I have to say before anything else that, as far a smusicality goes, Steve Aoki’s “Heartbreaker” is as dead as the rest of today’s club music. I saw this video on MTV and right away knew that I liked the video itself, and featured vocalist Lovefoxxx’s voice, a lot better than Steve Aoki’s music.
Aoki is your typical DJ trying to make it big in the world of mainstream music, much like Skrillex or DeadMau5. The difference is, I hear no sort of unique style in his music; instead, I see his unique style in the video for his song. The video itself reflects Japanese pop in a way that American music typically does not.
The setting, a dimly lit roller rink with an abundance of strobe lights and colored spotlights, definitely matches the mood of the song and the pulsingly blurry focus gives the cinematography an edge that sort of emphasizes each beat. What really catches the eyes and ears at the same time is the way in which the featured singer Lovefoxxx toys with the lyrics and the camera at the same time.
She reminds me of a kitten batting around a ball of yarn as the camera moves with her body around the rink and the music moves with her body. It’s artful to say the least.
The premise of the video itself is that Lovefoxxx is the heartbreaker of the night; the men of the establishment slowly fall prey to her charm and their hearts are symbolized by glowing pink hearts appearing on their chests. The hearts then explode and, soon, Lovefoxxx is left in a wreckage of human emotion. At the end, Steve Aoki himself, who for some reason was the bartender in this video and not the DJ (seriously wtf…), turns the tables and has Lovefoxxx’s heart glowing before the screen goes black.
I must say: this is one of the most well done music videos I’ve seen in a long time, even if the song isn’t as spectacular as it could be. As long as you can sit through a terribly redundant chorus and a bland bridge, you can make it through a fantastic video.
Check it out here.