he's about my age, has an awesome name, and has done so much cool shit it overwhelms me. i just discovered his short film Study After Cruel Intentions which i guess feels something like a skyscraper-sized dead dove looped around the recent Simian Mobile Disco track Cruel Intentions. the 'music video' for Cruel Intentions is made out of parts of the film and is kinda cool but has nothing really on the original work, which is an insanely powerful interpretation of a song i would call just 'ok' if this film didn't exist to expand it.
Saam brought the same kind of gravity to the playful tune Hustler by SMD- an intense sense of place and time, capital-S Sexuality, a queering of everything in the truest sense. Study After Cruel Intentions is extremely similar to Hustler, as both evoke a secret energy between women that is recognisable+real. in Hustler, it is colorful / youthful / jokey, but it is also ominous. in Study After Cruel Intentions, it has grown up / grey / into horror.
dude has also made a bunch of videos for Klaxons and one for Janet Jackson and even does commercials. i think he has also won some awards and stuff. however he does not have a wikipedia page.
watch Study After Cruel Intentions [enable fullscreen]
to the sidebar as soon as i get round to fixing the formatting- saam.tv
these are also getting tons of spam every day
someone/thing named iv.an.iv.on.iv.an.ivon.vich or something like that just keeps posting 'fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck'
there is no link or anything advertised
music from the 00s that i will still be thinking about and listening to a long time from now
albums
1. Discovery by Daft Punk.
changed. Everything.
2. The Warning by Hot Chip.
spell it out for you: peerless and obscenely influential. poorly imitated / 'ripped off', over and under ;), to this day and probably forever.
3. Deep Cuts by the Knife.
don't even like it that much personally [really hate the album title; 'Pass this On' is kinda hot; 'Heartbeats' is just annoying] but it's an undeniable pop music reference point. there was a before and is an after this.
4. Tonight: Franz Ferdinand.
follows through on all the first album's promises. addition of synths feels experimental yet fluent and natural. drums are visceral, dancey. lyrics get more arousing with each successive release- 'no i'd never resort to licking your photo, honest, i just had to see how the chemicals taste, bite hard'.
5. Crystal Castles self-titled.
the members of this synthpop duo are not that attractive but they know how how to make some fucking sexy shit. their album cover [top] and the sound of their music [everywhere] foretell a thousand future seductions and entirely different mode of said.
6. You Are the Quarry by Morrissey.
the Morrissey comeback of the 00s, even though Morrissey never really went anyplace and always seems to be somehow 'coming back', was way fun. this is the best collection of songs resulting from that.
7. LP3 by Ratatat.
another blueprint for the future curled and strained around the past.
8. Pieces of the People We Love by the Rapture.
much less annoying than i thought when i first heard it. actually not annoying at all. actually one of the best albums of the decade.
9. Is This It by the Strokes.
shrug.
10. Kid A.
last good thing Radiohead did. came out the year before Is This It.
songs
1. All My Friends by LCD Soundsystem.
perfect, eternal, and writ to frame a decade. 'you spend the first five years trying to get with the plan and the next five years trying to be with your friends again.'
2. Can't Stand Me Now by the Libertines.
years of persons spheres and metaphors collapsing on each other to form perfect statements. 'called out the boy kicked out at the world, the world kicked back a lot fuckin harder so, if you wanna try there's no worse you could do.'
3. U.R.A.Q.T. by MIA.
one of the catchiest songs ever and the biggest, errr, 'viral' hit off either of her albums. it wasn't a single but i hear it everywhere and pretty much everyone my age knows all the words. 'tighter than J Lo in her jeans, i'm tighter than R Kelly in his teens.'
4. Mirror Kissers by the Cribs.
punk's not dead, 'you're not allowed to say that you're better'.
5. Ready 2 Wear by Felix da Housecat.
one of the simplest, best songs ever made; released on album Devin Dazzle + the Neon Fever in 2004; one of the rare Housecat songs actually sung by Felix da. the way he articulates each word so precisely, like he's singing in a foreign language, but one in which he's fluent, is this really strange and powerful thing. 'nothing i can tell you, you look good when you wear it well.'
6. Your Retro Career Melted by the Faint.
The Faint are very much of the 00s and are pretty awesome although Fasciinatiion is a touch boring. this was always my favorite song of theirs because it tells the weirdest story- a mannequin falls off a truck near a hotel/bar, everyone runs out to see it, the mannequin says 'your retro career melted', it gets shot to pieces by somebody, then reassembles in the next town over and says the same thing. great, great. 'voices appear from the staff outside, in bulbous text in a western style.'
7. Blind by Hercules and Love Affair.
dark, mysterious, relentlessly complex and very positive. like a Morrissey song turned inside-out. incredible use of Antony Hegarty's voice. 'when i find myself alone, i find myself alone.'
8. The Libertine by Patrick Wolf.
honestly The Magic Position and The Bachelor are pretty twee. for a moment though, when The Libertine was a single in 2005, Patrick Wolf was a bottomlessly sexual, dangerous image for me. he from that time is drawn, sort of, here. 'the troubadour cut off his hand, and now he wants mine.'
9. Sex City by Van She.
V is a little boring. this, off the earlier 'Van She' EP, is breathtaking. super influential; covered as 'Vanished' by Crystal Castles on above. the vocals have the character of being sung by not the person who wrote the words. with this song, that works perfectly. 'keep on dancing to the movie you're in.'
10. Black History Month by Death from Above 1979.
remixed about a hundred thousand different ways, never covered, oblique in title, made by a band that fractured and became something much harsher. song is poetic and foreboding, like if Arcade Fire were into S+M. 'hold on children, your best friend's parents are leaving.'
videos [just 4]
1. Hustler by Simian Mobile Disco. posted it on Christmas Day. none of the girls featured are really my type but between the mysterious energy of the scene and incredibly deft editing i get turned on every frickin time.
2. Time to Pretend by MGMT. duhh.
3. Ulysses by Franz Ferdinand. getting high in cheap laundrymats never looked sexier.
4. We Are Your Friends, Justice vs Simian. 'embedding disabled by request', watch here. i could have put Justice's Cross instead of Is This It as album #9 but then the Strokes would've gotten no mention and i do think i'll probly be thinking about them awhile. same with Justice. they're powerful whether i want them to be or not. this video is horrorpretty.
