If I Know You-th

I have been looking for an excuse to post on one of my faaaaaaavourite albums of 2008: Apocalypso, by the Presets. They recently released a gorgeous video for "I know you"...

It begins with the fairly-typical, adolescent angst-trope: an alone and lugubrious youth wakes up, gets dressed, and prepares for the day, all with a palpable loneliness that is only intensified by his isolatingly empty suburban home. However, once he kicks out of his cookie-cutter house and into the "big city", he loses his constraining knap-sac (eventually, his shirt too) and starts dancing-- Billy Elliot style. As the music builds and layers, more dancers are added to the screen, ending with an army of young, steadfastly passionate youth dancing their way through the streets of LA.

The messages from the video are decidely melodramatic. Dissaffected youth rejecting the isolating boxcutter lifestyle of suburbia, for the organic rawness of urban life? A Cartesian fantasy celebrating the passion of dance, over a paralyzingly individualistic drone society? Perhaps!

As far as I am concerned, this video treats young people with respect. Finally. How often do we assume that kids just "don't understand", or "have yet to learn the ways of the world". The choreography is mature, complex and layered-- and the dancers are feeeeeelin' the emotions. I learned long ago that young people get it. That is, "kids" are used to enduring the raw deals of life and they certainly don't like being treated like breakable china dolls. I know people less than half my age, who have been through more shite than I can possibly imagine, and thus, constantly school me on the ways of the world.

In the tradition of Pearl Jam's "Jeremy", or Our Lady Peace's "Superman's Dead", this video is a thoughtful take on north american suburban youth without falling prey to the overwrought, emo, teen angst-y, self-congratulatory messes that litter "indie-rock" radio- and air-waves. It's magical. Me like, a lot.