Some Songs Considered

“Kelly Watch the Stars” – Air
(Words/music: Jean-Benoît Dunckel and Nicolas Godin, available on Moon Safari, Astralwerks 1998) 

At one point in my life, music videos were very important to me.  The thought of a band releasing a video for one of my favorite songs (or falling in love with a song through its video) would have make my week as a teenager, and the best part of a Monday morning was getting up before school and watching part of the previous night’s episode of 120 Minutes before leaving.  Today, even with a staggering amount of videos available on demand through YouTube and other sources, I rarely watch videos.  Part of it is that I generally need to actively seek out a video; in the past, I could put on MTV and watch videos while I did something else.  Now, I have to take the step to think of a specific video and search for it.  Truth be told, at this point in my life I’m not often impressed by videos either.  In most cases, I’d rather just listen to the song.

A video like “Kelly Watch the Stars” (in fair warning, I’m going to talk about it, so you may want to watch it first here) works because it captures the tone rather than mirroring the narrative.  In this case, there isn’t really a narrative to tell in the video, so the slow shots of the ping-pong match and supernatural touches.  Whether it’s the members of Air controlling the ping pong via a game of pong or the lack of an emotional response from the crowd when Kelly falls down (and this is how I’d imagine a video game audience would respond), all of these odd touches somehow work within the world of the video.  Even as Kelly’s spirit momentarily floats above her body, only to return for her triumphant match point, the actions in the video fit in perfectly with the shifts in the song’s arrangement.  At times, the video comes close to rendering the song as mere soundtrack, but watching the video on mute for even a second shows that the short film needs the dreamy music more than the song needs its video.  

More on Air: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“Surfing on a Rocket” – Air
(Words/music: Jean-Benoît Dunckel and Nicolas Godin, available on Talkie Walkie, Astralwerks 2004)

I like it when music surprises me.  I like when a song comes out of nowhere and demands to be played a dozen times during that first day.  I also like it when a song challenges what I previously thought about a band, with the most obvious way occurring when a band I’ve paid little attention does something that surpasses their prior work.  However, I also like it when I hear a song or an album from a band that makes me see the band in a different light – either by finding something different to appreciate in their work or by producing something that makes me rethink the band altogether. 

Talkie Walkie deepened my appreciation for Air.  Until that point, my knowledge of the band came from seeing the animated “Sexy Boy” video and the ping pong video for “Kelly Watch the Stars” on 120 Minutes in the late 1990s .  Based on these two songs (and maybe one or two listens to Moon Safari), I thought of Air as a band making atmospheric, dreamy pop music.  This is the kind of music that I like to listen to when I’m working (or relaxing).  While I hear similarities with “Surfing on a Rocket,” I remember being surprised that it was the same band.  “Surfing on a Rocket” feels more closed in and focused than the earlier Air songs that I knew; if the ones from Moon Safari sounded like cruising in space, “Surfing on a Rocket” felt like being inside the space shuttle.  Specifically, the relentless “ticking” sound from the hi-hat gives the song a more deliberate rhythmic pulse.  The song still moves at a relatively slow tempo, yet it still sounds restless.  It made me challenge my (somewhat limited) notion that Air was only a “dream pop” band; I thought they created these languid, atmospheric songs well, but that was more or less the extent of their range.  After hearing “Surfing on a Rocket” and the rest of Talkie Walkie, I started to look at Air as a group with a larger range.  Ironically, this also led me to go back and enjoy Moon Safari as well.  Thinking about it now, I wonder how many other bands I’ve been missing out on because I’m stuck looking at them in a specific way.  It’s a pleasant reminder of the value of taking a step back in order to reassess the “big picture” from time to time.

More on Air: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm