Video Watch #2: Weezer, “Troublemaker”

The days of “music television” are over. MTV is all about reality and pseudo-reality programming, and BET has become a parade of shows about criminals and repeat airings of Baby Boy. But the music video won’t die, it’s just got to find its place online, just like everything else. So why do people keep making same ol’ same videos? I mean, we now have unlimited access to free hardcore pornography online, so a little “jingling, baby” is not necessarily going to hold interest. If you really want to get people seeing your video, it’s got to be viral on the ‘net. You can’t just expect to crack the TRL top ten and sit there for a couple months. More people will be watching some nobodies like OK GO on YouTube because they have a cooler video.

One band that has responded well to the migration of music videos to an online distribution platform is Weezer. Their video for “Pork and Beans” essentially guaranteed viral success by referencing tons of other viral videos. Genius! Now, they’ve produced canned lightening again with their video for “Troublemaker.” Watch it here, then check my thoughts after the jump.

Is this that good of a song? Not really. But the video is perfect for an online audience for three main reasons:

1. It is fan-driven and fun. Remember when YouTube was blowing up in 2006 and Time put a mirror on its “Person of the Year” issue? Well, that was accurate as long the people holding the magazine were actually the semi-professional and professional video makers who account for the majority of widely viewed videos on YouTube. By bringing hundreds of fans out to an L.A. parking lot and rolling the cameras, Weezer captures the feeling of the “user-generated” aesthetic with a professional sheen. Jackpot.
2. It set various Guinness World Records. This is a great “viral hook” that makes the clip newsworthy in a more compelling way than just saying, “Check out another new Weezer video.” A rep from Guinness was there to record the following records: Largest Game of Dodgeball (two teams of 50 people), Most People in a Custard Pie Fight (120), Largest Air Guitar Ensemble (223), Smallest Drum Set (made for Pat Wilson), and Longest Guitar Hero: World Tour Marathon (fans played for 10 hour, 12 minute and 54 second, though I’m guessing thousands of 12-year-olds have beat that by themselves). Some people are claiming they also made the biggest serving of nachos in the shape of the Weezer logo, but I know for a fact that the biggest nachos ever made were constructed over the course of four weeks at a restaurant called Nachos Cantina in Australia and weighed over in at over 2700 pounds. I also know that’s a quarter of the weight of a South East Asian forest elephant!
3. Weezer has a real audience. Weezer fans love Weezer, and they love Rivers Cuomo for being so odd. Thus, the sight of him looking like he stumbled into a Blink-182 video is amusing. (Side note: I once took an English class with Rivers, and he managed to talk exclusively about sex no matter what book we read. He was definitely on point though.)

So that’s that: the anatomy of a fresh music video.