Hmm, the video for MIA's song
Paper Planes makes a good companion for David Bowie's
I'm Afraid of Americans. They both explore the same disconnect between fear based perception and reality. In Bowies's video the theme is shown explicitly in the altered appearances/behaviors that Bowie's character apparently sees. In MIA's video, the visuals merely reinforce the fact that the lyrics are supposed to be a
satire of society’s fear of immigrants (
this reviewer has a noticeable agenda, but despite that has the most readable version of the relevant info)
That being said, I suspect that these two videos are the closetst these two artests are ever going to get musically :)
Unrelated:
this Nine Inch Nails video has a pretty neat concept (warning: audio contains profanity. Video, on the other hand, has nothing objectionable in it.)
Edit: having looked up some of MIA's other stuff, I find that I generally don't care for it. On the other hand, I have to respect someone who does things as varied as
this and
this. If you didn't like any of the songs earlier in the post, there's still a decent chance that you'd like one or the other of these. Also, if you like her music better than I do and want to find more, be aware that there is apparently a German pop group going by that name as well.
