had her believing it was always something that she’d done.
But I don’t wanna live that way, and you shouldn’t either. Kimbra is widely known for her American debut in the Gotye song Somebody That I Used To Know. Now, I am not here to debate whether the song is great or not; I personally love it and it has been on my top 25 played since I first saw the music video. I am here to tell you about why Kimbra is amazing and why you should think that, too.
Kimbra (also known as Kimbra Lee Johnson) is a New Zealand singer-songwriter-guitarist-musician. She is pretty great. She is mostly known for her jazzy, soul-filled sound. Now, first reactions to the word jazz are usually negative. Jazz? Nah, not my scene. But, somehow Kimbra transcends her own genre with her unique sounds and beautiful voice. She utilizes voice looping to literally make her voice the instrument in the background. It is absurdly awesome and sounds so much better than I am describing it here. She is fantastic! And honestly, whenever I hear pop-rock or I hear ear-shattering dubstep, I lose faith in music, and then I listen to artists like Kimbra and it comes right back. I feel as though she is ushering in a new era of beautiful music.
Kimbra hasn’t been screwed over, but I feel as though her American debut should have been her own solo work. She is talented enough and famous enough to be on the radio just as Gotye was. Perhaps this will push radios to play more of her music more. One can only hope!
Hey Dale, I looked ahead and I saw videos. What is up with that?
Kimbra is amazing in herself, but the videos below are an entirely different tale. I’ll let this article speak for itself, but I want to draw attention to some of the film aspects of these videos.
“The trilogy of videos Franklin has created for Kimbra are elaborate vignettes filled with precise choreography and tricky visual elements (burning plastic in Settle Down, confetti canons in Cameo Lover and extensive period costuming and set design in both Good Intent and Settle Down) that many novice directors—and even some with more experience—would try to steer clear of, but Franklin knew they were pivotal for communicating his star’s songs.
“I remember, very specifically, that Kimbra had said that, by the [Cameo Lover] clip’s end, it needed to feel “joyous”. I went away, with this in mind, and came up with a story structure that felt engaging to watch and would allow us to build, bit by bit, to this climactic outro. All I can really say now is thank goodness we used the confetti! I think everyone was a little bit nervous about how the confetti would show up on camera, so we were very hesitant to use it… but, every rehearsal we had, Kimbra would ask, “Have you organised those confetti guns?” She seems to have a sixth sense, that girl…”
Sorry Emily, but these are the new jams of the week.
Comment below on which song is your favorite. Have a great rest of your week!
