I feel I need to clarify some things:
The video is not bad, and it is all things everybody said it is. Artistic, modern, trippy etc.
I don't hate it, I just don't like it as much as I expected to, which is my problem entirely. In fact, My Heart Is A Ghost Town right now. To quote Sheldon Cooper once again, I am experiencing "Weltschmerz". The final result simply did not align to my expectations. I haven't been so depressed in a long time, as I have been looking forward to the release for weeks.
I had my suspicions when I noticed how quickly they turned it around. It meant that they shot it quickly and went right to editing. There were no VFX involved, although there were glimpses of green screens in some making of shots posted a few weeks ago. I should have been prepared.
Why did I experience what I did? I have been spoiled by Adam in the past to deliver music videos which, even when they don't tell a story directly, at least have a clever concept. Sometimes this concept matched the song, sometimes it went elsewhere entirely, but it always felt thought out. Even the Jack White video that inspired Adam to hire Hype Williams had some narrative in it in addition to the style. TLC's "No Scrubs" did not have a story, but damn those environments made me dream (I was employed in Game Development in the 90s and those types of music videos were very inspirational to me).
Let me see...
FYI: Simple idea - night club, The Sexy Boss comes underground to party. People dancing... but at least it fits the song's content.
WWFM: "First Person Shouter". It is not my favorite video, but at least it had an interesting POV and aligned to the song's theme.
IIHY: Simple idea - party with friends in the woods. Cheesy effects. People dancing... but as the opening speech of IIHY at GNT explained "No matter who we are, we can all party together". So it fit.
BTIKM: Deeper idea - duality of the same person, dark and light sides co-dependent sharing oxygen in two rooms. Dark saves Light and they unite. Party of two -> party of one. THAT was creative and totally unexpected.
NCOE: Tribute to THX and 1984. Gray world, but if we all party together, the colors will come back into our lives...
GT: The world sucks, Hollywood sold out, Elvis is dead, and my heart is empty. I am depressed. So what do I do now? Of course, I go party in black and white with everyone that was supposed to be "spread".
Do you see why I feel GT video makes no sense in the context of the song?
I agree that if you take away the dancing part and leave only the shots of Adam, that stuff is quite powerful (and the "vampires" shot is genius, as we saw in the screenshot a week ago already). I understand the music is also schizophrenic, but I expected the video to be about something since the song is.
It is of course totally my fault that I expected more substance than form.
The form is quite good though, and because there is something there for everyone (including hetero males), I will go and watch it to keep the counter going up.
I LOVE the song itself. I feel it will be a big success, and my personal feelings are unimportant in this case, but I had to write this wall of text to make me feel better, as I have no black and white party to go to...
