I came across a curious coincidence during a memory trip of old music videos on YouTube. Watching the 1982 video for Tom Tom Club’s “Genius of Love”1. I had the volume in the YouTube player slid all the way down, when Arcade Fire’s “Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)” (4.4 MB mp3) started playing in iTunes. Although the songs aren’t the same length or tempo or style, parts of the video’s animation gelled remarkably well with parts of the song. It was oddly mesmerizing. (If I had a million years spare time, I’d cut the two together in iMovie to make it work perfectly. There are parallels in lyrics and imagery and a floaty transcendence about both.) Makes me wonder what other videos can take on completely different songs as backing tracks and still work (for a start, obviously videos with not a lot of lip synching; in other words, not many videos).
1 That’s right, youngsters: it’s the song Mariah Carey plundered for “Fantasy.” [back]