Enjoy The Silence
Oct. 22nd, 2004 03:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
franceslievensDepeche Mode, one of those electropop bands that did survive the eighties, are bringing out a CD with remixes. Not that I'm that fond of the band that I'll run to the music store to get the album. I'm most of all very fond of the single that precedes the CD, namely Enjoy The Silence.
I must have been only 10 or maybe 11 years old when I saw the videoclip for that song on what was then the Dutch version of Top of the Pops: Countdown. Those were the dark ages for Flemish television. We would watch Dutch TV for the cartoons on Wednesday afternoon and the music programs, both almost inexistent on our own public network. So I sat down one afternoon, to see the videos that come with the ten best selling singles of the Netherlands. Most of these video clips are boy-meets-girl-stories. Very comprehensable for kids that don't understand much English. One of them stood out. It's this king walking through the mountains with a deck chair. I didn't understand one bit of the images, but was intrigued nonetheless by this lonely king. His clothes looked like he came from one of those fairytales I used to adore, but the deck chair was totally out of place. It didn't fit. I wasn't so much amused as indignant. Kings aren't supposed to walk around carrying deck chairs. When you're 10, what you're supposed to do and not supposed to do is very important.
The images got stored away in my head. Years later I learned to appreciate them, love them even. As well as the other clips and photographs made by Anton Corbijn. This Dutch photographer isn't only responsable for a big portion of the images we have from Depeche Mode, but also the early pictures from U2 are his -- the famous "Joshua Tree"-photographs for instance. Corbijn just started out with a little camera, making pictures of concerts. What did he know about what you're supposed to do and how you're supposed to make pictures. Kings might not be supposed to walk around carrying deck chairs, but they should do it.
I must have been only 10 or maybe 11 years old when I saw the videoclip for that song on what was then the Dutch version of Top of the Pops: Countdown. Those were the dark ages for Flemish television. We would watch Dutch TV for the cartoons on Wednesday afternoon and the music programs, both almost inexistent on our own public network. So I sat down one afternoon, to see the videos that come with the ten best selling singles of the Netherlands. Most of these video clips are boy-meets-girl-stories. Very comprehensable for kids that don't understand much English. One of them stood out. It's this king walking through the mountains with a deck chair. I didn't understand one bit of the images, but was intrigued nonetheless by this lonely king. His clothes looked like he came from one of those fairytales I used to adore, but the deck chair was totally out of place. It didn't fit. I wasn't so much amused as indignant. Kings aren't supposed to walk around carrying deck chairs. When you're 10, what you're supposed to do and not supposed to do is very important.
The images got stored away in my head. Years later I learned to appreciate them, love them even. As well as the other clips and photographs made by Anton Corbijn. This Dutch photographer isn't only responsable for a big portion of the images we have from Depeche Mode, but also the early pictures from U2 are his -- the famous "Joshua Tree"-photographs for instance. Corbijn just started out with a little camera, making pictures of concerts. What did he know about what you're supposed to do and how you're supposed to make pictures. Kings might not be supposed to walk around carrying deck chairs, but they should do it.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-22 07:40 am (UTC)But it is true that if there's one band with whom he's been working with really closely, it's definitely DM (at least, that's what he told at a spoken word in Brussels years ago).
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no subject
Date: 2004-10-22 07:55 am (UTC)But you're the photographer, so you should know. ;-)