ViciousNeutral

#musicmonday Orgy - "Stitches"

wow.

I don’t know what made me think of this song today, but wow. I’m speechless revisiting it again. Since its #MusicMonday and since Orgy (indirectly) played a big role in getting me into the music business, I think its only fair that I spend some time talking about this band, song, and video.

In 1998, Orgy hit the scene with their cover of the classic & seminal New Order tune, “Blue Monday”. Actually, “Stitches” was the first single, but it didn’t quite catch on until Blue Monday really hit, and then Stitches started gaining some attention again. Anyway, a lot of people, myself included, think this is their best song. The song is fantastic whether you think its their best or not, but lets take a moment to talk about the VIDEO.

WOW! This video shocked the FUCK out of me in 1998 and now over a decade later I think it’s even more incredible. I was vaguely aware of them because Blue Monday was such a hit, but I don’t think I really took notice and really bought into the band until I saw this video.

It describes itself as “the ultimate deconstructionist music video”, and the concept is WAY ahead of its time, on MULTIPLE levels. The idea is of a futuristic museum or exhibition of the music video as an “artifact”, displaying and describing all of the various elements that go into making the video. In post-modern fashion, it starts off displaying the very concept itself, as part of the “deconstruction”. It goes on to display the band, standing frozen in place and labeled by their respective roles, as well as the “perfunctory performance”, the “directors fee”, “telephone conversations” about the concept, and of course the “obligatory female”.

Looking back, I have to wonder how many people seeing it back then actually “got it”. I mean, Orgy had a brief stint as a popular band. I remember seeing this video on TRL for christ sake. It must have flown over a lot of peoples heads, which is a damn shame. What really makes it is the polish and execution of it, it’s extremely stylish and well done. It’s an amazing example of a great song, incredible concept, and polished direction, all coming together for the ultimate effect.

Now, just over 10 years later, what is so profound about this video is that the music video IS essentially an artifact. TRL, the top 10 music video show that used to play this video, is dead. In my opinion, MTV ITSELF is dead. Technically, they’re still on the air, but they play no music videos anymore. The music industry as a whole is not dead, but is a shadow of its former self. Video’s used to be the norm, you would make videos in hopes that they would get played on Mtv or on another video show, now they’re almost pointless. Labels aren’t spending money on them anymore because there is hardly an outlet for them. Even if there were, they wouldn’t mean much in a climate like we’re in today. That leaves bands themselves to make their own videos. Honestly, I question why bands waste time & money on videos. If done well, they can have a positive effect and get people talking, but that is pretty rare these days. It seems like nowadays every band makes their own videos which are mostly ignored, save for their hardcore fans. The execution is usually poor, and they lack excitement which can be traced back to not having the money from the labels to make something really cool. I know people are going to cry that big money doesn’t make a great video, but it certainly helps in the process. I just don’t know if I see the point anymore, unless you have a really stellar concept, and then the question becomes CAN you execute it.

This video for “Stitches” has one of the most amazing concepts I have ever seen, and it had label money backing it up to make it look outstanding. See it for yourself, and dream about the old days with me.

Here’s the link to the high quality video, I would have liked to post this version but Warner disables embedding their videos, so check it out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51DEzX0lLY4