The Chemical Brothers - Star Guitar (2002)

The first video is a big deal — and this feels like the right one to kick off the newsletter. Although I’ve wanted to start a blog for music videos for a while, I wasn’t sure whether it would feel limiting (as opposed to starting a blog that could be about anything). But I rewatched this video a few weeks ago at the end of a holiday party and wanted to share it, because Michael Gondry (the director for Star Guitar) also love music videos.

This is probably not the last time a music video directed by Michael Gondry will be shared here (of Eternal Sunshine fame), but it is maybe my favorite of his. I haven’t decided yet — Kylie Minogue’s Come Into My World is still fighting for the top spot. I think his music videos are, to be honest, better than his films. Gondry is known for incredibly detailed, technically meticulous, and forward thinking music videos. To me, his work evidences the possibilities of what is ultimately a fixed form and the creative pleasures of developing something within that form. A song is rarely, if ever, longer than 10 minutes and the production constrained by the popularity and budget of the musical artist.

Star Guitar, at first, shows the view from a train window in time with the beats of the song. It’s nostalgic and reminds me of looking out of trains and windows on long trips as a kid. But the longer you watch, the stranger it gets. The scene jumps or rests on one view for several beats. The view on the train station slows down unusually and the sun begins to set much sooner than it would.

The video is based on DV footage Gondry shot while on vacation in France; the train ride between Nîmes and Valence was shot ten different times during the day to get different light gradients. The Pont du Robinet as well as Pierrelatte's station can be seen and the cities of Miramas and Avignon. In the ‘making of Star Guitar’ video someone uploaded to Youtube, you can see Gondry plotting out the synchronization of the song on graph paper before creating the video, and how he used oranges and VHS tapes to imagine the scene from the window. The final video uses a combination of CGI (in 2002! for a music video!) and actual footage from the train ride to match the song.

It’s not surprising that, among the millions of videos that exist, this music video has a cult following. I also love this song — one of the best electronic tunes of all time.

Thanks for reading Looping Records, and see you next week!