Arcade Fire shared their arena-ready disco track “Creature Comfort” last week, which gave a promising sign that their upcoming album Everything Now will be a bit more grounded than their sometimes over-ambitious Reflektor. The track was also accompanied by a video of the band performing in a strobe-lit room with the lyrics scrolling across the screen like an LED sign.
Apparently Win Butler and company decided that clip was too abstract and didn’t have enough background info, so they went ahead and released a new video for the single. Dubbed the “Official Official video,” it’s exactly the same as its predecessor, but this time, there are VH1 Pop-Up Video-style annotations that populate the screen throughout the song. If you’re unfamiliar with the show, we ran a great oral history of it last year, which you can read here.
As for Arcade Fire’s video, the informational tid-bits start off pretty straightforward before becoming more overtly tongue-in-cheek, reporting “facts” like, “The poster above the piano features a scary snake, which is why multi-instrumentalist Will Butler keeps backing away from it.” It also turns out that the album is available on every format a modern millennial could possibly want: “Everything Now is available on CD, cassette, vinyl and fidget spinner.”
Of all the silly lines, this particularly deadpan quip actually made me laugh out loud: “Sleeping pills are named after the effect they have on you.” Also, don’t bother with the “Skip Ad” button in the bottom corner: it’s super fake.
The video is a ton of fun, so check it out above. When you’re done, you can listen to our own Steven Hyden talk about the return of ’00s indie rock bands with Uproxx Music managing editor Caitlin White on the Celebration Rock podcast, here
