Royksopp: Remind Me

By Shamus Posted Saturday Sep 6, 2008

Filed under: Movies 40 comments

One of the best music videos I’ve ever experienced came to me as a completely random YouTube find:

I’ve watched it several times, and I know there are many details I’m still missing. I wish there was a higher resolution version available.

 


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40 thoughts on “Royksopp: Remind Me

  1. Dannerman says:

    That was interesting.

    Sort of a depressing penultimate image, though.
    Actually, kind of a depressing undertone to the whole thing.

    Or is that just me?

  2. Andrew says:

    The comparison of lager and ale sales?

  3. Moridin says:

    That would’ve made me feel good, except it feels like people reduced t nothing but numbers.

  4. Allan says:

    I didn’t like the video, it went too fast for me to read the diagrams and charts and other things that came up. I wanted to read them. Is that weird?

  5. Mystyk says:

    I’ve got the .avi of that video. It is a lot easier to make sense of in higher quality.

    I suppose I should upload it to my server and send you a link…

  6. cipher says:

    This Video actually won an MTV award a couple of years ago. It’s great!

  7. Grudgeal says:

    Heh. I remember seeing this, as well as their first video “Eple”, being played on MTV Europe a lot back in the day. Still remember my reaction when I found out they actually came from my hometown. I don’t feel too much about the music (mind you, it’s head and shoulders above the other pop artists this village has spawned), but the video is still cool. Probably one of the better ones I’ve ever seen.

    Doesn’t hold a candle up to “War Photographer”, though.

  8. Nilus says:

    Hey its the song from that Caveman commercial :)

    Sorry someone had to say it

    The video was cool though

  9. mockware says:

    The song is good but it’s the video that memorizes me. It’s the engineer in me that can’t get enough of it. I, also, own a lot of the the “how things work” books. I think it draws the people that used to take apart clock radios as a kid.

  10. Mari says:

    So many shiny charts and diagrams and processes. It was like…achieving nerdvana.

  11. Xinem says:

    Brilliant. Somebody put a lot of thought in this. The most amazing thing after watching it a few times is how much deeper it could have gone.

    As far as flashes, I think I saw “Magic Ketchup”.

  12. Bard says:

    I don’t find it at all depressing, actually – I think the intended effect was awe at 21st-century infrastructure – but then, I’ve always been more pro-modern than most people.

  13. Terrible says:

    I have days like that.

  14. Cybron says:

    That was a pretty amazing video. I’m still undecided over whether it’s depressing or just cool, though. It certainly does have a bit of that “you’re just a number, a cog in a system” feel to it.

  15. Maddy says:

    A friend sent me a link to this video last year. I can’t stop watching it. I love this version of the song (it’s called “Somebody Else’s Radio Remix” and the MP3 of it that I got from Amazon isn’t very good), but the video itself is ingenious.

  16. DocTwisted says:

    I rather enjoyed that once the work day ended, it showed a chart of relative beer consumption. I was afraid she was just gonna go home again.

  17. Bear says:

    That was awesome! That is what life would be like if the world was modeled after Popular Science.

  18. wildweasel says:

    I love Royksopp. I’ve got their first two albums, and I love their videos – try looking up the video for What Else Is There, too; very surreal.

  19. onosson says:

    I kept waiting for it to do something interesting…

  20. illiterate says:

    That looks like “Life according to Maxis” to me.

    The construction of it was fascinating. I particularly liked the qualitative assessment of “walking vs driving vs bus vs train”

  21. Riksa says:

    /rant/ It’s great to see someone trying to communicate something with a music video. My little daughter is sleeping in the next room, so I had to keep the volume low and couldn’t hear the words to connect them to the video; still, the video was clearly well thought through. These days it’s more than usual just to see your average band playing their average song in the average quasi-cool environment of the day; torrential rain, underwater, zero-G and what have you. There’s just no point in making a music video “just so that the song could be played on TV”. Except that then it can be played on TV. The video needs to have inherent value. /end rant/

  22. Sam says:

    I tried to watch the video, but all I could think about was the damn Geico commercial that uses this song in the background.

  23. qrter says:

    I do wish the song it’s advertising was any good.

  24. SolkaTruesilver says:

    I liked it. I am specially happy that the video didn’t had the ending tone of “she’s unhappy”, which I see only too often in music videos talking about people going to work.

  25. xbolt says:

    That’s certainly a very interesting video.

    I looked around for a high quality version, but the only thing I could find were broken torrents… Oh well.

  26. Funkula says:

    Yeah, I love that video. I’m with Bard @12, I don’t think it’s depressing or dehumanizing at all. I think it’s about considering the interconnectedness of modern society and the sheer amount of amazing stuff that we take for granted because we can’t see it.

  27. Zaxares says:

    I found this video very impressive, all the more so because it can be appreciated (and interpreted) from so many different angles. Only a work of high calibre can accomplish that. Definitely watching this one again later!

  28. Andrey Shchekin says:

    Add &fmt=18 to the YouTube URL for somewhat better quality.

  29. beno says:

    I have that Royskopp album, but I’d never heard that mix of Remind Me (the album version sounds completely different). Cool! I took the visuals just as I would any other music video – just an excuse for something modern and artistic. I don’t think it matters whether there’s a strong connection to the song at all.

  30. Stubby says:

    I’d love to find me a commuter train with that much space…heck, I’d love to find one where you can actually sit down!

  31. andy says:

    Big fan of Royksopp in general, but that is my definitely my favourite video of theirs, and in my top ten of all music videos. I also like the ‘eple’ and ‘leno’ videos, but this one is my favourite; I love the visuals and for some reason have a huge crush on the girl…

    I think I need therapy :(

  32. Nick Pitino says:

    Wow.

    This takes me back a few years. Several years ago when I was still in high school I listened to this song all the time in drafting class. Pretty much I’d get my work done really quickly (it was piss-easy) and spend the rest of the period watching music videos on Yahoo Launch (pre-YouTube days, mind you). I drank a crap-load of sprite remix also if I recall, damn I wish they’d bring that back.

  33. LexIcon says:

    Slightly off topic: How is the band’s name pronounced? I found these guys a few weeks ago and I’m enjoying them immensely, both their songs and videos are much more engaging then standard techno-pop-whatever.

    But whenever I try to talk about them to my friends, I get lost on their darned name! My best guess so far is “roy-k-sop”, like the name, a hard k, and sop like sopping wet.

  34. PedroFebruar says:

    My best guess so far is “roy-k-sop”

    That sounds about right, except the o in roy is pronounced like the u in burn

    So: “Ruy-k-sop”;)

  35. froogger says:

    You both got the pronounciation right, PedroFebruar and LexIcon. It’s “Ruy-k-sopp”. The “ඔ is the swedish 29th letter (which is odd since the band is norwegian, where they use “ด).

    As for being depressing, of course it is. Norway has a long line of artists making pretty darn depressing stuff. Consider , and . No ode to joy there. More recent claim to fame has been church-burning deathmetal . I think it’s all due to half the year.

  36. froogger says:

    Meh, I borked the html. Here’s an edited version. (WTB preview button)

    As for being depressing, of course it is. Norway has a long line of artists making pretty darn depressing stuff. Consider Munch, Ibsen and Hertervig. No ode to joy there. More recent claim to fame has been church-burning deathmetal satanists. I think it's all due to sundeprivation half the year.

  37. Funyam says:

    Hey! Royksopp has updated!!! Check their official site!!

  38. Groundhog says:

    To me this illustrates the venomousness of routine.
    A life planned in every detail isn’t life at all, but stasis.

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