David Reviews

 "You're not an artist, Peggy. You solve problems." Don Draper.

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Recent Promos
(1-25 of 25)

Oracle Sisters
"Alouette"
4 mins
31 Oct 2024
Actor Charlie Rowe shows his impressive character range by performing a one-take wonder for French band Oracle Sisters. The video opens with him getting the call to say the band's gone with someone else for their promo, spurring the actor into a frenzied display of different cinematic character archetypes, in a dazzling down the lens performance.

Inhaler
"Your House"
3 mins 55s
31 Oct 2024
The latest promo for Dublin band Inhaler sees their frontman hauled around a city inside a suitcase, being battered by the emotional ride, in a creative metaphor for complicated relationships. A woman out to do some damage marches around the streets, vigorously throwing the case against walls, bollards, and under cars, before eventually hurling it out to sea.

Crows
"Is It Better"
4 mins 11s
30 Oct 2024
Manoela Chiabai directs utter carnage at a funeral for Crows band’s latest promo. Taking an unorthodox approach to music video directing, she shot improvised scenes centering on the foundation idea of a deeply unhappy man who’s unable to find peace, even at his own funeral. The result is a beguiling exploration of the unchartered creative realm of promos.

Skip Marley
"Close"
3 mins 39s
29 Oct 2024
Skip Marley, grandson of Bob, has released a song based on 'Close to You' by Maxi Priest. The imaginatively-titled 'Close' gets a promo courtesy of director Gabriella Kingsley, who resists the urge to remake the 1990 original. She leans more into water caustics and underground club culture as Marley bids to carve out his own reggae niche.

Sophie Ellis-Bextor
"Freedom of the Night"
3 mins 11s
29 Oct 2024
Sophie Ellis-Bextor knows how to get her own way. In 2001, the music video for 'Murder on the Dancefloor' saw her win a dance competition by hook and by crook. Twenty-three years later, Ellis-Bextor sticks to what she knows in the promo for 'Freedom of the Night'.

Wretch 32 ft Little Simz & Benjamin A.D
"Black & British"
4 mins 37s
28 Oct 2024
Directing duo Meeks and Frost have crafted a richly layered music video for rapper Wretch 32’s ‘Black & British’ featuring Little Simz and Benjamin A.D. The Jamaican-British brothers’ interesting framing of shots, alongside the use of VFX to embed vignettes unfolding within picture frames in the main scene, creates a modern tapestry of nuanced heritage storytelling.

Mimi Webb
"One Eye Open"
3 mins 34s
28 Oct 2024
Claire Arnold directs Mimi Webb’s latest music video out of Paris. A chic addition to the Canterbury-born singer’s canon of promos, and one in which the sultry styling and pared back production design appear to signal the 24yo pop artist, whose fans can be firmly described as 'youth', making the complex industry transition to womanhood.

Fortuno
"Wanna Believe U"
2 mins 04s
28 Oct 2024
Director Ja’Lisa Arnold creates a moving image mosaic of a relationship in this promo for US soul band Fortuno. By dividing the frame into six different screens/scenes, she cleverly packs the lifespan of the connection between the couple with more depth, and has more space to play with visual metaphors to show the breakdown of their relationship.

Kent
"Återvändare"
2 mins 37s
28 Oct 2024
Återvändare, “The Returners”, is a unusual video for Swedish band Kent, in that it promotes their whole back catalogue. The ethereal video features ghostly figures moving through a Stockholm draped in mist, and is an effective and dramatically cinematic way to announce the band reuniting and returning to the site of their final farewell tour show, almost a decade later.

Lenny Kravitz
"Honey"
3 mins 24s
27 Oct 2024
This intimate portrait of Lenny Kravitz in his home environment blurs the lines between the public face of a music icon and the man behind the showbiz persona. Director Diana Kunst creates the impression that she's got behind the mask without detracting from the music star's innate fabulousness.

Sans Soucis
"Circumnavigating Georgia"
10 mins 37s
24 Oct 2024
This is a mixtape in video form: a compilation of Sans Soucis’ promos combined in one short film. The chapters within the film weave together different music videos of tracks off the Italian artist’s latest album, "Circumnavigating Georgia’, and the hybrid format is an interesting exploration of different ways promos can stand out in this new era ruled by social media.

Obongjayar
"Just My Luck"
3 mins 06s
25 Oct 2024
Keen-eyed viewers will notice that the poster in this Obongjayar promo reads: "Please respect the rules of our swimming pool! For all further questions, please refer to https://uncanny.services." If directors George Muncey and Elliott Elder ever leave the industry, expect them to run a leisure centre near you.

JENYS
"Like a Virgin"
3 mins 01s
24 Oct 2024
Today we bring you another Apple ad styled as a music video, this time for the hyperpop queer artist JENYS. An iPhone mounted to a motion control robot arm captures her voguing, in a precision-choreographed dance between performer and machine. It’s a slick performance by both, and nice to see Apple’s wallet opened to acts who'll benefit from a radar-boost.

Latto
"Brokey"
5 mins 07s
24 Oct 2024
With nods to both fans and haters alike, US rapper Latto’s latest music video has become number one on YouTube. Director Laura Marciano serves up a base of classic rap music video elements, adds some sugary production design, a pinch of bitterness in the form of literal man-eating, and sprinkles over some cameos for those in the know about ‘Brokey’s.

Fimiguerrero
"MVP (ft. YT)"
2 mins 28s
23 Oct 2024
DAVID played a lot of basketball games when he was younger, but his favourites were published by Electronic Arts under the EA Sports BIG label. 'NBA Street' belonged to this family of colourful, over-the-top sports games, a world away from simulations like 'NBA Live' and 'NBA 2K'.

FKA twigs
"Perfect Stranger"
3 mins 26s
22 Oct 2024
FKA twigs would love it if we could just forget about 'The Crow' and move on with our lives. The promo for 'Perfect Stranger' should help, as she refuses to let herself be put in a box—in fact, she lets herself be put in twelve boxes. Twigs shares one of them with Phoebe Waller-Bridge, close to unrecognisable as a dominatrix.

Memphis LK, DJ Boring
"Don't Touch Me Baby"
3 mins 16s
21 Oct 2024
Memphis LK’s collaboration with DJ Boring is a track made for the club dance floor - about the club dance floor. The London-based Australian artist’s lyrics paint the picture of someone seeking a night out on their own terms, and this is amplified by director India Harris’s confident directing of dizzyingly bold music promos.

Heartworms
"Warplane"
6 mins 38s
21 Oct 2024
Heartworms’ debut album doesn't release until 2025, but the post-punk artist and director Gilbert Trejo already have a longstanding creative relationship, and it shows. The musician's compelling performance in this promo is laced with eccentric vulnerability, creating a fitting match for her haunting vocals and the soundscape inspired by a Spitfire's failing engines.

Jade
"Fantasy"
4 mins 08s
21 Oct 2024
When Dua Lipa bid farewell to disco with 'Dance the Night', a space opened up next to Kylie Minogue, Róisín Murphy, and Jessie Ware on the dancefloor. Jade Thirlwall aims to fill that space with 'Fantasy', a worthy, wicked follow-up to ‘Angel of My Dreams' and 'Midnight Cowboy'.

Audrey Nuna
"Baby OG"
2 mins 08s
21 Oct 2024
Audrey Nuna has hair to match Rapunzel in the promo for 'Baby OG'. Director Zac Dov Wiesel and his team make the rapper's hair billow in the wind and stretch across the city, as if it's got places to go and people to see. Turns of phrase like "Birds can fly, but so can bugs" and "Tender like hug, tough like mud" have us stumped.

Sam Wise
"Twinning (ft. Tiggs Da Author)"
2 mins 53s
18 Oct 2024
How does South London rapper Sam Wise sum up 2024? "Too much drama/All me want is pussy and power." He also wanted director Taz Tron Delix to deliver a manic, mixed-media promo for 'Twinning', and what a job he's done. Big heads, extra limbs, cut-and-paste body parts... Delix keeps us on our toes with pure gonzo animation.

Confidence Man
"Sicko"
6 mins 27s
17 Oct 2024
Confidence Man and director India Harris are thick as thieves at the moment. Harris's third promo for the electro-pop group is a black-and-white, balls-to-the-wall guilty pleasure that says it's alright to be a sicko every now and then. Angelica Wolanska and Nat Zangi's choreography offers a great template for neo-90s ravers with a screw loose and no plans for tomorrow.

Major Lazer
"Nobody Move (ft. Vybz Kartel)"
2 mins 09s
17 Oct 2024
The all-action animated promo for 'Nobody Move' by Major Lazer and Vybz Kartel is dated October 11, 1984. Lazer and Kartel want us to believe this is a lost episode of a Saturday morning cartoon about a bloke with a cannon for an arm—if DAVID could get the action figure in time for Christmas, that would be just dandy.

James Smith
"Common People"
10 mins 51s
17 Oct 2024
James Smith came sixth in the 2014 Britain's Got Talent final. Rather than fart out an album straight away like a Syco-path, Smith went off to hone his craft. He released his debut album in August 2024, and now has a music video-cum-short film directed by Ricky Gibb under his belt. That's how you play the long game.

Chloe Qisha
"Sexy Goodbye"
3 mins 46s
17 Oct 2024
Malaysian-born singer Chloe Qisha is front and central in this promo for her upbeat track 'Sexy goodbye'. The song's tempo belies its lyrical sentiments and director Lillie Eiger sets its course more on the latter than the former as the performer walks through the dingy streets of London discarding clutter as she wishes someone a sexy goodbye.

Recent Promos
(1-25 of 25)

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