The Shins are an excellent indie rock band that have released three albums. They’ve had a steady climb in popularity since songs from their first album “Oh, Inverted World” were made famous by the soundtrack for the film “Garden State”. The Shins’ sound contains ’60s britpop with ’80s shoegazer influences, and features plenty of sweet pop melodies with florid and oftentimes opaque lyrics, and lots of very clever hooks, from singer/songwriter/guitarist James Mercer. They also have a hard rocking element which comes across most clearly in their energetic live concerts. Here are some excellent official music videos and various live videos of the Shins that I’ve found on YouTube.
1. Phantom Limb
This is an interesting music video (and seems higher budget than some of their past ones) comprised of several sequences from “the best school play ever”. The song is from the The Shins’ brand new album “Wincing the Night Away”.
2. Pink Bullets
This is a creative stop-motion animated video about a sad paper mache cow, for the song from the album “Chutes Too Narrow. The animator Adam Bizanski uses light and color to great effect.
3. Saint Simon
This is a very cute video featuring tons of real monarch butterflies, for a song from “Chutes Too Narrow. The imagery seems to match the sing-song “la da da da” refrain perfectly. I must say, however, that the part with the butterflies covering the band is actually quite creepy. (I assume it was intentional.)
4. So Says I
Here’s a whacky 3-d animated video about communist penguins, for a single from “Chutes Too Narrow”.
5. Australia
This is a good live-the-in-studio recording of a song from “Wincing the Night Away”.
6. Turn Me On
Here’s the band (and a couple of friends) live on the Late Show with David Letterman, performing another song from their newest album. This number has particularly ’80s XTC-esque feeling.
7. Pressed In a Book
This is a live bootleg recording of a song from the Shins’ first album, “Oh Inverted World. Here you can get a sense of seeing the band live, which is very different from listening to their albums – much louder, rawer, and high-powered, rather than the reflective pop feeling their albums tend to communicate. I personally prefer their album sound on the whole, but to each their own!
8. New Slang
This video is somewhat compromised quality, but it’s a classic; this is, as far as I know, the earliest Shins video. “New Slang” was their first big single and still well beloved. The video includes (brief and blurry) glimpses of keyboardist/guitarist Marty Crandall’s girlfriend Elyse Sewell, who was made famous by “America’s Next Top Model”.
9. Interview with New York Noise
Here’s a silly interview with ¾ of the band. I think they were in a particularly goofy mood that day!
10. Gone For Good (Acoustic)
Let’s close this list up with a fun live-in-the-basement acoustic rendition of “Gone For Good” from “Chutes Too Narrow”. It seems that James Mercer changed a couple of the lyrics before he recorded the final version.
Unfortunately my very favorite Shins video – the video for “Know Your Onion” – is not available on YouTube. Oh well! This list should keep you Shins fans and Shins fans-to-be entertained for a while!
