Friday Night Video

Happy New Year, everyone! I'll spare you all a lengthy list of resolutions except to say that this blog will be getting a lot more of my attention in 2010. In addition to more regular weekly features, you can count on a steady stream of original posts, reviews, links, and the usual assortment of curiosities. But for this first post of 2010, we have to go back to 2009...

SPIN magazine recently ranked their 20 best videos of 2009 and it's a mixed bag to say the least. The number one video, however, is definitely a hypnotic combination of attitude and guts. Matt & Kim is a Brooklyn-based indie duo who released their second album, Grand, in January 2009. You may be familiar with the most successful song off that album, the poppy and oh-so-catchy Daylight...which was also featured in commercials for The Sims 3 and Bacardi (hey, gotta make a living somehow). One of the other singles off that album is called Lessons Learned, and for that video Matt & Kim stroll through Times Square in February---slowly peeling off layers of their clothing until fully naked. While some of the shocked spectators are actors, most of the video is completely authentic...right down to them being violently tackled by NYPD's finest. It's sort of mesmerizing.