okazakitaiiku “MUSIC VIDEO”

A music video of “MUSIC VIDEO,” one of the tunes on BASIN TECHNO, the major-label debut album by solo artist okazakitaiiku. The lyrics are a rundown of music video cliches—“Sing while walking and staring into the camera,” “Band members suddenly pop up from either side,” and so on—which the artist himself reproduces, trope for trope, in the video. The three-person production staff, consisting of okazakitaiiku, his manager, and video artist Sushi-kun (a cohort of the artist since his indie days), took about 100 hours to shoot the work at a cost of 60,000 yen. It has enjoyed a strong response on social networking services.

This work introduces a meta-perspective on music videos, focusing on the saturated state of repetition in a genre that has become a media fixture over the last three or four decades. It takes the form not of criticism from outside the genre, but of an actual music video, and a laugh-inducing, entertaining one at that. It’s an epochal work. Made with a skeleton crew, readily available equipment, and no preparation of special production environments, it’s also emblematic of our day and age. But having indulged such a meta-viewpoint, what can one do for a follow-up? The artist has raised our expectations for his next foray. (SATO Naoki)