Music Video Breakdown: Kick-Ass Chicks

This week a handful of awesome ladies released some rad music videos. What’s better than good-looking gals who know how to rock and can also make great music? Maybe the fact that Twinkies are back… but here’s some great videos that are both visually and audibly satisfying. And totally kick-ass!

 “Oh Come On” by The Julie Ruin

The 3:2 female-male ratio outfit found a nice square room, hung some lights on the walls with packing tape, and proceeded to rock out. Much like what you’d see at their concert, The Julie Ruin’s video for “Oh Come On” is simple but is still totally punky and kick-ass.

 

“Saturday Night” by Natalia Kills

A series of Natalia walking through the doorway into her violent household strewn with designer clothing, expensive jewels, and drug/blood money.  An abusive father, an addictive mother, and a screwed up daughter make for an interesting triangle in the “Saturday Night” video. A pageant emcee and queen ambush Natalia when she bails on family dinner. She’s met by clowns as she passes her drunken father yelling at her mother as she attempts to cover up her bruised eye. She passes her mother half-coherent on the floor after downing some pills, her parents dancing happily, and a pair of cops arresting her father with her mother swinging a bottle over his head.

In the end, Natalia joins her happy parents on the couch in front of the TV where they’re watching old family videos of their little princess.

The video is a peek into Natalia’s possible experience with the fluctuations of a family struck by domestic violence. Disturbing as it may be, the singer comes out strong and still totally kick-ass.

 

“In The Green Wild” by Julia Holter

Here we have a group of attractive young adults dressed in 1920s inspired attire viewing a stage performance.

But the audience is also participating in the show, so everyone is an actor!

Someone surely spent a lot of time making large paper cutouts but I guess they got lazy and decided not to paint them, so the stage is covered in black and white stand-ups of trees and various other props.

Then the crew dances with one other. A gal plays the piano. People walk up and down stairs. There are lots of hands and crazy eyes. It seems that the man dressed as a circus ringleader is our main character and he looks just as confused as I feel about what’s happening in this place.

Still… kick-ass chicks!

 

“Burn” by Ellie Goulding

Ellie Goulding may in fact take the cake for being the most kick-ass female musician this year. And this video helps show us why.

It goes like this: Goulding, looking kick-ass in high-tops and a black hood, hangs out on a landing strip and invites all of her Twitter friends.

They dance. Her friends place soccer ball sized bulbs over the field. Queue Goulding outfit change to all white. The bulbs glow.

Dancing proceeds and with sparklers. The lights go out except for the bulbs that outline Goulding’s signature logo.

Who hasn’t wanted to party on a landing strip and in a field with hundreds of glowing bulbs around them?

See? Kick-ass.

 

“Atlantis” by Postiljonen

An attractive man driving through near empty streets of Los Angeles. His morning cruise is broken by scenes of walking through a hotel and examining lingerie on a bed. Our guy keeps driving and makes it out to the deserts of California. We meet a beautiful lady friend (Postiljonen’s singer) and our guy turns pensive as he notices a set of photos on a desk. Pensive man is seen sitting on his car in the middle of the desert. More driving clips. The photos were taken along this middle-of-nowhere road. Man sets his car on fire, grabs a ride in a the bed of a truck, and seems amused with himself as he walks to a gas station in the middle of the night. Then he takes a nap.

What happened? I don’t know. But the song is great and that’s kick-ass enough for me.

 

“Perpetual Surrender” by Diana

 Mirrors and folded paper with painted images and faces. Make of this what you will.