OK Go, the critically-acclaimed American band renowned for its captivatingly complex and original music videos, has produced a commercial for the Chinese market.
Created for Red Star Macalline, China’s largest mass market furniture retail chain, the video is actually a mash-up of two of the group’s hits—a kind of audio-visual double-take.
The commercial, which runs just under two minutes, features a visual reference to their viral hit video “The Writing’s on the Wall” set to a remix of their song, “I Won’t Let You Down.”
The result, though characteristically clever, somehow ends up feeling like an old Target commercial, with pop-hued colored sets and visual tricks that seem too slick for a group known for improvisation.
The genius of OK Go’s previous music videos lies in the deliberate use of objects, and choreography leading to a succession of incredible perspective-shifting human-powered transitions. Except in a couple of instances, in the Red Star commercial, generic-looking furniture pieces are used as sterile bit players, inert hallway decor.
Here’s the band “explaining” their creative intentions.
But perhaps the commercial represents a new avenue for the band, which is currently on tour. When asked if they feel pressure to keep topping themselves creatively with each video, the band’s lead singer (and the commercial’s director), Damian Kulash, once told Gizmodo, “The success of any particular project is that rather than lifting the bar and creating pressure to come up with new ideas, it opens you up to more and more of them.”