Taken from his debut album, ((UN)), “Symphonies” has thus far been the score to Dan Black’s red carpet rise stateside. A beneficiary of the iTunes “Free Single of the Week” over a year ago, he’s still gaining momentum. An alternative version of the song, featuring KiD CuDi (who seems to be on a level of ubiquity just shy of Nicky Minaj or God) was also released as a bonus track on the album, furthering his street cred. Who knows, maybe there’s a Kanye collabo in the future…or even a Bieber remix!
The accompanying video, which was nominated for “Breakthrough Video” and “Best Special Effects in a Video” at the 2010 MTV VMAs, owes a bit of its success to Justice. Experimenting with copyright infringement to the same degree that’s found in the French duo’s video for “DVNO,” Black’s backdrop is a schizophrenic menagerie of film styles from past and present. It genre-hops from western to romance to sci-fi, playfully spelling out lyrics disguised as film credits and subtitles.
Some of the more obvious shoutouts go to the recently revamped Tron, the Bond movie franchise, Donnie Darko, Frank Miller’s Sin City, and David Lynch’s Lost Highway (creeeeeepy).
Oh, yeah…the biggest shoutout…try Jay-Z and Rihanna. If you think the beat sounds familiar, that’s because it does. Remember a certain rainy day record that went triple platinum in ’07? Sumpthin’, sumpthin’, sumpthin’…under my “Umbrella”-ella-ella-eh-eh-eh. Yeah, that one. How could we forget?!
Well let’s go one better. Anybody recognize the angelic choir backing up “Symphonies?” Well if you were alive in 1984 and you weren’t still geeking out to E.T. or The Last Starfighter, you may have seen John Carpenter’s Starman!! (click link for aforementioned “angelic choir”) Holy shit, talk about diggin’ through the crates! How far back can we go with this, and what is Indiana Jones’ girlfriend doing with The Dude?!?
Not considering all of the How’s and Why’s that could be asked, we might as well enjoy the end product and credit Dan Black for fostering a mash-up that demonstrates a level of obscurity beyond even the likes of Gregg Gillis.
Fucking UNbelievable.
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