Brooke Stiner

Artists and crafters on a global scale are producing works of art combining traditional craft techniques with modern, off beat and unconventional styles, contexts and subject matters. The culture t...

How an indie-crafts venture found mainstream expression.

I had a lot of fun analyzing this music video. I've always enjoyed this song but have never watched the video. Once I watched the video, I liked the song so much more. I really liked how they put together a collaboration of vintage and modern dancing. It displayed their indie-pop genre.

The music video I chose, Safe and Sound by Capital Cities, was one of 3 music videos. The third video is the one that I chose and the most well known. It was directed by Grady Hall and released on April 25, 2013. This video is set in the Los Angeles Theater and depicts the main singers of Capital Cities singing and dancing on stage while people from the theaters history jump out of pictures/video clips and modern-day people have dance offs right in front of them. The video starts off by showing the theater looking dark and run down, since it’s not in use anymore. There are no lit up signs and not a person in sight. Then a “magical” lightening bolt strikes the theaters and all the lights go on as if the lightening bolt had brought the theater to life. Throughout the video, black and white photos/clips from past shows in the theater start to jump out of the frames and turn into a colored figure. Different styles of dance are also portrayed in this video and they use these styles of dances in dance offs. The dance offs are usually the old time dances verses the modern-day dances. For example, a dance off scene in the video is West Coast B-Boys verses East Coast Swing. The B-Boying is the modern dancing and the swing is the old time dance. You could tell the difference in the video because the modern-day dancers are in color and the old time dancers are in black and white. The video has a sense of  “hip” to it because the combination of vintage dressed, black and white colored people and the modern day dressed, colored people. For example, the old time people in the video are dressed in classier clothes such as flapper dresses, long gloves, top hats, suit and tie, etc, and the modern day people are dressed in more laid back clothes such as jeans, sweatshirts, sweaters, backwards hats, etc. Capital Cities is a Inde-pop band and they showed their indie side by including a vintage style to it.

Safe and Sound- Capital Cities

The historical group i picked from the Goffman piece was Ken Kesey and his Merry Panksters. In 1964, the Merry Pranksters rode a bus they called "Further" across the country giving LSD to anyone who was willing to try it. Their purpose of traveling across the country was to have other people experience this drug and watch their reactions. The Pranksters were rabid users of marijuana, amphetamines, and LSD, and throughout their journey they are said to have "turned on" many people by introducing them to those drugs. The Pranksters conducted "Acid Tests"where people would pay $1 to buy a cup of "Electric Kool-Aid" which was laced with LSD. During The Pranksters journey Tom Wolfe chronicled everything that happened. Later in 1968, Wolfe published the book The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test which told the stories of Keseys adventures throughout the 60's.