The Impossible Is Possible, Tonight.

Being the director of a music video must be a tough gig. After all, it is the director's responsibility to conjure an appropriate visual accompaniment for a piece of music - a series of images that must complement a piece without outstripping the song's merits.

Often, the video is so terrible, that it's not an issue (as in the case of the Josh Ritter video seen below). That song rules.

And sometimes, the video is just way too cool for the song and people remember the video instead of the song. A great example of this is "Buddy Holly" by Weezer. While admittedly, that's a reverent video, the song just isn't - In fact, I always used to skip over it when listening to The Blue Album.

But sometimes, a video is created that makes me wonder: do I like the song more than the video, do I like the video more than the song, or do I like both equally?

A great example of this is "Tonight, Tonight" by The Smashing Pumpkins. Before the video came out, I loved the song. After the video came out, I loved the song. Ten years later, I still love the song AND the video. I just watched it and was surprised by the connection I felt to this song and video. I remember, in 96, my sadistic parents forcing me and my sister to attend karate class the same night The Pumpkins were scheduled to perform "Tonight, Tonight" at the MTV Awards. Karate class ran from 5-6 and the proceeding bus ride/walk home from downtown to Transcona took forever and a day. The Awards show commenced at 7; I got home at 7:10. No big deal, I thought. Boy, was I naive back then. It turns out the show kicked off with The Pumpkins...I was understandably crestfallen. This was, of course, before the days of the innovative/highly-advocated-on-this-blog YouTube.

So, thanks to "If I could marry it, I would" YouTube, I got to watch both the "Tonight, Tonight" video AND the Pumpkins performing it during the 96 MTV Video Awards.

Which to post? Well, to be honest, I gotta go with the actual video. Their performance at the awards show isn't exactly inspiring, although I give them full credit for hiring an orchestra to flush out the performance.

If only I could travel back and tell my 15 year-old self that the performance didn't matter after all....