Moby tugs on your animal heart strings with a budget of $0 and handheld printer lyrics, Majical Cloudz take the journal and hand route with a tale of a toxic relationship and Neko Case breaks out the Super 8 footage and some blurry-eyed sentiment overlays to bring the heartache on home in the near final stretch of 2013’s finest lyric video montage before Baby Jesus steals the show.
Moby – ‘Almost Home‘
Moby had promised the world a few days ago on Twitter the release of “the best music video ever made.” Being the PETA-loving vegan that he is, said video turned out to be an homage to animals, and the Best Friends Animal Society. “Almost Home,” the Damien Jurado tear-jerker from the Innocents LP rolls out like a Bon Iver sweeper, starring a bunch of dough-eyed furry friends, Moby holding up lyric printouts in pseudo-comical fashion. So um, go adopt a pet, we guess:
Sisyphus – ‘Calm it Down‘
Originally a trio bridged under the title s/s/s, Sufjan Stevens, Serengeti, and Son Lux opted for a name change as “s/s/s started to sound like the Nazi Schutzstaffel with a lisp,” so said Stevens, in an interview with his label, Asthmatic Kitty. Anyhow, story goes they wanted an EP and overshot it with fun and wine in a dinky room and begat a full LP. “Calm it Down,” paired with this monitor-esque, red-letter minimalism and backseat loungin’ lyricism aimed at what to do when your twerps don’t tweek, ain’t a bad intro:
Angel Haze – ‘A Tribe Called Red‘
A day prior to going apeshit on her record label and leaking her highly anticipated debut, Dirty Gold, the 22-year-old New Yorker upstart officially dropped this single, seemingly in conjunction with Island, nodding to A Tribe Called Quest in venomous vérité, taking shots at Azeila Banks before squeezing in the high road with a call-to-arms to turn things around, always. Unfortunately, and empathizing with Haze, here, this video is lazy and uninspiring pop-cut trash, despite rapid firing across the screen:
Majical Cloudz – ‘Savage‘
Cut from the session cloth that bore the bare key bone midnight poet society harrows of Impersonator, the Canadian duo showcase “Savage” in a boring but perfect way for a kind of journal confessional to one side of a toxic relationship, as viewer witnesses a hand scribble down the sentiments without a pause, except for the eery extra frames on the last verse:
Neko Case – ‘Calling Cards‘
Shots from the Bay Area lead Case’s most sentimental moment on The Worse Things Get, The Harder I Fight, The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You, Super 8 footage overload that proceeds to bounce around the world catching glimpses of what appears to be a reel of a family’s most endearing memories. Though Case’s motherly singsong makes it look easy, of course:
