Angry Mob? Kaiser Chiefs "Everything Is Average Nowadays"

A distinctly passionless video about society's lack of creativity...


Kaiser Chiefs "Everything is Average Nowadays"
dir. by ?
Deep inside a desert bunker, somewhere near the set for "Ruby," mysteriously controlled machines produce art, weapons and individuality in massive assembly lines. Cameras are everywhere, capturing every moment of private inspiration in order to turn a mass public profit. From the creation of image to the commercialization of music, the Kaiser Chiefs criticize every aspect of culture for its banality and redundancy.

They're not oblivious to the irony of this move, since many critics find the band's music itself to be particularly banausic and derivative, and thus the final product manufactured is the Kaiser Chiefs themselves - just another britpop band. They are constantly watched by the media, and their success imitated by the labels in search of the next-big-thing. The director gets in on the self-referential humor as well, ending the video with a television set thrown out a window - apparently music videos are just as "average" as everything else.

There are some creative ideas working here, but the real problem is that the video is as blatant with its themes as the song. While the Kaiser Chiefs moan about mediocrity, the director shows it to us - the point is established within the first minute. The subsequent deluge of repetitive metaphors are run-of-the-mill (cheerleaders, jocks and punk rockers are standard punching bags in pop videos), and for a video which so clearly defines its ideas - in the end we are left with a surprising sense of blah.