More Puppets and Animation in Music Videos, Please

It’s always felt that releasing music videos for songs, especially coinciding with the release of the song itself, is somewhat of a risky endeavor. For sure, a really stellar video can drive home the emotion behind a song, or even send it into the stratosphere. And in this social media era, a visual component to a song might not just be a good idea, it’s often a requirement.

But a video can also create concrete borders around the sentiments and story of a song. Instead of stoking the listener’s imagination, videos with actors or the artist themselves portraying portions of the song sometimes limits the ability of a song to mold to the personal experiences of the audience.

Well-produced videos with professional actors often also feel a little overly-dramatic, maybe even opportunistic in trying to evoke emotions. They often have a network TV drama, after school special aspect to them, and it’s made even worse when they’re low budget. That’s the other issue with videos: they tend to be incredibly expensive to produce, putting one of the biggest financial burdens on performers for releasing new music.

What’s perhaps even worse is this trend to take 15 second short form videos like the ones you would see on Instagram or TikTok and loop them over a song. Spotify now nearly requires this kind of visual media to accompany song uploads, as if this in any way enhances the sonic experience instead of feeding the short attention span of today’s consumer that makes even a 3-minute songs feel like a burdensome time commitment.

Clearly we live in a moment where visual media is virtually required. But what is an artist to do if they don’t want to break their budget on a bunch of live actors only to limit the scope of their music? One solution is to not take the process too seriously, and to use humor to try and circumvent the sappy, overly-sentimental moments many big budget videos lean into. The other is to use puppets, animation, stop motion animation, or claymation. This way instead of setting limitations around the listener’s imagination, you stoke it with your visual media.

A couple of cool artists have illustrated this recently. Many are anticipating the upcoming album from folk extrordinaire Willi Carlisle called The Universal Bubba out November 6th. Produced by Tyler Childers, Tyler also appears on the new track “Gas Station” along with elements of Tyler’s backing band, The Food Stamps. “Gas Station” reminds you some of one of Willi’s signature songs, “Vanlife.”

Though Willi has some songs that can jerk tears out of a turnip like “Tulsa’s Last Magician,” this song was perfect for director Mike Vanata (Western AF) to cast a bunch of muppets made by Richard Michael Gomez to make a fun visual representation for the song right down to bassist Craig Burletic’s puffy hair.

The Queen of Underground Country, “Rattlesnake” Rachel Brooke certainly doesn’t have some massive budget behind her to make a big production video. This is one of the messages behind her song “The Ballad of Bald Hill” from her recent album This One’s For You.

Rachel Brooks sings in the song, “But how am I supposed to pay my dues, when I’m getting paid in likes and views. Now how is that a substitute for a front row seat? And why should I chase my dreams and streams when people are hungry and the weather’s extreme? Can’t you hear them crying outside your algorithm?”

The video’s creator Jess Mess (Jess Varda) says, “This isn’t AI, I designed and made all of the sets, puppets and props by hand. Then had to learn how to film on my phone and edit all of my film. Something I’ve never attempted before, but I’m super proud of how everything came together. Took about 9 months of my life to complete, so kind of like my art project baby.”

In this moment of AI slop and instantaneous gratification via short form video, seeing people make intentional art to compliment music as a visual antidote to the current moment is both fulfilling and inspiring. It’s also often a more financially responsible choice. It also often happens to just be better.

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