The lines of what is a music video and what isn't get blurred a lot. (You might say there are ... blurred lines. tee hee.) For instance, Flight of the Conchords have made songs that have been released on albums and have made visuals to go along with those songs, but almost all of them were part of their HBO show and not released as standalone videos. Thanks for screwing with us, FOTC.
However, Flight of the Conchords did try their hand at a traditional music video once. It was for the song "Ladies of the World" and was released in promotion of their album Flight of the Conchords in 2008. It was directed by Nima Nourizadeh. Let's take a look.
It should be pointed out up front that FOTC had already made visuals to go along with "Ladies of the World", just like every other song on the Flight of the Conchords album. It appeared as part of season 1, episode 10 their HBO show, also entitled Flight of the Conchords:
Like everything from that series, "Ladies of the World" is brilliant, and even if it isn't one of the most remembered pieces in the series, it's still as strong as any other piece on that show. So director Nima Nourizadeh had an interesting challenge: making a music video for a song that most fans had already seen (and loved) the visuals for.
The video was originally released on Sub Pop records, and since has been scrubbed from their YouTube page (it's also now private on their Vimeo page). It later surfaced on HBO's YouTube channel. There are also two versions out there that have one major difference - either it has an intro skit or not. The intro is one of my favorite parts of the video, and features a man on a bench staring off into space telling FOTC how they missed a concert the night before. It's hilarious and would fit right into their show, but it is almost impossible to find anymore. The only place we've been able to find it is on Nourizadeh's website.
The concept of the video is Jemaine and Bret are roller skating, 70's style, around a beach in the golden sunlight. One of the central gags of the video is they have pro skaters of similar sizes and they add Bret and Jemaine's heads onto the bodies, Jay Leno style. So, the skaters will do some fancy moves, and it'll be FOTC heads.
I find this video really interesting because of its contrast to how FOTC presented itself on their HBO show, and how they appear in a standalone music video. In the show, they really never did much physical comedy - it was mostly situational comedy based on their characters and personalities. So to watch a video that is mostly physical comedy is a different experience. The videos in the series also usually weaved in and out of the actual plot, so the visuals had some context that could make situational comedy possible during the song.
A standalone music video has none of these luxuries - it's a purely visual medium, and FOTC and Nourizadeh went with a visual concept that didn't have the context of a full episode around it. I think many fans were expecting another FOTC episode and instead got their band in another, different format. As a music video, I think this is a successful video, even though I think it's at its most successful when it lets Bret and Jemaine take the spotlight and do some physical comedy of their own, like the end where they flap themselves up to heaven.
By the way, we've decided not to include FOTC videos from the HBO series as music videos, since they have never been released explicitly as music videos and structurally they all belong to a bigger narrative. And there you have it.
