After two years spent working in the shadows LA duo Tashaki Miyaki are back with the lead track ‘Girls on T.V.’ from their forthcoming debut album The Dream out April 7th. A gorgeous slow motion lullaby that peers at the underbelly of fame culture, and with a master of the art in the Whitehouse, it couldn’t be more prescient. Its toe-tapping beat and jangling fuzz chords, hints of the fuzz-pop longing of My Bloody Valentine, and the woozy melancholia of Mazzy Star, it’s like a hidden track from the Mulholland Drive soundtrack indeed the band cite David Lynch and his composer Angelo Badalamenti. Vocalist Paige Stark aching vocal arc inhabits “a media brainwashed girl that only wants to be famous like the girls on TV.” When she sings “And all the boys will want me/and everyone will like me,” she pinpoints the transcient, fleeting allure and the sinister false promise of fame for fame’s sake and it sounds effortlessly sublime.
Stark explains that the song is inspired by “Things like the emergence of reality TV stardom and social media celebrity have elevated fame culture to a new sphere. We are living in an Andy Warhol meets Orwellian vision of the future and I find it terrifying. It’s all about ‘likes’ and numbers, and now our country is being run by a monster who was created by this very machine.”
The video is directed by James Franco and stars actress Juno Temple. “We wanted to capture the feeling of being lost while pursuing your Hollywood Dreams,” Franco explains. “This is a video about all the dreamers wandering down Hollywood Boulevard.” The video takes inspiration from the Robert Redford film Electric Horseman, as well as the movies Midnight Cowboy and Fallen Angels. Watch it above.
