On Friday Karmin released a video for their first single off of their upcoming studio album, Pulses. The song is called "Acapella", and it's a definite departure from the duo's previous work in a lot of ways, not to mention the styling and use of toast.
The video premiered on Cosmopolitan.com, and in their post premiering the piece there was a quote (attribute to both of them) that caught my eye:
Our first few major label videos didn't totally capture who Karmin is. We had people around us at the time who tried to steer the Karmin ship a certain way, so it feels good to create something like this where we are at the helm and can really be proud of.
I guess this really shouldn't be a total surprise to anyone - Karmin as a group existed solely on YouTube doing cover songs before they had any major label release, so that's bound to come with some label handling and guidance. But what if you liked 2011-2012 era Karmin, like me? Well, we still have the videos.
So today we're watching a video from the pre-"Acapella" Karmin canon, "Crash Your Party", directed by James Larese of Syndrome.
The video starts out with a music video move that can only exist in the modern music video era - a tableau familiar from a YouTube video turning into a full music video scene (see Bo Burnham's "Words Words Words") for a similar use of this tactic. It's a clever way to segue into the rest of the video that sees Amy and Nick wandering in and out of various scenes.
The image that Karmin cultivated during this time was largely based on lead singer Amy Heidemann's style and stage presence. Aside from her clothes and her amazing camera mugging abilities, she also had the distinctive "suicide roll" hairstyle. If you are a lady with long hair (or a dude with long hair), Amy will show you how to create your very own suicide roll here (it's complicated):
Basically, Karmin was really fun to watch, and this video is set up to be a system where Karmin can showcase what made them so appealing. They go from a kitchen to a karaoke bar to a beach - the list goes on, and Karmin goes on. They put on a funny and ridiculously entertaining over the top performance. Director James Larese is a great fit - as a member of Syndrome he's created some other fantastic music videos where styling and color is key like "Go Hard (La.La.La.)" by Kreayshawn, and brings the same attention to detail with respect to style and performance here.
As posted in the official post premiering their new video (so they apparently want you to read it), Karmin have hinted that they weren't really into control of their image at this point, but it's similar enough to their unvarnished YouTube days that my guess is that it wasn't like anyone was being blackmailed. (PS: If you do know about anyone being blackmailed, email me.)
The path from a duo who cover songs on YouTube to maintstream aritsts is not an easy one, and I understand that Karmin must interate and do their own thing to stay relevant. However, this Karmin era is still a lot of fun, and "Crash Your Party" is a great video.
