The power of pictures

First I want to thank a random person at a party I attended last Saturday in Hermosa Beach that mentioned they read Single of the Day. They were surprised that I was the author, and they proceeded to inform me that I should check out today’s band, Mute Math.

I had to question the person a few times as to the name of the band. It was loud at the party, people shouting, music blaring, drinking beer, chomping on food, etc. I really thought I heard Puke Path. I figured it was a punk band or something. Then I finally understood it was Mute Math. As I stood there with the correct name, I e-mailed it to myself from my phone cause I knew I’d forget it. Despite being an extremely abnormal name that probably means absolutely nothing, I knew that I wouldn’t retain it as it sounded stupid.

It’s a good thing I e-mailed myself because I would have never checked them out. But I put the name into Google and up pops their website. Low and behold this video starts playing called Typical. Which is what you’re probably gazing at right now, likely just watched cause it would be hard to watch that and read this at the same time. Anyway, the opening of the song didn’t really strike me. What did strike me was the video itself. It took a moment to register that it was running backwards.

Making videos that run backwards isn’t really anything new. It can be a lot of fun watching things in reverse. In fact it’s a great way to learn about physics. What really struck me is that the playing of the instruments matched up. Then what struck me is that the singer is mouthing the words properly. Thus it means someone had to spend a great deal of time to work out how to sing their song backwards. If you’ve never attempted to learn to speak backwards, let me tell you now, it’s not easy.

That was the hook, the visual hook, that got me to continue listening to the music. The chorus is what got me to continue listening. It’s a very catchy chorus. But it was that imagery that got me to stay, to overturn my vote of a lousy band name, and a weak opening. Because of that, I’ve listened to the song several times in a row and it gets better on each listen. That’s also a great sign for a good song. Especially for me as I’ll often have to be strapped into a chair and forced to listen to something, if I’m not diggin it straight away.

Let me know if the video has had the same effect on you. And did it get you to buy the song, like it did for me?

Oh, and they’re a part of the Transformers soundtrack.

(** Disclaimer: If Mute Math’s label decides to be a typical label and sue someone encouraging a person to buy the music, I’ll have to make my typical move to pull the audio off the page. The post will remain to show that pictures can often be more powerful than words. **)