The Shins - New Slang

2001

The Shins - New Slang (2001) Director: Lance Bangs Era: Post-Slacker Indie / Early 2000s Bedroom Pop (2001) - The dawn of Sub Pop's second-wave indie era; lo-fi, introspective aesthetics rooted in Pacific Northwest and Southwest Americana, predating the Garden State indie-crossover moment by three years. Exceptionally high. This is one of the most culturally significant American indie rock music videos of the 2000s, a directed, concept-driven work by a canonically important filmmaker (Lance Bangs) for a song that became a generational touchstone. Its album-cover re-enactment conceit makes it a primary source for indie canon studies, and its lo-fi, location-based documentary aesthetic is paradigmatic of early Sub Pop-era visual production values. Essential holding for any archive covering 2000s indie rock cultural history. Context: Released in February 2001 on Sub Pop Records, 'New Slang' arrived at the moment indie rock was transitioning from 1990s underground insularity toward wider cultural visibility. The video's album-cover re-enactment concept encodes a deliberate indie-genealogical statement, positioning The Shins as heirs to Hüsker Dü, The Replacements, Slint, and Minutemen. Shot in Albuquerque and Portland, the video's geography mirrors the song's emotional content: a reckoning with Mercer's Southwest roots and his impending displacement northward. The song would later become an unlikely cultural touchstone via the 2004 film Garden State and a McDonald's commercial aired during the 2002 Winter Olympics, the latter generating significant backlash from the indie community, but the video pre-dates all of that commercialization, existing as a quiet, archivally literate document of early 2000s indie rock self-definition. Director notes: Directed in 2001 for Sub Pop Records. Shot on location in Albuquerque, New Mexico and Portland, Oregon, including along the Rio Grande, in junkyards, and near James Mercer's home. The video's central conceit, conceived by Bangs, has the band re-enacting the cover art of canonical indie and post-punk albums: Zen Arcade and New Day Rising by Hüsker Dü, Let It Be by The Replacements, Moon Pix by Cat Power, Double Nickels on the Dime by The Minutemen, Squirrel Bait's debut, Sonic Youth's Sister, and Slint's Spiderland. James Mercer confirmed in a Billboard interview that the album-cover re-enactment idea was Bangs' creative concept. The video functions as an indie-rock genealogy and a love letter to the DIY post-punk tradition that preceded The Shins.