What is a music video? When The Buggles’ ‘Video Killed The Radio Star’ debuted on MTV in 1981 it signaled the coming of a marketing tool for music that reached out to anyone who owned a TV set. But music videos are also an art and somewhere between that thin line of art and marketing is where we could perhaps find our meaning.
Scribe‘s video for The Mark Of Teja highlight ‘Dum Hai To Aage Aah!’ takes us to the Mumbai slum of Dharavi where we’re introduced to a bunch of kids practicing their b-boying skills. The video is produced and directed by the band’s bassist Srinivas Sunderrajan, whose indie film The Untitled Kartik Krishnan Project will make an international debut at the South Asian International Film Festival in New York next month.
The two-and-a-half minute clip features the b-boys doing their thing at what looks like an abandoned fort. While the video has great production values Scribe’s disco-metal tune is all but lost in this mute-documentary. It’s a great perspective of this underground b-boying scene, but does next to nothing for or with ‘Dum Hai To Aage Aah!’. It lacks that sense of understood rhythm that one expects from a music video. And given the unique theme of the video, one can’t help but rue the missed opportunity.
There’s a lot of video in this clip, but not enough music.
Twitter
Facebook