My Favourite Music Video: Give it up for Kyle Humphrey and Graydon Sheppard!

Date
27 January 2014
Tags

Share

This week’s My Favourite Music Video comes from hilarious, filmmaking duo Graydon Sheppard and Kyle Humphrey. Since their 2011 stonker Shit Girls Say quenched the comedy thirst of almost everyone in the world they’ve both been busy producing artwork in all kinds of forms. Did you catch the Pure Breeds series on Nowness? Okay go and have a look at that. Then come back here and read two truly beautiful paragraphs from the guys themselves on the music videos that inspired them to be the hilarious, creative men they are today. Woo!

Graydon Sheppard: Whitney Houston – National Anthem Super Bowl XXV

This might look like a cop-out since it wasn’t really intended as a music video, but you can’t experience this without watching Whitney. She’s so easy-breezy in her tracksuit, not even breaking a sweat while she faces a stadium bursting with testosterone and scary warplanes flying overhead. Not only is this Whitney in her prime, but this is a snippet of America and its mesmerising patriotism. I’m Canadian and this video is so moving as a glorious depiction of the idea of national pride that it makes me weepy. It’s basically a Norman Rockwell painting.

Very simply, the song is beautiful and Whitney’s voice is so incredible. Tons of singers have tried to jazz up the Star Spangled Banner with runs and interpretations, probably in response to this performance. The thing is that Whitney’s singing isn’t terribly flowery, it’s just so decisive and backed by an awesome arrangement.

Kyle Humphrey: Kylie Minogue – Can’t Get You Out of My Head

I’m old enough to be able to obnoxiously brag about growing up actually watching music videos on TV, and I have a very clear recollection of seeing this music video at the age of 15 and thinking “this is what I want the rest of my life to be like.”

As a blossoming gay youth, I was aware of the fact that my giddy admiration for this person was inversely proportional to any sexual longing for her. That’s not to say I was unaware of her assets – given the plunging neckline on her hooded white jumpsuit – but I felt within me an awakening desire to live a slick, modern life accompanied by hypnotic pop music. And a boyfriend.

As far as music videos go, this one has everything you could want: (frontal) sideboob, sports cars, back-up dancers, robot choreography, and some slow motion thrown in for good measure. Kylie, all tall and glowing and huge-mouthed, drives around an empty, blinking metropolis filled with lens flares. A friend once tried to convince me that Ms. Minogue is a terrible dancer. Whether or not this video is proof of that notion, she looks positively enchanting in it. Like every little gay boy’s dream.

Share Article

About the Author

Liv Siddall

Liv joined It’s Nice That as an intern in 2011 and worked across online, print and events, and was latterly Features Editor before leaving in May 2015.

It's Nice That Newsletters

Fancy a bit of It's Nice That in your inbox? Sign up to our newsletters and we'll keep you in the loop with everything good going on in the creative world.