OK Go’s new video and smartly-written missive

For all the backyard dancing and treadmill acrobatics, OK Go could sometimes dismissed as a silly pop band, but my experiences with their music leave me pretty sure that they’re anything but. Yes, they might like to dress up as a marching band now and again but really, who doesn’t? Their music is sleek, catchy, and literate.

So, I copied that embed code for their new video above from an open letter that whipsmart frontman Damian Kulash penned in the OK Go forums last night, all about why you can’t embed their videos on YouTube. He writes in part:

“The catch: the software that pays out those tiny sums doesn’t pay if a video is embedded. This means our label doesn’t get their hard-won share of the pie if our video is played on your blog, so (surprise, surprise) they won’t let us be on your blog. And, voilá: four years after we posted our first homemade videos to YouTube and they spread across the globe faster than swine flu, making our bassist’s glasses recognizable to 70-year-olds in Wichita and 5-year-olds in Seoul and eventually turning a tidy little profit for EMI, we’re – unbelievably – stuck in the position of arguing with our own label about the merits of having our videos be easily shared. It’s like the world has gone backwards.”

I always find it fascinating to read musicians’ viewpoints about the industry and how the liquid maelstrom of the internet can affect things for good or for bad. The whole letter is worth a read.

Their new album Of The Blue Colour Of The Sky is stylish, breathy and clever.