Talking Heads 'Cities'

I've made a handful of music videos, some on commission, others just for fun. It can be a creative medium. And I was recently blown away by this terrific new video for Talking Heads' Psycho Killer, directed by Mike Mills.

Some of my favorites include Sledgehammer and Digging in the Dirt by Peter Gabriel, who is still boundless in his imagination. I find Tim Pope's videos for The Cure wonderfully inventive, especially Closer and Love Cats. Michael Jackson's Thriller was a big influence. David Fincher, of course, cut his teeth with classics for Aerosmith, Madonna, and George Michael. Chris Cunningham blew the doors off with Aphex Twin and Bjork.

Oddly, I never thought of making a video for Talking Heads although they were a favorite band in my youth. One day a few years ago I was walking my dog, listening to their 1979 album Fear of Music, when inspiration struck. I rushed home and started downloading images. By the end of the day, this was the result.

Cities had always haunted me, and something about it hit a nerve. I grabbed 240 photos of 23 metropolises – in alphabetical order: Angkor Wat, Athens, Bam, Beijing, Berlin, Cairo, Dubai, Kabul, London, Machu Picchu, Mexico City, Moscow, Mumbai, New York City, Oyotunji, Paris, Rio de Janeiro, Rome, São Paulo, Shanghai, Tapagó, Tokyo, Warsaw – and threw them together with the music. Decided to brush that off today.