Idles Redux

Last post about the IDLES for now …. maybe.

As if I couldn’t love them any more than I already do, I stumbled upon this video from their first album, Brutalism. I don’t own it yet, but will be rectifying that error shortly. In any event, the entirety of this video for “Stendhal Syndrome” is footage of burly, beardy bassist Andrew “Dev” Devonshire dancing inappropriately with great aplomb in some of the world’s more revered museums ….notably the Metropolitan Museum here in New York and the Saathci Gallery in London. I actually have a pic of my kids standing in front of one of the same paintings Dev dances in front of at about 0:22 (see below).

As endearingly silly as the video is, the backstory is quite compelling:

From Genius .com: In a statement to The Know, lead singer Joe Talbot said this about the song: I once sat on a bench in a gallery in Valencia. I stared in awe of a painting for a good while, I was moved to tears by the scene of a man holding a crucifix at the top of a mound of other figures grappling for the glory of God. I’m not religious but it captivated me to the point of nausea. I looked into this and the phenomenon which has happened before and since, it’s called Stendhal Syndrome.

Those moments in my life were not driven by any pretension but from something intrinsically fucking magical. Now, of course, there is an obvious class divide sustained in the art world and that will always be there so long as art is perceived as this language only to be spoken and understood by the rich but the likelihood of our songs being heard and in turn being listened to by the upper classes is very unlikely, so I thought I’d highlight the other side that helps keep up the bullshit; that “I could do that” attitude because it’s fucking ignorant and it’s lazy and why the fuck does one person’s voice have to be shut down because you could fucking do it! Shut up, you’re boring. You didn’t do it BUT YOU CAN and maybe if you did you’d be less defensive about other people expressing themselves and you not. All is love.

Enjoy: