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Stereogum: OK Go Unveil Latest Music Video Stunt 20 Years After Breakthrough Viral Video.
What was new was making work specifically for YouTube itself.
But really the internet allowed OK Go to be a post-musicband.
But Kulash eventually chose earnestness: I wrote a lot of songs that I wanted to actually believe in …
I didnt want them to be ironic or distanced.
Any of the clips created to promote their self-titled debut could have been made by any other similar artist.
If you didnt know it, youd think you were watching Jet.
But thelabel wouldnt release it, allegedly calling it gay and career suicide.
We dont take ourselves too seriously, but we take what we do really seriously.
Yet by 2010, the band began to change.
We see [the videos] as endpoints, not ancillary promotional material, KulashtoldMother Jonesat the time.
From that point on, OK Go made videos that merely included songs theyd written.
Oh no, now people have to judge us for our music, says Kulash, who voiced himself.
Tim Nordwind, the bands bass player, adds, Were doomed.
OK Go did both.
Their last album, 2014sHungry Ghosts, was funded using a Kickstarter-jot down service called PledgeMusic.
A Stone Only Rolls Downhill is as clever as any of their past work.
But tonally they are taking a different approach beyond that standard cleverness.
Content creation isnt like it was in OK Gos prime; popularity on social video platforms now demand regularity.
With success so determined by gaming algorithms, posting on TikTok and Instagram Reels and YouTube demands cynicism.
In retrospect, OK Gos clever videos feel, well, earnest.
