Ok Go Needing/Getting – Smashing Into 1000 Instruments With a Car

This new OK GO Needing/Getting music video is a triumph of the childish love we all had (and most of us still have) for smashing crap together and driving around recklessly. I know that it was filmed in part with Chevy, which is why they used such a pedestrian looking car, but I give them props because this is just one in a string of wacky, ingenious music videos.  So no bitching about corporate endorsements- just marvel at how rad it must have been to go tearing along in the desert, deploying Inspector Gadget pneumatic arms and purposely driving into everything you see.

OK GO Needing/Getting – Making Music Videos Rally Car Style

The amount of work that went into this thing is pretty amazing- if you take away just getting the instruments set up in the miles of spacey looking structures, there’s also taking into consideration remembering which arms to deploy, how fast to go, directions through the course, and then actually remembering to sing along to the music.

From the YouTube video description:

OK Go set up over 1000 instruments over two miles of desert outside Los Angeles. A Chevy Sonic was outfitted with retractable pneumatic arms designed to play the instruments, and the band recorded this version of Needing/Getting, singing as they played the instrument array with the car. The video took 4 months of preparation and 4 days of shooting and recording. There are no ringers or stand-ins; Damian took stunt driving lessons. Each piano had the lowest octaves tuned to the same note so that they’d play the right note no matter where they were struck.

If you aren’t familiar with the crazy effort that OK GO puts into their music videos, I highly recommend checking out some of their others… the infamous Treadmill video, Rube Goldberg machine video, Ikea furniture and dog video are just some of the few.