Photo credit: Nicole Ditt
Jehnny Beth has released “High Resolution Sadness,” a single with a lot to say on the nature of our relationship to phones. The Savages frontwoman released a video for the track today, directed by herself as well as frequent collaborator and partner Johnny Hostile, as Stereogum reports. The track is off the artist’s upcoming second solo album, You Heartbreaker, You. The video can be found on her YouTube channel.
Despite featuring “sadness” in the title, the track feels anything but that – an explosion of drums and other harsh sorts of noise. It’s a unique sound that feels a little metal and discordant in all the right ways to get across its harsh and uneasy message. The title seems to refer to the way phones and other social media devices tap us into all the negativity of the world – providing us with nothing but anger, hate and yes, sadness, all right to your phone in crystal clear high definition.
The imagery feels too dense to cover all here, even despite the video being just shy of three minutes. Visuals of weaponry, Beth being harmed or poised to harm (be it herself or others), money being thrown around or damaged and of course, phones are some of the major highlights – with some visuals causing the screen to blur. This may just be a way to comply with YouTube’s guidelines, but given some visuals are not censored, it may also speak to the way platforms implement censorship that is pervasive, yet ineffective at truly stopping the spread of harsh and negative topics. As well, the video is in standard landscape resolution, however, it is made of the same visual repeated three times, with each being in “portrait” mode, perfectly made to fit on an upright phone screen.
Especially notable parts of the video include flashing imagery behind Beth. Again, the specifics are too many to list here, but major highlights are images of politicians (particularly Trump), destroyed buildings likely from Palestine and pornographic imagery. The first two show off some of the subjects of the most pressing and polarizing issues of our times and the latter is something that is not only often synonymous with the internet itself, but is considered addictive to the point of some alleging such content is used to manipulate and control the masses. With visuals like these, harsh instrumentals and lyrics like “world is always a mess,” it’s clear Beth is urging the viewers to reconsider their relation to what they see on the internet. While social media can help to connect people, share information and even shine an important light on the harsh realities of the world, it can be too easy to fall into a trapping of constant cycles and echo chambers of naught but negativity. Beth is far from the first to speak out on this, but few have drawn light to it in the world of music and in such a unique way.
