Superb video concepts of our time

Broken Bells' first video for The Ghost Inside, starring Mad Men's Christina Hendricks as a despondent fembot, was nothing short of a triumph. But sometimes the Hollywood star-of-the-moment and an acre of special effects just isn't enough to push your record into the nation's consciousness. The question is: How do you give the single an extra push without spending any more money?

The answer is both bonkers and brilliant. The band dug up an old Hall And Oates video and superimposed singer James Mercer's mouth over Daryl Hall's. You know, like how they got the animals to talk in Babe: Pig In The City?

It shouldn't work, but it does. Here are both videos for a side-by-side comparison.

Hall And Oates - Private Eyes


Broken Bells - The Ghost Inside


So how did this unholy union come about? According to NYmag.com "Filmmaker and friend of the band Matt McCormick says the clapping in 'The Ghost Inside' reminded him of Hall & Oates 'Private Eyes,' so he 'looked up the Private Eyes video on YouTube and realized that song structure and tempo was pretty darn close to that of 'Ghost Inside,' and from there just started playing around with syncing up the visuals from the 'Private Eyes' video with 'The Ghost Inside.'"

I would like to see this technique used to put a "legacy" artist back into one of their early videos. Imagine seeing The Beatles perform Paul McCartney's Dance Tonight on the Ed Sullivan Show. Or how about Kylie releasing a repurposed version of I Should Be So Lucky for her next single, Better Than Today? Wouldn't that be brilliant?

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