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OK Go Don't Expect Music to 'Live Up' to Their Videos

Paracadute

It's safe to say that OK Go have yet to run out of ideas for their music videos. The power-pop troupe's latest album, 'Of the Blue Colour of the Sky,' has seen visual treatments varying from a full marching band to mesmerizing Rube Goldberg machination. The latest is a lovely stop-animation clip for the acoustic ballad 'Last Leaf' and involves lasers and toast in a way that will make you rethink breakfast. But even with all these triumphs, there is a risk that their prowess in creating fascinating videos might overshadow the band's music.

"It had this massive cultural footprint that we don't expect our records to live up to," singer Damian Kulash tells Spinner about their initial flush of viral success with 'Here It Goes Again.' "We walk through Times Square and people stop Tim because he lip-syncs to the song and people think he's the singer, and he's the most recognizable one in the band," Kulash adds of the band's bassist, Tim Nordwind. "65-year-old women stop him and go, 'Oh my god, it's the treadmill guy! You look just like my husband. I love you.' We don't expect 65 year old women to buy our records or come to our shows."

Still, Kulash says the band is concerned with making quality art instead of marketing themselves.

"If it was the traditional way music videos work, which is as a tool to sell your music, yes, we'd be set," he says. "For us it's not a commercial. What we do is chase our craziest ideas. The videos are as much a part of what we do as the music is."

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