Brad Paisley’s Southern Comfort Zone Video Is An Unlikely Masterpiece: Review I am a big fan of Brad Paisley so I was excited for the music video for “Southern Comfort Zone“, a brilliant song about Southern pride still encouraging people to see the world, and then be glad to come home! The video appears to have been recorded while Brad conducted the recent leg of his European tour, and The Band Perry even have a couple of cameos since they opened for him during the tour. In addition, he visited the Masai tribe that he donated cows to a couple of months back, and filmed the remainder of the video there. It’s a lot different than Brad’s previous music videos, and certainly very different from your average country music video. The idea behind involved Brad running through various cities, and seems designed to show an almost-seamless fit between places and his journey. Eight countries in eight days, apparently. Amateur Quality = Relatable. The beginning of the video consists of Brad playing the beginning of the song, just him and an acoustic guitar, by a truck, seemingly in the African safari. It is a delightful clash of cultures, but done more subtly than expected, and the writing across the screen to declare the title of the song and artist is in childish font. This pretty much sets up the whole ethos of the video, in that it is oddly, and yet fantastically, amateurish. Sometimes the camera doesn’t focus properly and you experience it focusing in and out. A lot of the time Brad is simply running down random streets in various cities and passers-by stare at him over their shoulder. The beginning and the end of the video where Brad is playing guitar is the live sound, and it doesn’t sound exactly like the polished studio recording. Some of the camera angles aren’t up to much and you get the feeling a lot of it’s been filmed on a handheld. Sometimes the camera holds its shot on completely unknown people and things. Whilst Brad is running someone occasionally throws him a new jacket which he catches and throws on like it’s nothing. He walks into a pub in Ireland and the crowd gathered sing the chorus of the song loudly and unabashedly. He plays guitar next to a real life giraffe and jerks it away slightly when the giraffe goes to try and eat it. Throughout Brad appears unassuming and without star status, he is simply ordinary. Everything is done with the utmost casual vibe, we get no theatrical expressions and sometimes the colors are fairly dull. And that makes me completely love this video. No Glam = Down To Earth While, I like the glitz and the glam and the creative videos that clearly have been worked hard on, there’s something about this that is fun, and perhaps even more interesting than other videos that have had hours of work and a lot of money put into them. This feels Continue reading Brad Paisley Southern Comfort Zone Video: Review→
