Post 9: And Now for Some Music

Very rarely has a short music video gotten an emotional reaction out of me. Cage the Elephant's video for their song "Aberdeen" is an exception. I started listening to this song on the radio a while ago; it really caught my attention and I was instantly drawn to it. The thing that reeled me in the most were the vocals; namely, the emotional and hesitant way they were sung. In practically 99% of professional songs and music videos, the vocals are perfected so that there is no fault or error. Lead singer Matt Shultz contradicts this trend with his many emotional pauses and stutters, giving the song a genuine quality that evokes sympathy from the listener. The vocals are supplemented by a major chord progression that transitions into a darker, minor bridge (in other words, the song goes from innocent to dark through the tone of the music). I probably would have liked the song regardless of the vocal quality, but it made the song much more unique and heartfelt.

As for the lyrics, they are pretty hard to dissect. What I was getting while listening to this song was that the writer is coming to terms with his bad qualities. He is aware of some sort of sinful behavior, but is caught in it and can't escape. This idea is reverberated in the lyrics "Never saw my dark side," and "Saw the flame tasted sin." The "flame" leads me to believe that it could be his drug use/abuse. And the lines "I've been tryin' real hard / To realize / But somethings take a long long / Long long time"give me the feeling that it's something he's been doing for a while, but has not yet realized that it's bad. Now, after doing a little research, I found out that the name "Aberdeen" may refer to Kurt Cobain's home town in Washington. That puts a bit of a spin on things, as now the lyrics could be from Cobain's point of view, lamenting on his own drug use (that eventually led to his death). The town of Aberdeen could have led to his turn to drugs. Or perhaps (and I'm going out on a limb with this one), the song is referring to the writer's admiration of Cobain, also leading to sinful behavior.

On to the video--my favorite part. The song itself got me shivering a bit from the emotional tone. But the music video really put me over the edge. I mean, it's really sad. The entire video is a claymation (more playdough, to be precise), stop-motion video about a large monster and his interactions with people. It becomes evident that all the monster wants to do is become friends with the humans, as he has no friends of his own. But all of this turns for the worst when the clumsy monster accidentally kills a few humans due to its size and strength. The playdough and bright dragon character give the feeling of innocence, but there is also violence and clay gore, giving an air of black comedy that unsettled me. At the end, the army of clay humans fires missiles upon the monster, violently ripping it apart. In the final scene, the commander looks at a sculpture the dragon made depicting its intended friendship with humans. The whole idea of the video is that the subject is misunderstood as this destructive monster, but is actually seeking friendship and compassion. This relates to the lyrics in a way; the writer is misunderstood because of his sinful actions, which are all anyone sees. In reality, he is innocent, and is just being badly affected by an addiction or temptation. Paired with the child-like animation, the message had huge sentimental quality; I felt more sympathy for a playdough dragon than any other character I've seen in a while.

Essentially, the fact that the alternative genre is circulated mostly through the radio and iTunes shows that this song is directed towards young people who already listen to stations that feature their music. The jarring vocal characteristics and video caught my attention, and are meant to do just so. I would vouch that this song exemplifies gestalt, simply because of the vocal pauses and stutters that are unusual because they are not common in mainstream music. But overall, I just really love this song. It is a breath of fresh air from those heavily-altered songs that top the charts today; the singer gives the feeling that he really cares about what he is singing, or that he really is the character he is truing to portray. In fact, a lot of Cage the Elephant's music is very unique and worth listening to. I urge you to check them out.