Music Video: Perfume throw us back with "Time Warp". Colourful. But dusty.

Music Video: Perfume throw us back with "Time Warp". Colourful. But dusty. | Random J Pop

Perfume's 31st single "Time Warp" is now out on all streaming platforms, and we also have the music video; which sees Perfume returning to their more signature style of music video, with shot styles and set-ups similar to that of Michel Gondry. 

I am glad Perfume threw us back to this, because those Future Pop music videos were underwhelming as fuck. But...


This was a great looking video. Perfume HD be hitting different to regular HD. But I do wish we'd gotten...more. I was honestly bored by the time the second verse hit, because it was just more of the same. It was the same setup, the same editing tricks. And by the time something different started to happen and we got choreo, it's all over. There should have been more dancing from Perfume and more done with the timing. Maybe having Perfume start to take the place of the men in the video, with it ending with them surrounded by themselves. Or for the video to have had it's own choreographed moments which involved Perfume and the dancers interacting with one another more.

Many of Perfume's music videos as of late tend to follow the same formula, which is the same setups for the first two verses, with things only switching up for the final run of the chorus, where we might get some choreo. For this, I partly blame the songs. Perfume's songs used to feel like a journey of sorts. There would be some change-ups which would occur during the second verses. We might get some form of a bridge. The final runs of the choruses would bring in some musical flourishes. Shit. We even used to get outros. Not any more though. Now Perfume's songs just sound flat from start to finish. They don't go anywhere. And they're structurally lacking. Songs end before they feel that they've even started. My stupid ass was actually expecting the final version of "Time Warp" to feature more than what we'd heard a couple of weeks ago. But nope. No bridge section. No extra verse. No breakdown. It's just- ♪ Pling-pling-pling-pling-pling-pling-pling. BOKU NO TIME WAP! ♪ </END>

I played myself. This is how Nakata makes Perfume songs now. A far cry from the likes of "Game", "Love The World" and "Furikaeru to Iru Yo".

Perfume's music dictates the flow and the energy of the music videos. So if a song is flat, then its music video will be too. This shouldn't always be a 1:1 thing. As a director you shouldn't be so governed by the song that you can't even try to shake things up visually. There are many things that could have been done with the "Time Warp" music video to make it more interesting from start to finish. But this is the Perfume machine. Everything has to be in tandem and have the same energy.

Nakata will need to album mix "Time Warp", but he probably won't. And if he does, he'll pull a "Flash" and completely ruin the song to a point where Perfume won't ever perform it.

πŸŽ›️ Perfume megamixes: LEVEL3 Megamix | Cosmic Explorer Megamix
πŸ“€ The albums, but different: Revised editions of Perfume's albums
πŸ’Ώ Album reviews: The Best "P Cubed" | Future Pop | Cosmic Explorer | LEVEL3 | JPN | Triangle | Game

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