Underground rock-en-español's Desarme wakes the neighbors, spreads the word.

By Camille T. Taiara

In the beginning there was virtually nothing. Few actual videos played in MTV's initial rotation save novelty items like the oft-mentioned Buggles clip ("Video Killed the Radio Star" ... oh, savor the irony). Before long, people would catch on to the medium and its marketing message. Some, however, had already seen the future without even knowing it. So it wasn't surprising to find a few of the post punk-cum-performance art bands already armed with ready-to-air pieces. Hungry for product, the infant network regularly aired bizarre short films that projected the skinny-tie ideology into imagery. Bands like Devo and the Talking Heads became MTV's artists in residence, churning out avant-garde extensions of their sound and dominating through sheer volume. In the channel's early days, the art students briefly reigned over the ad execs.

Fast forward 20 years, and it's all about the Benjamins. MTV now devotes only a third of its programming to actually airing videos, record companies hold the strings tightly, and everyone wants to profit. The marketing potential of an artist's persona writ large against selling a lifestyle has reached its logical conclusion, and now it's impossible to separate the artist from the clothes, hos, or barely pixilated brand names being shucked ("Oh, look, they're wearing F*bu!").

Of course, amid the gyrating asses and pimple-free faces, something odd occasionally slips through the cracks. Artists like Beck and Madonna have turned their video-persona marketing into an art. The relatively faceless music formerly known as electronica used its momentary turn in the limelight to get some radical pieces aired, albeit only during the graveyard shift (the Prodigy's "Smack My Bitch Up" and U.N.K.L.E.'s "Rabbit in Your Headlights" promos, both exemplary videos, ran only twice and only after midnight). And now, two major bands seem hell-bent on pushing the format even further into the void.

The marketing strategies of both Tool and Radiohead have revolved around avoiding the machinations of commerce as much as possible. Significantly, they both view video as an extension of the music instead of as a sales pitch, attempting to craft short films that favor complementary atmospherics over identities. Each has a long history of pushing the envelope: Tool's videos have consisted of cryptic, partially animated clips that reflect the dark underpinnings of their songs, while Radiohead ambitiously attempted to create short films for every song on OK Computer and then refused to do any for its follow-up Kid A.

The bands' latest clips push the envelope even further. Tool's seven-minute video for their new single "Schism" juxtaposes scenes of two ambiguously sexed figures roaming around blue-gray padded rooms, exposed nerve tendrils mutating into faceless claymated figures, and minimalist close-ups of surveying equipment. Biological anxiety and genetic chaos echo against such lyrics as "I know the pieces fit / Because I've watched them fall away"; broken relationships have never seemed so sinisterly cancerous. Radiohead's mesmerizing clip for Amnesiac's "Pyramid Song" is a computer-animated opus involving a geometric figure diving through cubist underwater landscapes. The cool, muted tones of the video's look seem to stem directly from the stark sounds of Thom Yorke's voice playing against the off-kilter phrasing of the piano and drum lines, all texture and weaving. Neither video features any of the band members at all.

Considering that both bands have a rabid following and have seen "difficult" albums debut at number one on the Billboard charts, MTV can't afford to ignore them. Choosing imagery over image-mongering is an image in itself, granted, but the continual refusal of Tool and Radiohead to play the game unless on their own terms suggests the age of video artists in residency may not be over just yet. TRL über alles et al will still insure that a parade of fluff turn profits, but the thought of a few artists planning museum installation pieces in lieu of the cash 'n' flash circuit gives one hope.

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