Music videos are usually fine. There are definitely great music videos! But most of them are fine. The exception, of course, is when they are animated, in which case they are great! Just ask Damon Albarn, or Donald Glover, or Killer Mike and Justin Roiland, or Richard D. James, or even Taylor Swift. Or, better yet, the great Charlie Parr!
Or you could ask Jens Lekman, the Swedish indie pop crooner who loves samples almost as much as he loves swelling string sections. Lekman has been compared to Morrissey, Scott Walker, David Byrne, Jonathan Richman, Belle & Sebastian, and Stephin Merritt (of the Magnetic Fields), even though he is better than all of them, except maybe Merritt. (I’ll die on this hill.) That he is not a world-famous songwriter is a tragedy. That an animated video exists for one of his best storytelling songs, “A Postcard to Nina,” is the closest thing to a consolation that we have in this cruel world.
Lekman’s music sits at the three-way intersection of sweet humor, bittersweet melancholy, and tugged heartstrings, and this song, in which Lekman poses as the boyfriend of his queer friend Nina to protect her actual relationship from the prying eyes of her very Catholic father, is a perfect example. And this music video, albeit unofficial (I think), does it justice. Take that, Gorillaz.
Thanks for reading The Dot and Line, where we talk about animation of all kinds. Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and sign up for our newsletter.
