Almost everything about the set-up for the new Coldplay album Viva La Vida is as mammoth as you would expect for what is being viewed as the single most important release from the newly reorganized EMI Group. There was the free "one week only " download of this single — reportedly attracting two million rubberneckers — plus upcoming free concerts at London's Brixton Academy and a little venue in NYC called Madison Square Garden, live performances on the MTV Movie Awards and The Today Show and even Comedy Central's The Daily Show, and, well, you get the idea. It's big. The video launch plan is equally big, snagging an unprecedented simultaneous debut today on MTV, Vh1 and The N. How's the actual clip itself? Despite director Asa Mader's high art C.V. — complete with French films, a multi-media stage show and some large format video installations — the video is a simple affair and even a little anti-climactic. Mader imagines the Coldplay lads as the rock 'n' roll equivalent of Civil War reenactors. They take a hill (under a violet sky, no less), stop at a grand chateau for a performance and — hey, why not? — have some fun with a magnifying glass. It's kind of big, but in a throwback way to the olden days of music videos when being random was not necessarily a bad thing*. --> watch "Violet Hill" via MTV et al. debut
Coldplay "Violet Hill" (Capitol)
Asa Mader, director
*Also not a bad thing is the official viral video for "Violet Hill" directed by Mat Whitecross. This "dancing politicians"
version manipulates footage of President George W Bush — complete with
accompanying chimp sounds — and other world leaders so it seems that
they're rocking and dancing to the beat. And like the proper video, it also reminds me of something old. In this case, it's the U2 Zoo TV intro film in which directing team EBN mutates a speech by George "the elder" Bush into a rendition of "We Will Rock You" directed at Saddam Hussein. Scary, funny and timely.
