Occult Pop: Aztec Camera meets Rider-Waite

 

If I were asked to pick the absolute last place I'd imagine occultism to manifest itself in pop music, it would be in a music video for Aztec Camera's "Oblivious." 

But, oh, how wrong I would be. 

"Aztec Camera" was the brandname Scottish singer-songwriter Roddy Frame traded under, offering up a kind of Smiths-jacent folk/pop that went for "naif" rather than "arch." Roddy admittedly does have excellent taste in music, but I've never really found his own all that compelling. 

But "Oblivious" is one of those songs I'm sure he just knew would be the one he'd be remembered for as soon as he wrote it. It's one of those songs even a master songsmith like Paul McCartney or Neil Diamond wish they had written. Just one of those touched-by-the-gods moments, absolutely bulletproof pop songcraft.

There were two different videos made for the song, but let's focus on the one that didn't get much airplay. I have no idea what the connection is to the song here, but it's filmed in a classic New Orleans graveyard with some chap doing the Baron Samedi thing while a bunch of kids run around a treehouse. And from the looks of it, someone involved in the production just got their first tarot deck and was all excited about showing it off.

Hey: it was the early 80s, OK? Music video was still a young medium.

Which may be why Roddy looks like he's either auditioning for Split Enz circa-1977, or maybe a makeup artist just did too much blow and went overboard with the mascara. Granted, Roddy was still a wee 19 years-old and had those fine, delicate features stylists and music industry sexpests go gaga over, but he's honestly a bit too gangly to pull off the look. 

Even so, Roddy seems happy enough to be making a music video in New Orleans. Show me a teenaged musician from cold, rainy, recession-ravaged Caledonia who wouldn't be.

Mind you, there's a whiff of something vaguely sinister here, especially in the context of an airy, summery pop standard. I'm not entirely comfortable with the presence of children in a clip that clearly has overt occult significance, that's for certain. 

Especially with the, y'know, bondage stuff. 

I don't know who directed this clip but I'd like to have a look at his resume and see what his other work was like. Also to see if he's been banned from living less than 2000 feet from any public schools or playgrounds.

I've talked at great length about how 1983 was one of those threshold eras, when interesting new ideas and roiling subcultures were being fired by strange forces emanating from the ether. 

You kind of had to be there to get my full meaning, but suffice it to say the first (meaning "real") Stranger Things does a magnificent job of capturing the flavor. You know; before the Duffers got "the talk."

In its own way, so does the video for "Oblivious."

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