The Tom Scharpling and Julia Vickerman-directed clip pays tribute to the era’s alternative-rock visuals
MGMT have released the new music video for “Bubblegum Dog,” the new single from their upcoming album, Loss of Life.
The Tom Scharpling and Julia Vickerman-directed visual pays tribute to alternative-rock videos from the Nineties. The humorous clip finds Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser hanging by a fake fire, donning cowboy hats, performing in an MTV Unplugged setting, and using soul patches, among other cheeky homages. Actor Mark Proksch (What We Do in the Shadows, The Office) makes a cameo.
“We all saw the video for ‘Bubblegum Dog’ as an opportunity to combine the charming, DIY, surreal, cardboard craft aesthetic of shows like Yo Gabba Gabba and The Mighty Boosh with these ultra-serious grunge videos we grew up watching on MTV – all that heavy, brooding angst smashed up against absurd childlike fun,” Vickerman and Scharpling said in a statement about the video.
“Ben and Andrew are legitimately funny guys, so we were excited they got to really go for it with their acting, paying homage to the eternally moody mid-90’s rock stars they looked up to when they were kids,” they added. “They were completely game for everything, playing around with different wigs/costumes/personas/facial hair and continually chiming in with new ideas along the way.”
Loss of Life arrives on Feb. 23 via Mom + Pop. The new album includes a collaboration with Christine and the Queens, “Dancing in Babylon,” and their previously released single, “Mother Nature,” which is described as briefly sounding like Oasis. Goldwasser told Rolling Stone that their engineer is a huge Oasis fan. “I never would’ve thought that would be coming into an MGMT album, but here we are. I think it’s funny that’s literally the only time. For 10 seconds on this album it sounds like Oasis, and the rest of the album there’s no Oasis,” VanWyngarden said.