Audiovisuals...Father John Misty- "Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sings"

      From what I've gathered, I would say that you can pretty much classify music videos into three categories-

1. Videos that consist of random shots of the artist/band preforming the song interlaced with more random shots of the artist [or in the case of a band, the lead singer] walking around aimlessly in an attempt to make some story. [ex.] [worse example]

2. Videos that take on a narrative form, in which the sequence of shots makes up a short story, almost like a short film. This video eliminates the useless shots of the artist/band preforming/singing the song [ex.] [ex.]

3. Other- The very general fall back category for the videos that do neither of the first two categories. [ex.]

     This particular video for the recent single of Father John Misty, the now former drummer of the Fleet Foxes, probably falls across my second and third categories.  

     "Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sings" is the title and like the recent movies, Martha Marcy May Marlene and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, the title pulls together four words that could easily be rearranged and no one would even figure.  'Hollywood Cemetery Forever Sings' would make more sense to me, but whatever.

     And that is exactly what this video feels like.  Seriously, it has more settings than many full length movies.  There's the road, the hipster funeral, the hipster party, and the forest, which then turns into a some sort of dreamy nightmarish sequence of the girl fighting some mysterious woman and everything's painted red. And then she wakes up back on the road where it all started.

     Like the lyrics, the video follows a young girl mourning the death of her grandfather.  But the video looks too complex to be just that.  Also, it seems too perfect that the girl of the video is played by the same actress who plays April Ludgate, the emo girl from Parks & Recreation (Aubrey Plaza).

     While I really love the song, I am not sure I can say the same about the video.  Without a doubt, its one of the best directed videos I've seen in a while.  But at the same time, its one of those hipster projects that maybe I'm not hipster enough to instantly embrace as masterful art.  I will say though I enjoy watching it and its definitely worth a click.  After watching the video a handful of times, on every view, something new managed to slip its way into the video that I had not seen before.  Its like the Black Swan of music videos.  (48 Hidden Images in Black Swan)

+ If you like "Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sings," a couple other Father John Misty songs are up on Grooveshark- and if you're a fan of the Fleet Foxes than his stuff should suit you too | tny.gs/GY59hj |