OK Go Band
In pop music, synchronized dance routines have typically been the domain of boy bands, girl groups and the high-school talent show contestants who idolize them. But with the video for its single A Million Ways, the Chicago rock band OK Go has claimed coordinated dancing for a legion of semicoordinated hipsters -- who, in turn, have helped make it one of the most celebrated, and wildly circulated, Internet phenomena of the year.
Shot on digital video last April, the clip shows the band's four members performing an elaborately choreographed dance routine in the singer Damian Kulash's backyard. OK Go's most talented dancer, the bassist Tim Nordwind, lip-syncs the song, a slinky disco-rock tale of a barfly and the femme fatale whose fish nets he can't stop ogling.
The three-minute dance, which includes moves inspired by The Matrix and West Side Story, is at once a sight gag worthy of Spike Jonze (in terms of physical grace, even the bald and bespectacled Mr. Nordwind isn't exactly Justin Timberlake) and surprisingly competent. Overseen by Mr. Kulash's sister, a professional ballroom dancer, it took a week to choreograph and practice. We didn't originally conceive of it as a music video proper, Mr. Kulash said. It was supposed to be a routine to finish live shows, and this was just a document of us practicing.
Encouraged by their friends, though, Mr. Kulash and his band mates began handing out DVD's of the video at their concerts. As fans uploaded and swapped it, A Million Ways generated an online following, ultimately entering the pantheon of eagerly forwarded viral videos -- a category usually reserved for clips of President Bush mispronouncing words and overweight people falling into holes. By August, it was the most downloaded video at the popular Web sites myspace.com and iFilm.com. A publicist for Capitol, the band's label, said it has been downloaded more than a million times in all.
Capitol decided to release the video officially, and it's currently in rotation on MTV2. Last month the band performed the routine on the season premiere of Fox's Mad TV. We were going to do it on 'The Tonight Show' too, Mr. Kulash said, but they have a strict 'no lip-syncing' policy.
For Mr. Kulash, the video's Internet-bred success presents a strange paradox: it's the type of buzz major labels dream about, but it's also a sign that major-label publicity channels have become outmoded. This massive machine that used to shove music down people's throats has imploded, and nothing much has replaced it, he said. Still, Capitol certainly couldn't have minded the video's budget. It cost $4.99 to make -- $20, according to Mr. Kulash, if one counts beverages for the cast and crew.