I write about music and stuff...

Monday 25 November 2013

Music Video Monday: Pharrell - Happy


When it comes to Pharrell the words "artist", "genius" and "how does he look so god darn fine at forty" come to mind.

2013 has seen the strong (possibly even stronger than his anti-ageing cream) return of Pharrell, as he managed to hold down world wide number ones with his collaborations with Daft Punk of 'Get Lucky' and Robin Thicke and TI on 'Blurred Lines'. But 2013 isn't over. In fact there are about 864 hours left of 2013. And you can spend 24 of them watching Pharrell's latest project - Happy - the first ever 24 hour music video.

The words that may come to mind now are "Ain't nobody got time fo' dat". I mean come on Pharrell, a man like you, who must have a paaaaaaaacked schedule, should know more than the average person that time is precious. Some of us have work/college/school/eating/Eastenders/sleep/lives to be getting on with. But the concept isn't as outlandish as it first seems. The level of thought that has been put into this, evidenced by the little details that make it such a fun and interactive experience, has nurtured it something pretty cool.

Get yourself onto www.24hoursofhappy.com and someone will be dancing away on your screen along to the catchy (but not annoying... yet) 'Happy', a track that you may recognise from Despicable Me 2 (that's if you're wise - unlike me who decided that 'The Conjuring' would be a more fun and worthwhile choice of movie to watch). The video is essentially 24 hours of people dancing. Every 4 minutes or so the song will end, someone new will take the stage, the song will start again and they will take their turn to infect you with a bit of cheer as they shuffle, shake, slip, and slide. Some of these will be familiar faces like Tyler the Creator, just your average person from down the road or at hourly intervals that person busting a few moves across your monitor will be Pharrell himself and you can use the 'P' buttons on the 'clock thing' to skip to the parts with just him. This 'clock thing' is a clever little thing that helps you skip through to any point of the video and uses the changing sunset and sunrise times to ensure that when the video starts up on your screen it corresponds with real time and what's outside. So basically, if you find yourself depressed that you've only just got home from work at 17:58 and the light of day has already left us, go and watch Happy to cheer yourself up and the person bopping away on the screen will also have a dark sky behind him that mirrors the one outside your window. Is it just me that finds little things like this really really cool?

With naked Kim Kardashians on motor bikes and naked Miley Cyrus' on giant wrecking balls being hailed as revolutionary artistic music video master pieces, it's nice to see something simple, innocent and fun land in our laps. Kim Kardashian naked on film isn't exactly a new concept (yeah, I said it, what say suttinwhat) so even if you think the idea of a 24 hour music video that no one will ever watch all the way through is pointless, you can't say it hasn't been done before.

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