CSS - Let's Make Love and Listen to Death From Above

2006

CSS - Let's Make Love and Listen to Death From Above (2006) Director: Cat Solen Era: Mid-2000s Indie Dance-Punk Boom (2005–2007) - Peak of the post-punk revival's crossover into dance-rock, coinciding with CSS's international Sub Pop debut and the New Rave/blog-house convergence era. High curatorial value as a primary audiovisual document of CSS's international breakthrough moment and of Cat Solen's debut MTV-era directing work. The video crystallizes the DIY aesthetic, anti-glamour fashion, and kinetic editing grammar of mid-2000s indie dance-punk at peak cultural saturation. Its multiple contemporaneous sync placements (Zune preload, Ugly Betty) and strong critical reception (NME, Pitchfork) make it a reliable anchor point for archival research into the 2005–2007 indie-dance crossover and Brazilian music's global visibility in that period. Context: Released as the international debut single from CSS's Sub Pop-issued album Cansei de Ser Sexy (July 2006, US), this video arrived at the height of the mid-2000s post-punk/indie-dance crossover. CSS, a São Paulo sextet formed in 2003, were the first South American act signed to Sub Pop Records. The song title directly references Canadian noise-rock duo Death from Above, embedding the Brazilian band into a wider Anglophone indie network. The track was rated the sixth best song of 2006 by NME, ranked 299th on Pitchfork's best songs of the 2000s, and was preloaded on Microsoft's Zune player at launch. It later reached #39 on the UK Singles Chart following a 2007 re-issue boosted by its placement in the TV series Ugly Betty. The video itself was shot in the DIY tradition aligned with the band's graphic-designer and art-school membership, and directed by then-student Cat Solen, whose debut MTV work embodied the era's democratized, internet-distributed music video culture. Director notes: The CSS video for 'Let's Make Love and Listen to Death from Above' is confirmed as Cat Solen's breakthrough credit, part of her early burst of MTV-aired music video work produced while she was still a student at SAIC. It was released in 2006 as the international lead single from CSS's Sub Pop debut. IMVDb confirms the 2006 production year. The video was notable enough to be preloaded on Microsoft's Zune multimedia player at launch in November 2006, alongside the song 'Alala.' Solen also directed the 'Alala' video for CSS in the same cycle. The School of Motion interview confirms her first MTV-aired video was made when she was approximately 21 years old, consistent with the 2005–2006 timeframe.