The Sun - Valentine (Video)

2005

The Sun - Valentine (Video) (2005) Era: Post-Garage Revival / Mid-2000s Indie Rock (2005) - Peak of the garage rock revival's major-label phase; era defined by Warner Bros. artist development, DIY video ethics, and the industry's pivot away from traditional CD formats toward multimedia delivery. High. This video is a primary artifact of one of the most formally innovative major-label releases of the mid-2000s, a DVD album that collapsed the distinction between music video and album format at the precise moment the industry was confronting digital disruption. 'Valentine,' as album closer, serves as the emotional resolution of that 14-video suite. Its quantitative profile (fast editing, warm contrast, moderate brightness) is representative of the era's indie-rock visual grammar, making it valuable for comparative stylistic analysis alongside the album's more experimental clips. The video's 'traditional' character relative to its siblings on the disc makes it a useful control case for genre-norm studies within the project. Context: Released as the closing track of The Sun's Blame It on the Youth (Warner Bros., 2005), promoted as the world's first DVD album, the 'Valentine' video sits at the intersection of major-label investment and DIY ethics during a pivotal transitional moment in music distribution. The Sun, a Columbus, Ohio garage rock four-piece signed to Warner Bros. circa 2001–2002 after a bidding war, embodied the mid-2000s tension between indie authenticity and mainstream ambition. The band formed from connections in St. Louis and Columbus, dropping out of Ohio State, and developed their sound through ties to Wilco's Jay Bennett and touring alongside acts like The Flaming Lips and Hot Hot Heat. Warner Bros. granted the band unusual creative latitude, commissioning a rotating team of 14 directors for the full album, a format explicitly designed to challenge the obsolescence of the CD as a medium in the Napster aftermath. Director notes: The 'Valentine' music video was produced as part of The Sun's landmark Blame It on the Youth (2005, Warner Bros.), widely described as the world's first DVD album. The label granted the band a reported $50,000 budget to produce videos for all 14 tracks, with Warner Bros. executives impressed by the band's DIY approach after they had previously self-funded two videos. The DVD was released in NTSC 4:3 format with PCM Dolby Digital 5.1 audio. Critics described 'Valentine', the album's closing track (track 14, runtime 4:16), as a 'more traditional' video relative to the conceptually experimental clips elsewhere on the disc, with PopMatters noting it 'works well alongside artsy clips.' AllMusic called it the album's most promising track. Discogs credits for the DVD list multiple directors per track, but the specific director for track 14 ('Valentine') is not individually named in any verified source. Known directors on the project include Mike Kash (tracks 5, 8, 9, 12), Brian Szente (track 8), Autumn DeWilde (track 7), Shawn M. Foster (tracks 1, 3, 5, 13), Michael Barnett (track 13), Alex Nam (track 4), Anthony Haan (track 6), George Kostovas (track 2), and Brad Swiniarski (track 11).