Rock is dead, punk is dead, but I have never believed it, however disco? Yeah, this one is really dead, at least this is what I thought till this new current trend back to disco rhythms with Daft Punk, Arcade Fire,… but also Saint Motel? The Los Angeles indie band, which always do it with class and cinema, has just released a black and white video for their song ‘My Type’, a song that will be featured on their upcoming LP, the follow-up to their 2012 album ‘Voyeur’.
The video, directed by Sam Winkler and shot at a soundstage in Burbank, CA, is supposedly directly inspired by ‘70s Italian Disco’. Now what is exactly Italian Disco? Did Italians have their own brand of disco? Apparently yes, it was popular in the 70s, faded in the late 80s and was sung in English despite its origin. Unfortunately (?), I have never been to an Italian club in the 70s, but Saint Motel offers us their own and very loyal version, with lots of synchronized dancers and AJ Jackson in the middle of this Broadway-size show, absolutely complete with mirrors and matching jumpsuits. I love these horns and there’s no doubt that the video exults youthful energy and bottomless dynamism, but it’s way over the top! It seems that the band has been in love with the dance show for a little while, do you remember the adorable mini-Michael-Jackson look-alike in ‘Benny Goodman’?
Now stop reading here if you don’t want to spoil everything. No, it’s not that serious but the video actually premiered on Spin magazine and these bastards didn’t say a word about this. However I read somewhere else that AJ Jackson was actually digitally inserted into an old clip of old school Italian disco, ‘the video for Adriano Celentano’s 1973 hit, “Prisencolinensinainciusol’, a song sung entirely in gibberish meant to sound like American English’!! You can even watch it here! That’s crazy and extremely funny, and now you know Saint Motel’s secret. I certainly have to watch these two videos again, side by side.