On last year’s Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming, Anthony Gonzalez concentrates his wonderful, decade-old M83 project into grandiosely swelling, awe-conveying electronic anthems. Forget “dream-pop”; this is lump-in-throat childhood-fantasy pop — chillwave writ stadium-size. Rarely is this more true or more effective than on the album’s “Steve McQueen,” where the hard-to-discern lyrics reveal themselves to be as optimistic as an Olympics theme: “There’s a magic inside / Just waiting to burst out,” Gonzalez exults, with an agape enthusiasm he all but wills the rest of us to share. Little wonder, then, that Lil B chose to rap over the song. It’s Based.
Roughly a year after the album’s release, “Steve McQueen” now finally has a video, the winner of a competition held in part by music video website Genero.tv. A boy in a yellow suit waves his arms in the dark as if he’s casting a spell, while a reel-to-reel tape player blasts music with overwhelming force. Stop-motion animation shows toy animals wandering past vintage books, as if answering some irresistible call. It’s an ornate yet wide-eyed clip, like the song itself. And just when you think it’s over, it builds back up to another cathartic, moonlit peak. This type of all-out positivity could probably get tiring if you weren’t in the right mindset, but just imagine if President Barack Obama had watched it before that first debate in Denver. He might’ve levitated off the podium.
