Another innovation in music videos?! No, it doesn’t come from Arcade Fire this time. Electro-pop outfit Chairlift has released a brilliant new music video for their song “Met Before” off the new album Something. If you didn’t get a chance to read my album review in the print edition, you can get familiar with it by clicking here.
The latest trend in music videos seems to be tailoring the experience (that’s right, watching a video can be an experience) to the viewer. Arcade Fire’s “The Wilderness Downtown” utilizes listeners’ zipcodes to personalize the viewing and their video for “Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)” uses the viewer’s webcams to direct the action.
“Met Before” is a choose your own adventure book transformed into a music video. It features the band’s own Caroline Polachek and Patrick Wimberly sitting in a normal college lecture hall. But the viewer decides what happens when class is over. Fans can use their trackpad or mouse to click left or right when prompted to decide Polachek’s actions. In my version, the pair were huddled in a laboratory learning the mechanics behind déjà vu.
Where will your adventure lead? Try it out for yourself here.