The claymation video for Plastic Mermaids’ “Taxonomy” is a nice touch for a song about the ways in which cultural forces try to shape our identities completely through the categories that grease the wheels of commerce and social control and get us to accept a load of, well, shit as what what we desire because it’s what offered. You know, try to fit your personality and hopes and dreams into an easily filed away set of parameters that serve your masters and take what you’re given and like it. Heady stuff for a triumphant-sounding pop song but it seems as though the subtext of the song is one of exploding the myth of meaningful choices in all aspects of our lives as defined by the dictates of the dull and uninspired market economy that’s been turning the world to a trash heap for decades. Using the claymation format is brilliant as clay will fit into wherever it’s pushed but it can also take on whatever form suits it. It is not a rebel song, it is “Taxonomy” from the band’s latest album Suddenly Everyone Explodes. Check out the band’s other imaginative music videos for songs of other evocative flavors and degrees of cheek at any of the links following the video for “Taxonomy.”
http://www.plasticmermaids.com/
http://www.facebook.com/plasticmermaids
Queen City Sounds and Art 