I had never listened to the Minnesota-based band Goodbye Lucy Grey before watching their new music video, but I can honestly say that their music is not what I had expected at all upon hearing their calming band name as well as the somewhat satisfying feeling that comes with the name of their song – “New Shampoo”. In fact, my expectations were shattered within the first few seconds of their music video found here.
The story of the video follows the lead singer as she pursues the murder of each of her bandmates. The twist though is that her male bandmates are (poorly) dressed as women, while the lead herself is portrayed as a man. As the video cuts between the murders and the band playing in what seems like an empty barn, the band member who has just been killed is shown dead while the rest of the band plays on. My favorite part was probably when the video cut in the middle to a fake news bit about t
he murders. It made what is actually a very twisted story into a much more comical one which is all the more disturbing. The end of the video left me with goosebumps with the lead singing “the first good-looking girl I see tonight is gonna die…” as she smiles straight at the camera surrounded by darkness and her dead band. All humor aside, the viciousness the lead singer exudes as she kills what seems like her past lovers might not have seemed as severe had she kept her own femininity in the video, a great move by the director of the music video. There is nothing feminine or attractive about her evil ways making her actions seem all the more horrifying. The indie-core sound itself does a great job of rendering this fury in a way that is both bitter yet melancholic. Overall, the music video did a great job deviating between feelings of longing and anger within the main character that are all too common when coming out of a relationship.
You can hear more from Goodbye Lucy Grey’s new album Beautifully Broken here.
MIDWEST MUSIC COLLECTIVE 