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Gerard Way's 'Millions' Video Is A Totally Trippy VHS-Era Throwback

Given that Gerard Way's new solo record, Hesitant Alien, owes a debt of gratitude to the '90s it's not too surprising that his latest video treatments are following suit with a heavy dose of late twentieth century pop music nostalgia.

Much has been made about Way's referencing the the glam style of David Bowie and some Britpop heavy-hitters throughout the record, but his preferred style of his "Millions" video reaches back into some deep cuts of Cool Britania -- somewhere between The Charlatans and The Bluetones.

And while you're at it, if you're going to borrow from an era's musical style, you might as well use its film editing equipment, too. For "Millions," Way and director Jennifer Juniper Stratford must've fired up an old Amiga, found the last-remaining copy of Video Toaster, then dubbed the footage over a dozen times onto a blank VHS tape: The trippy, cable access-style clip features the erstwhile My Chemical Romance frontman looking sharp against a fuzzy, faded backdrop of geometric shapes, backed by a troupe of dancing mimes. (See Steve Miller Band's "Abracadabra" video for a look at what videos used to look like when they looked like this accidentally. It's the Genesis of lo-fi videos.)

That same lo-fi effect translates to happy, campy fun (MCR has never shied away from campy nor fun), and hearkens back to the days when you'd tape your favorite video off of the TV and replay it so many times that the tape would wear down. Whatever the 2014 version of that is? Do that.

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