Sometimes it’s better to avoid MTV. Promoting their new unpronounceable album “Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust”, Sigur Rós’ video for Gobbledigook (NSFW… why do I find myself typing that so often?) isn’t the kind of thing the FCC smiles upon. I don’t think most people would find it offensive – far more disturbing things routinely make it onto afternoon television – but naked Scandanavians frolicking in a forest are more of an online-only thing. And while the Internet isn’t free from content censorship either (you won’t find this on YouTube), this is a nice way to take advantage of online freedom. It’s the kind of thing that otherwise would only find distribution on DVD or in a gallery, but can reach a much wider audience this way (and better serve its purpose as a promotional film).

-Nick

Video for Santogold‘s “L.E.S. Artistes”

I wrote earlier this week about EMI’s legal attack on Hi5, and the advertising value its subsidiary Virgin Records got from the Daft Hands meme (which was exactly the kind of material EMI objected to Hi5 serving).

I’ve been listening to the new album from mashup artist Girl Talk (Gregg Gillis) a lot over the past couple of days and it brings up some issues in the same vein.

2006′s “Night Ripper” (torrent | complete list of samples) launched him into Pitchfork shininess, and the critical acclaim is well deserved. To give you an idea, here’s “Hold Up”, in which the samples range from Ludacris and 50 Cent to Weezer and the Pixies (NSFW):

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