Tuesday, October 20, 2009

21st Century Breakdown

Just a quick post today as I run out the door to take care of a few things. I found this, Green Day's newest video for the single "21st Century Breakdown", online this morning. Most times I wouldn't post a video just to post a video but the artistry behind the images in the video alone prompted me to share it.

It reminds me of a collage, cut paper, graffiti kind of look, all the while telling the story of the song. It actually reminds me a lot of a project my friend, Rob Kelly, did back in art school. He did a bunch of comic pages based on Bob Dylan's song, "Series of Dreams." It was done in all cut paper and collage and was very new, different, artsy ,and intriguing to me, a guy who only knew how to do comic book pages with pencils and ink. This video reminds me of that project that Rob did all those years ago. I guess Rob was just way ahead of his time.

So, even if you don't like the music, the video and images are an art form all to themselves. Enjoy!

Ack! Apparently Warner Music Group pulled the video down off of YouTube. England, for some reason, had the video debut last night but not here in America. Go figure. An American band with a video you can't see in America. It makes about as much sense as Fender (an American company) putting out a Kurt Cobain (an American artist) signature guitar and only have it for sale in Japan (a place that is not America).

I was going to put up a version I had on my computer straight to the blog but had second thoughts about it. I'm not too worried about Warner Music finding out what I have done but I have a feeling someone at blogger.com might have issues with me putting up what is, for now, restricted content. I like writing this blog and would hate to have it taken away. I was bummed the last time blogger.com labeled my blog a "spam blog" and took it down. That just sucked. So, I guess we'll just have to wait until they release the video in the good ol' US of A.

Sorry, Robbo...we'll get you to see this video someday!

4 comments:

rob! said...

Aw, man--the video got taken down! I really wanted to see it!

...and wow, I haven't thought about my "Series of Dreams" pages in a looooong time!

Sean Tiffany said...

ah, geez...I'm sorry...nothing like talking up a video and then having nothing to show. Ya gotta love Warner Music Group...God forbid anybody see a video they produced. It's a wonder people hate the big music businesses these days.

rob! said...

ST-

thanks for sending me the video--i dug it!

there was more live video in it than i thought there'd be, but the splotches of red on the black and white were striking.

plus, Richard Nixon tossing a baby.

Sean Tiffany said...

Robbo, glad you got to finally see it. Even though it was mostly live video the way that video was used was really graphic and cool. It reminded me of your stuff and the ideas behind it a lot. Now we just need to get you to do a little animated web movie of Bob's "Series of Dreams"...the technology has finally caught up with you!