#27 on the 2014 Bacon Top 31

Hungry Ghosts by OK Go

As a fan of music videos, it’s impossible for me to not like the band at #27, OK Go. Even if their music were terribly unlistenable (which it most definitely is not), I’d still frequently be writing about them here on the Bacon Review. They are the undisputed champion of music videos. To date, they’ve created 25 videos (according to Wikipedia), and every last one of them is more enticing, more watchable than most other music videos. They have a knack for the viral.

And yes, the awesome music videos influence everyone’s opinion of the music. But here’s the thing: this new album is great. It’s funky. It’s danceable. And it’s a joy to listen to. These four guys from Chicago (hooray for the first non-New York-based band on the 2014 Bacon Top 31!) make wonderfully poppy, ear-worm laden rock ‘n’ roll. So far the band has released two videos from this new album, the above video for “I Won’t Let You Down,” and one for “The Writing’s on the Wall,” which was released way back in July. Both of the videos are single-take masterpieces that took many many days to create.

The album, Hungry Ghosts, is well worth a listen. Watch the video above a couple times, and you’ll hear that song in your head all day. The rest of the album is every bit as good as that.

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28. Run the Jewels 2 by Run the Jewels
29. Cosmos by Yellow Ostrich
30. Teeth Dreams by The Hold Steady
31. With Light & With Love by Woods

2009-2013 Top 31s

OK Go — I Won’t Let You Down

When a music video has OK Go, a multi-copter pilot (Kenji Yasuda) listed in the credits, and many many Honda self-balancing scooters, you know it’s going to be a video worth watching.

The song comes from OK Go’s new album, Hungry Ghost, which came out two weeks ago. I don’t have to remind you that OK Go make awesome music videos. Combine their penchant for the viral and Japanese video director Morihiro Harano’s creative know-how, and I don’t really need to say anything else. Just watch the above video. Over and over again.

OK Go — The Writing’s on the Wall

New OK Go video. The viral masters have done it again. I want to have the kind of fun they seem to have, all the time.

NPR All Songs Considered’s Bob Boilen says:

The Tiny Desk has moved, and OK Go has helped make it so.

Earlier this year, we needed to figure out the best possible way to move my Tiny Desk from NPR’s old headquarters to our new facility just north of the U.S. Capitol. We wanted to go out with a bang and arrive at our new space in style, so our thoughts naturally turned to a catchy pop band we love: OK Go, whose unforgettable videos have been viewed tens of millions of times on YouTube.

Bandleader Damian Kulash used to be an engineer at an NPR member station in Chicago, so we figured he’d be up for helping us execute a simple idea: Have OK Go start performing a Tiny Desk Concert at our old location, continue playing the same song while the furniture and shelving is loaded onto a truck, and finish the performance at our new home. In addition to cameos by many of our NPR colleagues — Ari Shapiro, Audie Cornish, David Greene, Guy Raz, Scott Simon, Alix Spiegel, Susan Stamberg and more — this required a few ingredients:

• Number of video takes: 223
• Percent used in final version: 50
• Number of raw audio channels: 2,007
• Percent used in final version: 50
• Number of microphones: 5
• Number of hard-boiled eggs consumed: 8, mostly by bassist Tim Nordwind
• Number of seconds Carl Kasell spent in the elevator with OK Go: 98
• Number of times Ari Shapiro played the tubular bells: 15
• Number of pounds the tubular bells weighed: 300
• Number of times the shelves were taken down and put back up: 6
• Number of days it took to shoot: 2
• Number of cameras: 1

OK Go played “All Is Not Lost” from Of the Blue Colour of the Sky, with words tweaked by the All Songs Considered team. And so begins a new era for the Tiny Desk, after 277 concerts (counting this one) in our old home.

The Carl Kasell bit is my favorite part.