This is a music video for the song "Sax Rohmer #1" by one of my favorite bands, The Mountain Goats. The song is from their 2008 release entitled Heretic Pride. Just for reference it is their 16th studio album, not including EPs and compilations. I first saw the video when it came out about 2 years ago, and stumbled across it recently while on their website.
I picked this video for my type journal because of how well the typography fits with the lyrics. It is one of the best examples of integrating type and lyrics together. Instead of just placing the words onto the various surfaces, thought was actually given to the word's meaning. Here are some of my favorite examples – the word harbour has nautical symbols for the letters, the words broken bricks are spelled out on a pile of broken bricks, aftermath is a jumbled mess almost like a broken mirror signifying the aftermath of a decision, heads are used for the a and d in the word heads, and the words both sides are painted on both sides of a door. Those are just a few examples, but each word was placed thoughtfully to give a particular feeling or meaning. I especially like how the verse that starts at about 1:56, that talks about chalk marks, were made using chalk. At this point they start having some sectionsof lyrics in all caps, and then the same lyrics in lower case, below or next to the all caps. At about 2:05 the word descend is spelled out backwards and descending towards the next word, and at 2:30 they have lyrics written in the palms of their hands, that are written left to right, but read right to left. I like how they did not stick with the normal direction for reading. This could lead to confusion, but in this case it fits with the flow of the music video. I could go on in this vane and talk about almost every word in the song, but I will hold off.
My initial reaction to this was a large grin. It incorporates a few of my favorite things, The Mountain Goats, and playful hand lettered type. I generally expect TMG to have good music videos, and this definitely did not disappoint. This example produced a feeling of completeness. The way that everything fit together was amazing, and I can't imagine adding or removing anything.
