Most of the time, I feel sick and tired of camcorder footage. And it hurts, because at the same time I love it so much. It makes me think of my grandpa’s home videos, showing my sister and me when we were little kids in the 90s, and those videos mean the world to me. Nowadays, the camcorder is the easy way to sell authenticity. It’s become a valuable marketing tool, because it contextualizes a product with a sense of intimacy and honesty.
Fortunately, every now and then, there are artists that bring back a similar sense of excitement, thoughtfully incorporating the camcorder/home video into a visual language. Obviously, at the end of the day, music videos are promotional tools, but there is a difference between Taylor Swift and artists that are not flying around in private jets. One of these as of yet jet-less (I’d assume) artists is Chanel Beads. The dream-pop artist has a strong repertoire of certified (by me) “great use of camcorder” music videos.
He just released his new album, with the same title as his last, “Your Day Will Come”. Apart from the fact that I’ve never heard of someone publishing two albums with the same name, the three videos accompanying the album release are so great, I had to write about them. These three videos, as well as his older ones, are directed by Robbie Barnett and you can feel the stylistic confidence of their continued collaboration.
“Song for the Messenger” feels like an investigative journalists’ hidden camera rolling during a cult’s initiation ceremony, but in a good way. In a this-is-the-first-healthy-cult way. Which is probably what all cult members think.
I love the video because it’s all over the place in terms of framing and camera movement, so that any kind of heavy scripting and staging seems impossible. There’s an “in the moment” quality. The crunchy two tone grading renders some bits unrecognizable. In times of over curating, aestheticizing and staging every aspect of life, music videos like this make you feel like you are transported somewhere, rather than that you are clicking through the slides of a marketing pitch.
“Dust in the Wind” is the perfect narrative continuation of “Song for the Messenger”, stylizing the cult’s initiation further with a slide show of photographic moments. The only movement is the digital grain and a slight up- and downwards dimming of the exposure, granting the music video the feel of an slide projection on a dusty attic.
In 2024, Chanel Beads published the video for “Idea June” and even though that was two years ago, there’s a clear vision when it comes to the music video concepts.
Multiple perspectives show the moments surrounding a football game, culminating in thousands of people storming the pitch. It’s an endless stream of ecstatic humans, overcome with nothing but joy. It feels like bathing in the warm sunlight of someone else’s memory, helped by the fact that one nearly exclusively never sees an identifiable face–mostly the back of someones head. The rest is blurred in motion or disappearing in the contrast of the footage. I guess these could be my memories?
Blurring, uncertainty and the struggle to remember are all elements of director Robbie Barnett’s visual language. The videos often feature out-of-focus shots, like in my favorite video of the new album: “Tyler Richard”
I am praying that the sensor vibration effect was done in camera with a massage gun pressed against it, but even if it was done in post, it is such a great idea to pair it synchronized with the track’s bass line, blurring, blending and disturbing the shots. It reminded me of Teather’s music video for “Baptize”, one of my favorites from 2025, which features a similar effect, with the bass line rippling water:
Back to Chanel Beads. His music videos over the years are all housed under the same roof but are nevertheless always developing and experimenting with new techniques. I think they work so well, because they are not trying to sell a definite, clear idea of what a track would look like visualized. They leave lots and lots of room for interpretation, inspiration and association but walk the line perfectly without becoming abstract blobs. They still communicate strong ideas and themes. Take some time and listen to his new album, it’s great fun.
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