MUSIC PREMIERES
It’s hard to imagine a less likely setting for a Jelly Roll concert than Amagansett, which is basically part of the Hamptons, the seaside enclave on the eastern end of Long Island that has long been the flexy summer retreat for Manhattan’s ultra-moneyed elite. And although it was a specially invited audience of SiriusXM subscribers and superstars like Bradley Cooper, Jon Hamm, Jimmy Fallon, Shawn Levy, George Stephanopoulos, Fox 5 co-host Rosanna Scotto and at least one Real Housewife, there was a warmth to this plus-sized, heavily tattooed, deeply gracious and galvanizing artist’s performance that speaks not only to his raucous fusion of country, rock and hip-hop, but also his one-in-a-million ability to connect. One longtime associate noted that this was probably the oldest and wealthiest audience Jelly had ever played to, and he had them in the palm of his tattooed hand from the jump.
MUSIC PREMIERES
SEVENTEEN slink into a gloomy, post-apocalyptic world filled with old school technology in the video for their Pharrell Williams-produced single “Bad Influence.” The 13-member K-pop boy band dropped the visual from their new HAPPY BURSTDAY album on Wednesday (June 11) and fans will surely be picking through the arresting clip directed by Beomjin for days looking for Easter eggs.
The video for the English-language single opens with the singers locked in reflective glass pentagons as they sing about wanting to have a good time while seeming like they’re not having one at all. After escaping from the enclosure, they get chased around a brutalist structure by robot dogs singing, “And I had time to think about it/ But life would be so much better without it/ I don’t want it at all/ But, hey, I wanna have a good time” over Pharrell’s insistent, fuzzed-out beat.
And while the song is about having a good time, the action makes it seem like that is a stretch. Dressed in Blade Runner-like leather jackets designed by Japanese fashion house sacai, they stand around while an unseen member plugs an analog cord into a headphone jack that reads “Good” as an old school dot matrix printer spits out the lyrics and a few of the guys ghost ride their old school muscle cars.
The sci-fi action takes a bizarre turn halfway through when they enter a red zone filled with white mannequin heads wearing blindfolds as one of the singer’s puts a checkmark next to “bad” on a checklist that includes “lost,” “sad,” “raw,” “happy,” “innocent” and other emotions. There is also an M.C. Escher-like stairway to nowhere, a bath in a swamp of vintage audio tape, contemplative posing on a pile of tires and moody standing around in dimly lit rooms in the dream sequence-like series of shots that leave more questions than answers
HAPPY BURSTDAY debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 album chart, landing the group their seventh top 10-charting album.
Watch the “Bad Influence” video below.
