Slim Shady, Eminem, and Marshall Mathers all draw thank-yous in the credits to Los Campesinos!’ new “Avocado, Baby” video. Pearl Jam, despite that one album-cover paean to the delicious, guacamole-giving fruit, do not. Like the title of the Welsh band’s once-again excellent new album, No Blues, the song is deceptively upbeat unless it’s deceptively bleak — the hook, between cheery backing vocals, goes, “A heart of stone / Rind so tough it’s crazy / That’s why they call me the avocado, baby” — though part of the appeal, as with the iconic indie band alluded to in the title of the album’s bounding “Cemetry Gaits,” is how it can be both at once, so wholly and committedly that any distinction starts to vanish. That goes for the video, too: Directed by Submarine lead actor Craig Roberts, the clip uses what looks like a single shot to whirl around the song’s early “host of a terrible game show” lyric until it involves mortality, suicide, murder, fire-breathers, lots of masks and costumes… basically, the whole overwrought human comedy as depicted by a brainy, perennially on-the-cusp guitar group Eminem will probably never get around to hearing. They’ve both had their music played on TV during nationally televised U.S. sporting events, though.
Los Campesinos! Go Wonderfully Over the Top in One-Shot ‘Avocado, Baby’ Video
