Album 14

[Mr Richey]

Yeah, that was pretty naff, all things considered. Most of us could do similar or better with a smartphone and a basic video editing package or app.

[everlasting]

Why didn't they just mix the footage of this new video with the first lyric one and get the best of both worlds? Guess the days of the band having a video of any quality or interest have gone. I remember loving Nixon video when it came out for example, Tolerate and Everlasting too (fire version only haha!).

[FacelessSenseOfVoid]

That was 4 minutes of my life I'll never get back. Not sure I'll be watching that again. I thought JDB's recent solo music vids were poor but this was on another level.

[UEF]

Shit videos is what MSP is all about!

Agreed with Show Me the Wonder being the last good one

[Dancing Kirby]

If they paid Kieran to actually go out and shoot all these locations for a couple of seconds of footage, I respect the hustle.

[FacelessSenseOfVoid]

Originally Posted by Dancing Kirby

If they paid Kieran to actually go out and shoot all these locations for a couple of seconds of footage, I respect the hustle.

If only that was true. It's mainly archive footage so little effort really.

[Porco]

I quite liked the video on first viewing. I found it engaging and thoughtful.

Hold Me Like a Heaven and Anthem for a Lost Cause are my favourite recent Manics videos, but I like pretty much everything Kieran Evans has done with the Manics. I’m glad they seem to be happy with his work even if it’s not to some of your tastes.

Also, at the end if the video I had to chuckle when this happened… ! :

[Routine Builder]

In fairness to Kieran, we don't know the budget allocated by the marketing for this. But still... It would have been nice to have something with a bit more production and narrative. I guess the fact that Manics videos receive so few hits on YouTube probably means we're not going to see anything special from here on.

[Son of Stopped]

I like the 3... 2. 1 of the bird noises edits before the song started. After Orwellian finished I thought we got a "Next Time" trailer for the next video.
Nowhere near the amount computer graphics I was thinking of and sorry if sent people down the wrong road with that. In my defence it was guesswork!
Still buying album. Still like Orwellian. Still glad I can't watch live television anymore.

Well what would we have done differently?
Video a Zoom meeting. Four windows. Woman staring close up to camera. Other three are long shots of James, Nicky and Sean and as the song goes on, police burst in the room and drag them away ah what then. Nah, that's shit.

Got it! Black and white film of man and woman at table. The lyrics to song appear on screen in between them. For each line they take turns to react offended or act enlightened each time. EDIT: Facial expressions in sync during piano riff intro. Go out of sync for verses. Maybe back to singing the chorus together.
Ah! That'll teach me to not have contacts.

[taxexile]

Nicky's hair is looking sharp. I like the raster effect thing and the colour treatment.

[Porco]

Originally Posted by taxexile

Nicky's hair is looking sharp. I like the raster effect thing and the colour treatment.

I think if you think about the lyrics and what they’ve said about them in interviews there is lots of really great stuff in this video IMHO.

The effect thing, for example… makes me think of a literal ‘digital landscape’ - the world turning into some kind of reductive barcode. The shot of the waterfall like a kind of analogue version of the same effect. Words becoming meaningless confusion… an apocalypse of the political, of the linguistic and of the natural world. The power of words and communication, the need for political power, and the power of nature. Power lines, satellite dishes, bridges, trees, water falls. An Ultra Vivid Lament for what has been taken from us but the kernal of hope we can regain it with a new appreciation.

I love the video’s opening quote from Nineteen Eighty-Four: “If you [can] feel that staying human is worth while, even when it can't have any result whatever, you've beaten them."

That sense of triumph over adversity is a big part of why I became a Manics fan. People sometimes call them miserable … but there’s a quiet, stoic grace to the misery, like a polite (sometimes not polite!) two fingers stuck up to whoever or whatever in the world wants to drag you down. “This world will not control my will / I will not give up and I will not give in”.

The big white wireframe head is, I think Jaume Plensa’s “Wonderland”, a giant sculpture of a head you can both walk through and see through, juxtaposed with but perhaps also echoing Nicky’s mind. They’ll walk us through the apocalypse in their heads, as a (colour)filtered reflection of the apocalypse of meaning and (in an albeit slightly exaggerated sense) that of the world we may have also lamented being shut away from, given edicts of no entry / stop signs whether literal, political, medical, societal. And of a past now gone that the future fights, of course.

Love it, keep up the great work Kieran! I hope we get some more videos like this for this album!

[Tim]

The vid is about what i expected, nothing more and nothing less so it is what it is. I had hoped there'd be a final shot of the band being reduced to digital noise like the human made structures though. And those light panels probably aren't cheap so might as well get full use of it.

How can show me the wonder be the last good one? It's great but what about international blue, distant colours and hold me like a heaven?

[hummingbird]

Love the song, hate the video. That's it. That's the Tw...err post

[ForeverDelayed.com]

It’d be nice if I can watch the video.
Year 2021 and you still have labels blocking videos in certain parts of the world. Madness

[Frozendiva]

It is available in Canada. Weird. I was chatting with another US fan about it on Twitter.