch, and John Neff in it. It also has Eli Roth. On that note, I’m not dignifying this with anymore than that. I will just include the remake of Cabin Fever if it were made by Dingo Pictures that Phelan Porteous and Allison Pregler put together for April Fools’ Day.

Music Video of the Day: Longing ~Setsubou no Yoru~ by X Japan (1995, dir. David Lynch)

Posted on by Valerie Troutman

Take this one in now if you can, because if Wikipedia is to be believed, it “has never been released.”

I don’t know enough about X Japan to speak about them beyond that they are a Japanese heavy metal band with a tragic backstory that is documented in the film, We Are X (2016).

This particular song appears to have had three different versions made of it. This is the third one whose music video was recorded in Los Angeles and shot at Coyote Dry Lake in San Bernardino County, California.

Wikipedia says that Lynch also shot a commercial for the song shot on a beach in Malibu. To the best of my knowledge, the video below is that ad.

This is as good a place as any to mention that Lynch has had a career in commercials. My personal favorites are his own versions of the Taster’s Choice commercials, but in the Twin Peaks universe, with some of the actors from the show. I have included a collection of his commercials below, which includes the coffee ones.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Wicked Game by Chris Isaak (1990, dir. David Lynch)

Posted on by Valerie Troutman

Seeing as the site is going through each episode of Twin Peaks, I thought I might as well go through the music videos where David Lynch has been directly involved. I say “directly” because there is a music video from 1982 for a song called I Predict, by the group Sparks, which is often credited to David Lynch, even though everything I’ve seen says it was directed by Douglas Martin in the style of David Lynch. 

There’s another video for Unfinished Sympathy by Massive Attack that is credited to Lynch over on mvdbase, but probably only got that way because the stedicam operator on the video, Dan Kneece, worked on Blue Velvet (1986). He also worked on other David Lynch stuff, including 29 of the 30 episodes of Twin Peaks’ original run. Wikipedia says it was directed by Baillie Walsh.

We all know the other version of Wicked Game. I’ll do that someday. This is the version that intercuts footage from Wild At Heart (1990) with Isaak’s performance. What is there to say? It’s in Lynch black-and-white. It has a flame. It has Chris Isaak looking like Henry Spencer from Eraserhead (1977) if he were a young Roy Orbison, which I’m sure is on purpose since Orbison’s In Dreams is prominently featured in Blue Velvet. It’s probably what most people would expect.

One last thing, Lynch is again credited for a music video that I don’t think he did. He is credited for directing Dangerous by Michael Jackson. I have no reason to believe that’s true. However, both the video below and IMDb do credit him with directing a short teaser for the album called Dangerous.

Enjoy!