Sound And Vision

I've never really come to terms with music videos. It's an odd thing to say, I know, since they've been around for so long, but when I try and think of ones that seem to me entirely successful in marrying image and sound I can only manage a very short list. Maybe some by Bowie - especially the more recent - and possibly Peter Gabriel - but those seem somewhat dated. Having said that, I'd be the first to admit that there are probably hundreds of good ones I don't know about simply because I don't watch all that much television, or view these things on-line.

Curiously enough I think I'd rate the stuff done by Prince as my favourites in this genre. I say 'curiously' not so much in relation to the music (of which any visitor to this Far Place would know I'm an unashamed fanboy of the first order) but in relation to the silly hyperbolic playing up of Prince's image as whatever His Purple Highness seemed to see himself as at any given time. What wins me over to the videos is the outright goofiness of so many of them in this respect, the idea that this is all mickey-taking on at least one important level, though engagingly serious on others.

Today, for example, I found myself goofing off in a spare moment to the brilliant Musicology, and enjoying the visuals as much as the groove. I love the irony in Prince's playing of the diva role to his younger fan-struck self, and the wonderfully rhythmic editing so perfectly in synch to the track. There really is a kind of education to be had here.