The Shins - Turn on Me

SEP 03 2007 · 12:00

The Shins - Turn on Me (2007) Director: MICHAEL Era: Mid-2000s Indie Rock Ascendancy (2007) - Peak Sub Pop / blog-era indie, post-Garden State cultural moment when The Shins crossed from cult to mainstream High curatorial value as a primary artifact of the mid-2000s indie rock moment. The video encapsulates the aesthetic sensibility, warm, whimsical, low-budget surrealism delivered with fast kinetic editing, that defined a generation of Sub Pop-affiliated music video production. Its release context, tied to the highest-charting Sub Pop album in label history and a Grammy-nominated record, makes it a significant document of indie rock's brief but culturally outsized mainstream crossover period. Context: Released in 2007 as the third single from Wincing the Night Away, 'Turn on Me' arrived at the peak of The Shins' cultural visibility. The parent album debuted at #2 on the Billboard 200, the highest chart position in Sub Pop Records' history, and received a Grammy nomination for Best Alternative Music Album. The video emerged in the heart of the blog-era indie explosion, when MySpace and early music blogs were the primary distribution vectors for indie music video content. The Shins' profile had been dramatically elevated by their placement in the 2004 film Garden State, and Wincing the Night Away consolidated their status as one of indie rock's most critically significant acts of the decade. Director notes: Bronco Showdown (broncoshowdown.com/turn-on-me) credits the director of 'Turn On Me' as 'MICHAEL.' IMDB's entry for the video (tt13764678) does not list a director, only confirming James Mercer as an on-screen presence. No additional production documentation (commissioning label, production company, DOP, shoot location) was recoverable from available sources. The video is widely described as featuring a surreal narrative centered on a one-eyed dog. Released in 2007 to coincide with the UK single release of 'Turn on Me' (September 3, 2007), the third single from Wincing the Night Away.