Massive Attack “Atlas Air” Music Video Review

Massive Attack “Atlas Air”

Music Video Review

By our guest blogger, Nick Hanover

Were-bunnies. Major air traffic control issues. Graphics that look like a PS3 mimicking an N64. Just what the hell is going on in Massive Attack’s “Atlas Air?”

Though the track itself seems to have taken its cues from Demon Days-era Gorillaz, with its nicely chilly organ line and tight acoustic-sounding drums, it would appear that Massive Attack couldn’t quite afford the full Jamie Hewlett visual package. So, what we’re left with is a video that probably would have made more sense had UNKLE released it a decade and a half ago.

Which is too bad because “Atlas Air” is a cool slice of sinister trip-hop that deserved something a little more artistic. At the least it deserved something better than a gigantic were-bunny terrorizing a polygonal city. So, instead let’s pretend that there was an accident in the editing room. In the new alternate reality I’ve invented, director Edouard Salier was actually working on a video for Radiohead’s “Myxomatosis,” which, if you remember, actually is about terrifying bunnies. Salier had put together a sly, satirical take on that rabbit affliction turning the poor bunnies into gigantic zombies when he mislabeled it and Massive Attack was stuck with the results.

Going further, let’s pretend that the real “Atlas Air” was a Children of Men-influenced take on the collapse of the airline industry in the Post-9/11 world. Maybe the portion of the video where hordes of planes crash into the ground is a leftover from that creation. Who’s to say? If this isn’t the case, I’d just like to let Massive Attack (or any other interested parties) know that I am fully available to script your next viral sensation. For a small fee of course.


Video the video for Massive Attack's "Atlas Air" below. Thoughts?