Category Archives: Music

Music Video of the Day: We Are by Ana Johnsson (2004, directed by Antti Jokinen)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Today’s music video of the day comes from the soundtrack of Spider-Man 2.

While Ana Johnsson and her band wake up with the neighbors and move the furniture across the floor, clips from Spider-Man 2 are shown.  This video highlights that, even more than as an action or comic book movie, Spider-Man 2 was originally advertised as being a love story.  Doctor Octopus was driven made by love while Spider-Man got a chance to show his love for Mary Jane Watson.  That might seem pretty simple and obvious today but, in 2004, a comic book movie trying to deal with actual human emotions was a big deal.

This music video was directed by Antti Jokinen, who has gone on to find great success as a feature film director in his native Finland.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Bother by Stone Sour (2002, directed by Gregory Dark)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

The Spider-Man ring that is visible in this video is due to leader singer Corey Taylor being both a fan of the character and this song appearing on the soundtrack of the first Tobey Maguire Spider-Man film.  Just as Peter Parker and Spider-Man are the same but different, the same can be said of Corey Taylor, who is introspective and thoughtful as Stone Sour’s lead singer and something somewhat different when he’s performing as Number 8 with Slipknot.

This video, which features Taylor singing to rapidly aging and dying version of himself, was directed by Gregory Dark.  Dark, previously known as “the Steven Spielberg of the soft-score set” and “the Martin Scorsese of the erotic thriller,” was making the transition for directing films for adults to directing music videos.  It wasn’t always a smooth transition.  There was some controversy when he directed a video for Britney Spears, for instance.  I think this is one of Dark’s better videos.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: It’s On Again by Alicia Keys, featuring Kendrick Lamar, Pharrell Williams, Hans Zimmer (2014, directed by Rich Lee)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

The Amazing Spider-Man 2.  It’s not my favorite Spider-Man movie, though that’s not the fault of Andrew Garfield or Emma Stone.  As a movie, it was clearly trying too hard to match the MCU without actually being a part of the MCU.  (Later, we found out that both the Garfield and the Maguire Spider-Men were a part of the Multiverse but, when they were first released, both sets of Spider-Man films were trapped in limbo.)  The script turned Electro into just another boring villain and Gwen Stacy was no Mary Jane Watson.

I can’t deny, though, that the soundtrack was awesome.  Alice Keys and Kendrick Lamar performed It’s On Again for the film and the music video, along with being a throwback to the type of music videos that used to regularly be made to promote the movies, also hints at what we were all hoping The Amazing Spider-Man 2 would actually be.

The video was directed by Rich Lee, who has also done videos for Eminem, Lana Del Rey, Billie Eilish, Maroon 5, The Black Eyed Peas, Norah Jones, Slash Michael Bublé, The Pussycat Dolls, and The All-American Rejects.

Enjoy!