Pitchfork

The crisp October air has blown in a new Sally Shapiro video, for Pitchfork-premiered Disco Romance bonus track "Jackie Jackie (Spend This Winter With Me)", from the North American release out today. So often we end up writing as if the ideal audience for pop is people roughly like ourselves, and as if the ideal way to enjoy music is to, I dunno, mentally compose Pitchfork reviews while listening to it. The clip for the Swedish synth-pop singer's "Jackie Jackie" gets at the uncalculating devotion a kid newly into music can have for a pop song, the kick that keeps us coming back.

Directed by Jamie Milligan for Tarantula Productions, the video shows a pop-besotted, longhaired child pulling a Sally Shapiro record out from between albums by Cyndi Lauper and Duran Duran. Like someone straight from the Smiths' "Rubber Ring", the kid lies in awe on the bed, sings into the phone at Sally, and dances around the bedroom giddily, completely transported. It's a new experience seeing the famously reticent Shapiro on a TV screen, though this representation doesn't tell us much more than the existing photos or, of course, the songs. The contrast between the fan's euphoric longing and the artist's cool visual presence here mimics the shift between sugary choruses and questioning, Shangri-Las-like monologues on the song, composed by Nixon's Roger Gunnarsson (also of "Anorak Christmas" and "He Keeps Me Alive" fame). Better bundle up. (Read Pitchfork's interview with Sally Shapiro here).

[from the U.S. version of Disco Romance; out now on Paper Bag]