Kodaline shows love-related anguish in "Honest"

Round up a stellar 2014, Kodaline return with the music video for new single "Honest," the lead single from the Irish alternative rock quartet's upcoming sophomore album, "Coming Up For Air," will be released on February 9. Kodaline exploded in Europe last year when their debut LP "In A Perfect World" produced a string of emotional soft-rock in the best possible way anthems documenting mournful tales of love and loss.
For all intents and purposes, "Honest," is a song about communication. This makes a whole lot of sense, since misunderstood communication usually stems from insufficient frankness and dishonesty. The Jacknife Lee-produced track, due for release on February 1st, finds the Dublin-based rockers in something of a bad mood. While "Honest" certainly has more of an edge than their previous hits with its sharp lyrics and angry guitars, Kodaline still throws in a soaring chorus and stays true to their whimsical stadium-rock sound.
Influenced by a pure and more clean sound, with more depth in their lyrics, "Say what you want to say/ but if you lie to me again/ I'll be the one who walks away/ is it in you to be honest?" bolstered by a huge-sounding, buzzy synth line, are resolute, yet somehow oddly uplifting, as the chords change from minor to major. This shift feels especially nice, as the verses are purposely minor, indicating conflict. It's a towering rock anthem that oozes earnest drama with its sensitive crooning and giant-sized crescendos. Is it in you to be honest? Check out the booming new video, which sees performance footage of the band mixed with moments of love-related anguish.

Andrew McMahon | "Cecilia And The Satellite"

Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness released the music video for "Cecilia and the Satellite," the post-fun, lead single from American indie pop solo act's self-titled debut album, which could be a personal soundtrack and the soundtrack to McMahon's inspiring rise-from-the-ashes recovery. Going through a crucible has the tendency to change a person and make them stronger. That was the case for pop-punk/piano-pop songsmith McMahon when he was diagnosed with leukemia in 2005.
"Cecilia and the Satellite," is a piano-driven tune acts as an ode to his newborn daughter, Cecilia, detailing McMahon's new life leading up to her birth and then happily confesses about events in McMahon's life, "through all the things my eyes have seen, the best by far is you." He definitely has the pipes for it, as he belts out "I'm the satellite/ and you're the sky," there's no denying that he has the experience to know exactly what he's doing. "I wanted to have a snapshot of who I was in the years leading up to meeting her," the new dad says.
Unfold and mirror the lyrics and sketches shown in the book, the Olivier Agostini-directed clip features McMahon and his adorable daughter intertwined with beautiful clips featuring Anastasia Krivosheeva as a grown-up Cecilia who dressed in white, wearing a flower headband, relaxing on a still rowboat, embark on her adventure while soaking up the rays and constantly looking up with a smile. This video will make even the best of fathers look bad, while those in possession of ovaries will participate in a 3:40 "awwwww" fest, and possibly an ovary explosion.

Angels & Airwaves returned with "The Wolfpack"

Angels & Airwaves (AVA) has gone through a series of lineup changes over the years, and this year became a duo with Blink-182's singer-guitarist Tom DeLonge and Nine Inch Nails' drummer Ilan Rubin. The band have debuted a music video for their electronic-led new soaring track, "The Wolfpack," which is the first single taken from their latest fourth album, "The Dream Walker," but that's only a piece of a much larger trans-media project aptly titled "Poet Anderson The Dream Walker," which will also include a short film, comic books, a graphic novel, videos and animations.
"The Wolpack" encompasses melodic layers that flow seamlessly into an undeniably catchy song. Romanticized lyrics build around a fantasy, a vision of forests and sunsets. Written, recorded and co-produced by frontman DeLonge, the colossal electro-inspired new track is described as "a bit of a journey in and out of the many teeth of the music business - an industry that can be a sexy girl on one hand, but a vicious axe murderer on the other." The catchy tune is a great addition to the vast Angels & Airwaves back catalog.
Directed by Mark Eaton, the dark, smoky clip, features a crowd in animal masks, the girl from the single who "bites like a wolf," and a lot of drunken hallucinations. It follows a forlorn-looking protagonist in a bar as he trying persistently to find an unforgettable girl that he just can't seem to get off his mind, seeing her in dreams and hearing her voice when she isn’t there. The weird part of the video is that the people the guy believes to be the girl all turn out to be women wearing plastic creepy animal masks.

OK Go ride on scooters in "I Won't Let You Down"

Alternative rocker OK Go have been dazzling us with their super-creative videos for years. Their latest eye-catching spectacle of a music video, for the single "I Won't Let You Down," off their fourth LP, "Hungry Ghosts," continues that trend by featuring a cast of hundreds, Honda UNI-CUB personal transport devices and a lot of brightly-colored umbrellas as the inventive alt-pop foursome visited Tokyo's Robot Restaurant, a 12-floor underground theater with robots roller-skating to heavy metal music.
OK Go frontman Damian Kulash said of this futuristic dance-floor banger to Purevolume: "'I Won't Let You Down' is the closest that spaceship OK Go has come to the planet disco. We were playing around with beats and grooves and stumbled upon one of those moments of alchemy where a ball of light just jumps out of the sound. Suddenly there was a flash of Jackson Five and Diana Ross and we knew we had something worth chasing." As always, the music itself leaves a lot to be desired, but the visuals make it worth at least one watch.
The innovative clip, released Monday on NBC News' Today show Monday morning, raises this humans vs. machines theme literally sky-high. Filmed by a camera on a drone, the clip starts off small enough with the band pulling off some overly choreographed hijinks on their motorized scooters. Accompanied by dozens of elaborately choreographed dancers that are all holding umbrellas in perfect synch. The logistics of any choreographed dance aren't just tricky, they're downright baffling, and the larger the routine, the exponentially more baffling the logistics grow. By that line of thinking you'd figure the latest video would be impossible.
But each time the camera zooms up and away for a birds-eye view, you get a sense of just how absurd the scope of this project was. In classic OK Go style, it's tightly choreographed and seems to take place in a strange warehouse. By the end we're looking down on literally hundreds of Japanese schoolgirls popping open their umbrellas in perfect timing to produce what looks like the kaleidoscope becomes a football-field sized LED display and wondering just how many hours went into the production of this madness. OK Go is the true master of the viral music video!

Fall Out Boy Play Gladiators in "Centuries"

Fall Out Boy take it way, way back - centuries, we'll say - in their new music video for "Centuries," the lead single off of Fall Out Boy's upcoming untitled sixth studio album. The emo pop band has blasted through radio-ready, punk-infused rock tunes for almost a decade, and their new video for "Centuries," which features them in a medieval setting, is an elaborate gladiator mini-movie, and the production values look to be just as elaborate as its life-or-death stakes. It's all melodramatic swords and sandals.
Fall Out Boy vocalist Patrick Stump originally came forward with this fist-pumper while the band were on the Monumentour concert tour with Paramore. "We never had a plan to jump right back into it after the whirlwind year we've had… but sometimes the song calls you," bassist and lyricist Pete Wentz said. "We started writing 'Centuries' while we were on tour." Wentz described the idea of the song as a "David vs. Goliath story." He added, "We wanted to write a song that empowered people who are a little weird."
In the video for "Centuries," the band depicts the era of the gladiator. All four members play competitors in a massive coliseum who must square off against a brute of a fellow gladiator as both commoners and some of society's elite look on. Perhaps they would have stood some chance against someone more their size, but the members of the band are defeated one by one by their terrifyingly large opponent, who's clearly a mismatch for them. But in a twist at the end, Fall Out Boy realize they might have a shot after all, thanks to a mysterious helper.
"Getting back up. Dusting it off. My dad used to tell me the most important part of any of it was getting back up on the horse - I didn’t grow up on a farm - but it still applied," Wentz said of the video in a release. "David vs. Goliath, us vs. them, you vs. the world... brains, talent and luck are great but heart will always trump them. That is the sentiment of this video." It seems like someone in Fall Out Boy has been watching "Game of Thrones." watch for yourself below to see if they survive.

Melanie Martinez enjoys the rides in "Carousel"

Meet Melanie Martinez, you may remember her from season three of The Voice where her creepy-cute covers made her the best part of Team Adam Levine. After she was eliminated during the show's semi-finals, the 19-year-old New York singer-songwriter spent a year putting together "Dollhouse," a five-song EP that perfectly showcases the sweetly sinister sound, featuring "Carousel," a haunting song that would be featured in the American Horror Story: Freak Show's hyped-up promos. The teenage photographer is known not only for her eerie voice, like she demonstrated her knack for haunting, searing lyrics on The Voice, but also for her eccentric style.
Fortunately, for Martinez, her creativity has not been stifled, as her dreamy/nightmarish pop anthem "Carousel," a spellbinding ditty has slowly been gaining ground on iTunes. At once inviting and vaguely sinister, the track neatly suits the trailer, putting Martinez's hushed, airy vocals between music-box chimes, calliope-like oompahs and plenty of shuddering electronics that update trip-hop, and now gets a brand new trippy, creepy, candy-colored and horrific carnival-themed music video which is a wild ride and nightmarishly cool.
The video directed by Adam Donald and shot at a carnival in Martinez's hometown of Long Island with ghosts, supernatural powers and touches of terror. The striking visual finds our bow-wearing heroine traipses through the popping lights and nightmarish landscape while enjoying the rides at a carnival. At the core, the song is about a former relationship, as you "go round and round like a horse on a carousel." But the resulting clip is chilling, and the singer ultimately becomes a victim of the fun and bound to that mechanical ride. She loses her dinner, and when the lights go out, she realizes it was just a tormented vision of her imagination.
The suitably spooky clip brings the love-song-gone-wrong's carousel metaphor to life. It begins with ghost-Martinez appearing in the middle of a darkened carnival which staffed entirely by nightmare people. Unfazed, she has some fun with a trippy mirror. Things get supernatural and she starts to fly and uses her powers of flight to follow a suspiciously hot carny around. But she takes a short break to play some creepy games with Nightmare Face, before she reunites with the Mr. Haunted Hottie by the carousel. However, things end poorly when Melanie gets a little lovesick.

Jack White debuts 'Would You Fight for My Love'

In the middle of his current tour supporting his critically-lauded sophomore solo record, "Lazaretto," the unequaled Jack White has unleashed a brand new stunningly blue-tinged music video for the LP's third single, "Would You Fight For My Love?" The brooding "Lazaretto" track finds a sensitive White cautious about committing to a relationship having been previously burnt. White used two live bands for the recording of "Lazaretto," the all-male Buzzards and the all-female Peacocks. This song features both playing simultaneously in separate rooms at Third Man Studios.

The alt-rocker made what he called the world's fastest record - he performed and pressed to vinyl the album's title track in less than four hours. Now Continuing White's tradition of innovation and penchant for quick turnarounds, he's applied a similar tactic to the moody video for "Would You Fight For My Love?" Set in downtown Denver's the historic Cruise Room, a beautiful art deco-era, spooky and original post-prohibition bar in LoDo's Oxford Hotel, the blue-hued visual was conceptualized, produced and shot within a 24 hour period. The six-hour shoot came together on less than 12 hours notice by British director Robert Hales.
The conceit has its pros and cons. It's an admittedly simple video drenched in a moody blue color scheme and has an old-school glamor that luring viewers into its scene of brokenhearted blue tones. The stylish video opens with a woman selecting a track on a bar jukebox, with a brooding, unusually dapper White plays a lonely-looking and sharply dressed bar hound fidgeting with a drink and sitting alone at a bar, which is bathed in blue light before he performing his lovelorn lyrics "It's not enough that I love you/ There's all these things I have to prove to you," while gazing directly into the camera.
The clip interacting with the female vocalist, played by musician and photographer Scout Pare-Phillips, on the unfulfillment anthem, but its stripped-down feel and ghostly aesthetic are of a piece with the song's mid-tempo rock and eerie, cooed vocal hook. It's an intriguing and fitting complement to one of the album's best cuts. The very well-groomed White and Pare-Phillips lurk around bar and never seem to make a true connection, occasionally vanishing into thin air, and the clip ends with White raging on an old-school microphone.

Coldplay take on body acceptance in "True Love"

Coldplay have released the music video for "True Love," the third single off British rock band's latest "Ghost Stories" album. The theme of that album was frontman Chris Martin's conscious uncoupling from wife Gwyneth Paltrow. The "True Love" video tells a sad, yet heartwarming story about two outcasts who find strength through their struggles and ultimately find happiness within themselves and each other. And the message behind the video is that, in spite of the obstacles blocking our access, 'anything is possible.'
This song finds Martin missing the passion they had at the beginning of their relationship and questioning if she still loves him. During an interview with BBC Radio 1's Zane Lowe, Martin was asked directly by the DJ whether the subject of the album was the breakdown of his relationship, Martin responded, "I wouldn't use the word breakdown, this was more a realization about trying to grow up basically."
Romantic at heart: Martin shows how huge his heart is by putting on an inflatable sumo suit to portray a backstage janitor with a 'big' heart yearning in search of the bigger picture dance on stage in Jonas Åkerlund-directed video which serves as a moving representation of the song's lyrics about wanting not only love, but a love that's real. Martin sings, "Just tell me you love me/ If you don't then lie/ Lie to me/ And call it true/ Call it true love." But Martin actually isn't alone, he has Canadian actress Jessica Lucas, starring opposite him as an aspiring lithe ballerina sporting her own sumo suit and is therefore ostracized by her fellow dancers and frequently turned down for gigs.
However, the free-spirited, beautiful ballerina doesn't let it get her down, and she's proud to dance to the beat of her own drum, while Martin's more lonesome-seeming janitor goes about his daily duties and entertains his own fantasies about the corps de ballet. Mocked and chastised for their appearance, they both aspire to be dancers despite repeated put-downs by those around them. They eventually meet, fall in love and put on a dance show of their own showcasing their unique styles. The whimsical video is a sweethearted affair that disgustingly cute!

The Gaslight Anthem rocking out for "Get Hurt"

The Gaslight Anthem play to spastic dancers in the music video for their dramatic new single "Get Hurt," the second single and title track from American rock band's just-released fifth studio album. Musically, the song continues where their major label debut "Handwritten" left off, moving the band into smoother sonic territory. With its big chorus and the polished production, "Get Hurt" is a far cry from their punk-meets-Bruce Springsteen early days. The video features a modern dance theme, with dancers appearing alongside the band, who are playing in a lavish barroom.
Breaking away from their by now trademark South Jersey, cruising with the radio on brand of punk rock that first got them noticed, the band is feeling particularly emotional on their new album. Strip away the glossy, nostalgic lines touting vinyl records, handwritten letters and grandma's old radio, the New Brunswick rock four-piece have cashed in time and time again on nods to old-school hot rods, blue collars and frontman Brian Fallon's ceaseless heartache. But "Get Hurt" finds catharsis, strength in endless heartache as Fallon seems to have recognized the painful pattern. It might be about heartbreak (an upside-down heart forms the cover art), but Fallon has always written about such stuff.
The album's slow-building title track, is a surprisingly Killers-esque turn for a band who used to occupy the middle ground between Bruce Springsteen and Social Distortion. The modern, alternative ballad, featured a hard-rock sound, offers plenty of melodrama, building to an intense sing-along classic, sparkles with the kind of romance and vulnerability that has become one of the band's hallmarks but at the same time the atmospheric, expansive sound signals a progression in favor of a more nuanced approach.
The video takes place in one of those dimly-lit, old-timey and run-down dive bars where full of half-drunk, half-sleepy people. But when the Jersey boys start rocking out to their anthemic title track, they're not entertaining just any old rowdy crowd; instead, the bar denizens hop up and start doing some spastic interpretive dancing as soon as the chorus kicks in. It ends, as it must, with a pretty lady in particular gives it her all, dancing amid a flurry of pillow feathers as red light bathes the room. It's pretty silly! Watch it below.

R5 Break the Law in "Heart Made Up On You"

The past year has been an exciting one for R5 and they don't plan on toning it down anytime soon. The Hollywood Records pop/rock group has returned but is getting into some trouble on the set of their new music video for the indecisive love-crazed new track "Heart Made Up On You," the lead single and title track from their latest third EP, which serves as the first taste of the pop-rock quintet of R5's upcoming sophomore full-length studio album, scheduled to be released on September 30.
It doesn't take much listening to tell that the band's sound has evolved since their last record, which featured pop chart-toppers "Loud" and "(I Can't) Forget About You." Ellington Ratliff, Riker Lynch, Rocky Lynch, Ross Lynch and Rydel Lynch are venturing away from bubble-gum pop in their new material, instead delving into dance-pop with EDM elements, as can be heard in the EP's lead single "Heart Made Up on You." With catchy beats and lyrics, it's possible that this can be the next "(I Can’t) Forget About You."
"Heart Made Up on You," is a ridiculously catchy and radio-friendly yet tune about a very complex relationship with a boy being psychologically hooked on a girl who's no good, and Ross' vocals have certainly grown stronger and matured in this new EP. "Lyrically, behind the song, is the fact that a girl isn't good for you but you still want her. So we took the concept into the video and made it a very literal thing where the girl is basically leading us into a trap. Ross is in love with her, so we're trying to help him out he's there and then it ends up being that she's, was completely bad for him and the fact that we were all right and we shouldn't have been involved with her in the first place," Riker explained in an interview.
The gritty crime setup is an unexpected as R5 get involved in an epic heist in the "Heart Made Up on You" video, which fits perfectly with the message of song. What better way to showcase that than with a double-crossing hope-to-be girlfriend? The video, which plays like a crime thriller, shows the band getting mixed up with Ross' up-to-no-good girlfriend and her father in the small and slightly abandoned town. As the jewelry theft unwinds, R5 perform their catchy single, "My mind says, no you're no good for me/ You're no good but my heart's made up on you." However, the heist eventually goes awry and the plan turns to chaos or does it? You'll have to watch the twist ending to find out!

Linkin Park embark on their "Final Masquerade"

You could be forgiven for assuming that the video for Linkin Park's "Final Masquerade" is the trailer for some brooding, post-apocalyptic summer blockbuster. It paints a bleak picture in a setting with an abandoned baby cries in the middle of the street, menacing white wolves, armies of mysterious hooded figures, white and black winged angels weep, cities enveloped in dust and smoke and graffiti that reads "the end is near," "trust no one" and "beware of shape shifters." You've been warned.
Add in frontman Chester Bennington's urgent vocals and you have a dramatic picture of fading hope for what could have been on the third single from the band's sixth studio album, "The Hunting Party." "The light on the horizon was brighter yesterday," he sings. "With shadow floating over, the scars begin to fade/ We said it was forever, but then it slipped away/ Standing at the end of the final masquerade."
"Final Masquerade" is a sharp, edgy, lushly harmonic heavy-hitter that falls perfectly in line with Linkin Park's lengthy string of hulking, hooky hits. The track is more like "A Thousand Suns" than "Hybrid Theory," which Linkin Park gives at their most controlled, meditative, a slowly unfurling, mid-paced anthem built around simmering keyboards, unfussy, low-tempo beats and palm-muted guitar. This heavy-hitting song features one of Bennington's finest vocal performances on the album.
The five-minute clip was directed by Mark Pellington, the famed auteur behind such iconic videos as Pearl Jam's "Jeremy" and U2's "One," as well as Demi Lovato's "Skyscraper" and Jason Mraz's "I Won't Give Up." It features Pellington's signature mix of vivid imagery and haunting, slightly out of focus, dream-like flashes of dread and mystery. The video is a graphic landscape more colorful than the majority of the band's videos from their most recent album, "The Hunting Party," but the message isn't any lighter: the video shows apocalyptic scenes, death, sorrow and outrage.

Train Go Western in "Angel in Blue Jeans"

San Francisco-based melodic pop rock outfit Train is back to the music spotlight with the Western-themed music video for their brand-new track, "Angel In Blue Jeans," the lead single off Train's upcoming seventh studio album "Bulletproof Picasso," out September 16. "This entire album took a lot of blood, sweat and tears but we hope it will be looked at as our best to date," the band says in a statement. "'Angel' was the first song written for this one and we’re excited that it will lead the way to your ears and, hopefully, hearts."
"Angel In Blue Jeans" starts off as a mournful ballad that sounds like it could be the soundtrack of a Western film, but then picks up and turns into a mid-tempo rock song with a steady beat and a catchy "whoa oh oh oh" hook. Slow, but steady, the new track keeps frontman Pat Monahan's usual charm of nonsensical lyrics and themes up, with lyrics about "getting shot down by an angel in blue jeans." After being in the game as long as Monahan has, you figure he'd have run out of heartbreak to sing about, but as long as his misfortunes keep leading to great songs, we're not complaining.
Something bad is going down out in the West and Sheriff Train is in the middle of it all. Filmed in early-July and it was directed by Brendan Walter and Mel Soria, the western-themed gun-toting video, which features the Mexican-American actor Danny Trejo and Hannah Simone from "New Girls." As they braved the SoCal desert heat this summer, Trejo is Simone's knight in shining armor while Simone playing the song's titular angel in blue jeans, and Monahan as a nefarious, Tarantino-esque crooked sheriff who has done Trejo wrong by holding him at gunpoint in the desert and stealing his girlfriend Simone.
Here, Monahan plays a Trejo eventually hunts the band and his kidnapped better half down in an old dive bar, and that's when the fireworks begin. "This song to me and the video, they sound and look like a Quentin Tarantino vibe," Monahan told ET. "I'm a bad guy. I think my face is really good at being a bad guy and it's great 'cause Danny, who usually is a bad guy, ends up being the hero, which is super cool." And as expected in any western-themed video, guns are drawn and violence abounds. But at the heart of the video is the love story of the song, which certainly lends itself to the western video with a haunting melody, a plucking guitar, and, of course, Monahan's distinct voice.

The Pretty Reckless dropped "Messed Up World"

Neither settling down nor bright tie-dye beachwear are things we would normally associate with The Pretty Reckless frontwoman Taylor Momsen, but after telling The Metro she wants a husband, the actress turned rock star has picked a perfect day at the beach and dropped a raunchy new video for the band's track "Messed Up World (F'd Up World)," the third single taken from the female-fronted act's latest sophomore album, "Going To Hell," which rages with the upbeat, beat-wise humor that hard rock has suppressed ever since grunge.
"One day, I'd love to have children and get married," the 20-year-old singer is speaking out about her hopes to settle down sometime in the future. "It would have to be the perfect person. I don't know who that will be. At the moment I'm married to my guitar and my notebook." Written by Momsen with Ben Phillips, "Messed Up World," was originally called "F'd Up World," shows off a grittier side of Momsen's voice. We find the former Gossip Girl star alternating between singing with her The Pretty Reckless band, and playing on the beach with a few of her girlfriends friends. Just in time for summer!
Directed by Momsen herself with Jon J, the provocative clip features a tie-dye clad Momsen rocking out with the New York band while hanging out and relaxing with a few female friends at a beach party. As Momsen sings the lyrics, her friends holding cue cards with the lyrics written out in magic marker, and changing them as the words are sung, but that's tame compared to the rest of the music video.
Making a statement, the video also features a pair of raunchy girl on girl action on the beach at night, courtesy of "retired adult film star" Jenna Haze and Momsen's personal assistant Alie Jo Kvitek, in body paint grinding upon each other along with a few near make out sessions. But ever the provocateurs, The Pretty Reckless put a spin on what is going on onscreen as the female pairing eventually turns the tables on the viewers by holding up a sign that reads, "Is This What You Want to See?"

OK Go Plays Tricks In "Writing's On The Wall"

OK Go has done it again! The alternative rock band released another innovative video for their song "The Writing's On The Wall," with amazing optical illusions. Past OK Go videos have featured everything from dancing dogs to an extraordinarily complex Rube Goldberg machine, but their latest mind-blowing brilliant clip for "The Writing's on the Wall" is stripped down and it's one of their quirkiest videos yet! As you watch this trippy, art-filled video, you realize that nothing is what it seems, and OK Go proves once again they've mastered the Internet.
"The Writing's On The Wall," the first single off the group's fourth album "Hungry Ghosts," due out on October 14th, is about a troubled relationship in which the two parties see things in different ways. The writing is indeed on the wall for the pair. The track is an expression that suggests a portent of doom or misfortune. It originates from the Old Testament Book of Daniel Chapter 5, where during a banquet hosted by King Belshazzar, a mysterious hand appeared and wrote on the palace wall the words, "Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin." Daniel interpreted this message as the imminent end for the Babylonian kingdom. Belshazzar was slain that night and the Persians sacked the capital city.
Taking nearly three weeks to assemble the set, painting the images, choreographing the moves in a cavernous Brooklyn lot and 61 takes to get right, the video attempts to channel and add motion to the geometric paintings of artists like Felice Varini, Salvador Dalí and Dan Tobin-Smith while remaining true to the track that inspired it, a pre-break-up report from a relationship in which the couple keep seeing things in different ways. The connection with the song becomes explicit during the bridge, when a rolling camera deciphers a message that reads, "I think I understand you, but I don't."
The video features the band members romping through a series of 28 live optical illusions have been painted and prepared and is meant to challenge your perspective with images that only become clear when the camera hits an exact mark. In one shot, an arcing camera finds everything you see is actually a trick of the eye. "It was important to me that we didn't add a layer of meaning that's not already there," explained frontman and co-director Damian Kulash to Rolling Stone. "We wanted to be able to have messages in there, but I didn't want them going throughout the entire song in way that would make you feel like you were reading the whole time." It feels like the viewer is right there with the group members. Watch it below.

Linkin Park gone softer with "Until It's Gone"

Linkin Park has released a highly-stylized artsy video for their latest single, "Until It's Gone," which is chock full of symbolism relating to how the band feels about the music industry and the current state of rock. The melodic track is the second single from American rock band's upcoming sixth studio album, "The Hunting Party," due out next Tuesday (June 17), and will feature a heavier rock sound than normal direction compared to their recent ventures as a response to what band describes as the "passive" nature of new bands.
"Until It's Gone" kicks off with the sort of warbling synth effect that was the group's calling card on their 2000 breakthrough debut, "Hybrid Theory," but builds into a brooding, textured gloom rocker that reminds listeners, via lead singer Chester Bennington, that "[you] don't know what you've got until it's gone." The song is a more mid-tempo track with softer lyrics provided by Bennington, who really shows his vocal versatility. The dreamy and atmospheric sounds are enough to whisk you away but Bennington brings you back down to earth as he belts out their take on a familiar chorus. "As for the video, I think the monochromatic beauty and eeriness compliments the song well in one sense, it allows the music to fill in the color," bandmate Mike Shinoda said.
For the first video from "The Hunting Party" album, directed by the band's own DJ/programmer Joe Hahn, Linkin Park chose to get a little deep with the rock six-piece at an interesting crossroads. The clip finds the band members frequently performing the song silhouetted with images projected onto their faces. Often the images are smoke filled or featuring dilapidated structures, with the occasional shots of people in despair. Add that in with the post-apocalyptic, haunting keyboard sounds laid down by Hahn in the song, and the video has a very ominous feel to it.
"The Hunting Party" marks Linkin Park's attempt to inject some edge back into rock, a manifesto exemplified by the "Until It's Gone" video, according to Hahn in an interview: "The visuals have an aggressive edge to it that is the representation of the band as 'The Hunting Party.' We are the same guys you always knew but, a little older, weathered and experienced. The video has an undertone of the world going to shit. There is a black ooze that crystallizes the world. It is an infection. This black ooze is representing other music out there. We are merely here to fill in that sliver with the music that we bring. I guess you can say that we are filling a void."

The Fray pours emotion into "Break Your Plans"

The Fray really push their imagination in the music video for "Break Your Plans," the official second single from the American alternative rock band's latest album, "Helios." The guys of The Fray have been making music together for over a decade, and the band's frontman Isaac Slade has a way of pouring emotion into every song he sings. In "Break Your Heart," The Fray return to their The Fray-esque sounding piano ballads. The intimate performance was the perfect setting for Slade to showcase his trademark vocals, which sound as raw and real as ever as he elongates and emphasizes each note on the heartfelt track, "Break Your Plans."

How do you move on so fast? You meant to break up, maybe there was never any chance anyway. Maybe it's all gone. But wait! What if you don't? We can try again. Don't break up. Break your plans instead. The Fray "Break Your Plans" meaning is a second chance for love. It might seem your relationship would never work. It might seem like it could not last. But love doesn't depend on "fate." All that counts is what comes next. Why not try again? Slade does two things that men in tearing relationships often don't do: one, he stops being afraid to ask for healing and to state his feelings. Two, he doesn't promise it'll be easy. He admits there's no guarantee we'll make it. He just asks you to try.

The group delivers a moving, stripped-down performance that highlights the meaning of the lyrics, which tell of a desperate longing for a loved one to stay. "We wanted to capture the moment right before a couple parts ways, where everything is pointing to the split," Of the track, Slade notes, "and one of them suddenly gets this fire-almost out of nowhere. Maybe it's the feeling of the other just starting to leave, maybe it's a moment-in-time but suddenly there's fight left, and they go for it."

"Break Your Heart" is a moving ballad, as usual very well sung by Slade, and the clip, directed by Marcus Herring and Bill Fishman, is just as moving. Its plot, however, is "something different." And by the different, we mean CRAZY. A fisherman makes his way to the vast ocean on his boat for a day of laidback fishing. He gets his prize, but it's not a big fish... it's a SIREN. The two fall in love, go for a swim, kiss but suddenly, the good-looking fisherman starts feeling bad, and noticing scars in his body after checking him out in a mirror. The SIREN sees how her man falls into the water and turns into a SHARK. Oh, my, god.

Coldplay levitate and fall in love with "Magic"

Coldplay have just revealed a new, high-concept music video for their more radio-friendly new single "Magic," the light-alt lead single taken from British alternative rock band's upcoming sixth studio album "Ghost Stories," which will be released on May 19th on Parlophone Records. After watching the emotional video, it definitely has us thinking it could be about frontman Chris Martin's failed marriage with Gwyneth Paltrow. In the video, he plays a magician, who tries to save a female magician from an abusive relationship as he sings about their relationship being "broken" and it's so heartbreaking!
The alternative rock song with influences of synth rock and post-Britpop, is an intimate low-key meditation on love sung by Martin over minimalist, bass heavy instrumentation. A beat consisting of a muffled snare and dusty guitar picks is repeated throughout most of the song. As the song progresses, an organ is later added to the instrumentation which is eventually swapped out for a stomp-clap beat and again for a synth beat. Following the song's second chorus, these beats are gradually combined together while Martin sings in falsetto. The song's anticlimactic portion then decreases intensity until it has eventually resumed to simply a snare and guitar picks.
"Magic" isn't a quick card trick to draw you in like some of Coldplay's previous hits, but rather a long-form spectacle that slowly allures you with its intricacies and delicate craftsmanship. The unassuming alternative single is paired with a black-and-white video with an old-timey introduction and cue cards for dialogue; the plot is also a throwback, with a hero, a damsel in distress and a mustachioed villain standing in the way of true love.
Mimicking a turn-of-the-century silent film with its full-screen subtitled video was directed by Grammy Award winning veteran Jonas Åkerlund, and stars Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi as "a beautiful young magicienne" named Cecile, and Martin plays both hero and villain as her "mustachioed husband" Claude and her lovelorn assistant Christophe in a love triangle. The stylized clip shows Martin providing a safe alternative to her abusive and misogynistic husband in turn fitting the love song with a love story. The story ends with a suitably "magical" finale.

Kings Of Leon embedding themselves in "Temple"

Kings of Leon are steady rolling out videos from their 2013 album "Mechanical Bull." This time, the band of brothers strip away the drama and the actors and keeps it simple with a straightforward performance video that they have just released for their song "Temple," the second official and third overall taken from the rock band's sixth studio album, "Mechanical Bull," the band's first album in three years sees the Tennessee rockers attempting to rediscover their early spark, but falling frustratingly short. The yearning "Temple," which sits neatly in the middle of the 11-track release, is perhaps the best thing they've written in five years, and certainly the most effortless.
Self-assured, conventional, and damned if it's not pretty effective, Kings of Leon's "Temple" neatly sums up the strengths of "Mechanical Bull." This song about taking a shot in the head for a prospective lover, was penned in a South African hotel room. "Obviously things changed when we got in the studio, like the intro, but it felt like a '90s song to me," frontman Caleb Followill told Billboard magazine. "That's when we were listening to a lot of music, and still when we play it, we crack up the whole time, this the most radio friendly song..." According to drummer Nathan Followill, the breakdown in the song is the band's ode to Irish rockers Thin Lizzy.
Kings of Leon's confident throwback "Temple" Video. In fact, much of the Paul Greenhouse-directed vintage-style visuals mix with a no-frills performance of "Mechanical Bull" standout, which they've already given on both Jimmy Kimmel Live! and Saturday Night Live. But the song has a "by Mennen" catchiness that the unshowy presentation only boosts. And the lyric about how Caleb would "take one to the temple" is more than a reference to Kings of Leon embedding themselves in some cranial pleasure zone.
Largely washed with a vintage effect, the video was filmed half on nice modern cameras, and half on and old-fashioned hand-held Super 8 camera that makes Instagram filters shiver in their boots to posterize their footage into blurry oblivion. The new clip also serves as a nice homage to the band's hometown of Nashville and is made up of shots of the band playing the song in front of the sign on the album cover giving Caleb plenty of screen time to tell us rather over-romantically that he'd "take one in the temple" for us. Together, they evoke both the reason the Followill clan do this and the old-fashioned pride in craft with which they do it.

The 1975 get nostalgic for "Settle Down"

The 1975 have unveiled a brand new video for latest single "Settle Down," the fifth UK single taken from the Manchester-based indie rock band's self-titled chart-topping debut album, which was released last fall. The video sees frontman Matthew Healy and the boys take a nostalgic approach this time around, and returning to their grim and dark black and white aesthetic present throughout most of The 1975's earlier videos after abandoning it for recent videos - the American movie vibe of "Sex" and the colorful pop feel of "Girls."
Manchester has a lot more to offer than a famous soccer team. This band also calls it home, and their magnetic energy is causing an excited reaction within music lovers everywhere. With their self-titled debut, The 1975 marked the arrival of a new British rock sound: something dark in imagery and storytelling but warm and pop-y in sound. Their seamless ability to connect with each other and the music is refreshing even now. Their honest electro-pop/rock music has a versatility similar to pop of the '80s. This trait has found a way into music in our day and made it hip again. Their album, and the song, "Settle Down," possesses a youthful vigor that is infectious.
This sensual track "Settle Down," is about the obsession Healy, has for the pop legend, finds he singing of an ill-advised relationship and the chaos that ensures. It was inspired by Michael Jackson, whom Healy has noted his admiration for in the past. The lyrics tell a tale of the nonsensical attraction between lovers and the chaos that ensues. It'll be hard to resist getting up out of your seat and not cracking a smile. The cheerful guitar riffs accompanied by the pulsating drums make for a song you just want to get lost in.
The accompanying video for "Settle Down" - documenting the minutiae of small town life - tells the story of two mysterious teenage boys, lost and troubled in a post-industrial rural village, who reveal supernatural powers. Healy's there, wandering out looking moody and observing proceedings before they take a peculiar twist before the end. It was shot in Redcar, Yorkshire and features various shots in and around the Northern England town. The video is sure to please the hardcore fans, after many didn't take issue with the nudity or drug use shown in the "Sex" video, but were disappointed the band had ditched the black and white aesthetic they have used since their early days.

Foster the People feel 80s life in 'Coming of Age'

The boys from Foster the People have premiered the '80s-inspired music video for their brand-new song "Coming of Age," the lead single from indie pop band's forthcoming sophomore studio album, "Supermodel" (out March 14th via Columbia), the follow-up to their 2011 smash debut "Torches." The band also created a time-lapse video of the mural's construction using "Coming of Age" as the music, as they telling stories of California kids struggling to fit in. From the Flock of Seagulls-like chiming guitars to the neon geometric shapes and dramatic motorcycle-ride-on-the-coast shots, the video looks and feels like a lost 1980s teen romance.
Formed in Los Angeles in 2009, The group is composed of Mark Foster, Cubbie Fink, and Mark Pontius. Their music was described as melodic dance-infused pop and rock, spans many genres. Co-written and co-produced by British music producer Paul Epworth, who worked with Adele on "Rolling In The Deep," "Coming of Age" was written with frontman Mark's social life as a background to the song, and finds Mark singing about a girl he has moved on from but just can't seem to do without: "I see you standing there like a rabid dog/ And you got those crying eyes/ Makes it want to surrender/ And wrap you in my arms."
Mark stated to XFM London: "Lyrically it is almost a confession. It is about a moment of clarity, having a moment of clarity and I think for me this year, being home, was that quiet after the storm of touring for two years and my life drastically changing. It was kind of the first breath I had to really look around and see that there were some things that happened during that period with my friends and with my loved ones, with the people that are close to me and with myself as well. It is the first time that I got a clear look on those things and that's kind of what the song is about. It's about growing up."
Directed by Vern Moen and Zachary Rockwood, the video showcases the LA Freewalls project and features time-lapse footage depicting the creation of a mural of the "Supermodel" cover. "We wanted to kind of capture the staple American past times, like classic Steve McQueen," Mark expressed to VH1. "The staple moments in the 70s and 80s that we thought kind of captured what America was in cinema. Those moments made us feel nostalgic about life." In clip, the band hone in on a distinct 80s vibe, the golden era for coming-of-age teen films. It splices together washed-out scenes of Mark and crew playing on a nondescript stage with various characters having a rough time. It's all stuff we can relate to in a very John Hughes way.