I’d never heard of UK act Ok Go before a press release arrived in my inbox about their new video, but I certainly remember their most famous video. Remember their dancing along on treadmills number? This is quite telling, as it’s been reported a lot lately, that this band are more known for their videos than anything else. They clock up huge numbers of youtube sales, but their record sales, as the Guardian recently put it are a ‘disaster’. The same article by Christopher R Weingarten also suggests that the band would have trouble surviving in a world outside the internet, while the label they left, EMI, maybe don’t know how to promote bands in the digital age. I’m sure this situation will spark many interesting debates in the music industry, and with music fans, but before you join in and voice your views, why not check out the video for yourself, embedded (yes they have the power to allow this) below!

The video is based around the 1980’s game Mousetrap, and is very intricate and well thought out. It starts off with a toy van crashing into some dominoes, and continues with various things being hit, smashed, in between balls of various sizes rolling along the carefully constructed course. The end sees the band, in their overalls being splattered by paint. As a tribute to the 1980’s, it’s certainly inventive, and you sense the band quite enjoy having the opportunity to indulge their ‘rock and roll’ rebel side, when they smash things up. Having read about this video, and their previous successes, I was expecting the song to get a bit lost in the mix, and I was right, it was almost like a lazy attempt at background music. In a way this is a shame, as despite slightly repetitive lyrics, the atmospheric indie in this track does have some charm, and along with the vocals deserves to be given more of an airing. All credit to them for their youtube success, but maybe if this band are to survive beyond the internet, the answer is to find more of a balance between the creative videos and song quality/exposure.