Snakehips Release a ZAYN-Heavy Clip For “Cruel”

You know Snakehips! The British production duo had the hit that every musician dreams of with 2015’s All My Friends, currently sitting pretty on over 30 million YouTube views. Just as likely to be heard on triple j as Nova FM, the smash hit paved the way for Cruel, featuring the ubiquitous ZAYN (of One Direction fame) and just as likely to become a radio fixture.

It’s just as likely you’ll see Cruel on your television, with the recent release of the track’s official music video. The clip is 4:20 worth of ZAYN, bathed in soft neon pink and purple light, occasionally appearing in a static-filled screen, navigating plastic-covered scaffolding and rooms full of revelling boys and girls.

The camera is constantly moving, first towards the centre of the screen, through a door and past all these scattered scenes of ZAYN, and then backwards to the establishing shot. The video both starts and finishes with the same scene, a police cruiser stopped out the front of the building where ZAYN is presiding over the madness.

If you remember those Hesta Super Fund television ads, where the “Aussie battlers” make a diamond shape with their hands on their chest and the camera zooms through to the next person, then you know what I’m talking about.

This constant motion, the scenes which are suggestive of illicit late-night activity and rendered bare by harsh neon lighting, is a wonderful visual technique that perfectly synchronises with the suspicious, dark nature of the song. We can imagine the sort of symbiotic, destructive relationship that’s depicted in this song, and it doesn’t look that different to ‘Gone Girl’.

Aesthetically, this clip borrows from Neon Trees (of Animal fame) and The 1975 circa ‘I love It When You Sleep, For You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware’. Funnily enough, earlier this year The 1975’s frontman Matt Healy disgraced himself by launching a diatribe against the British Conservative government for apparently plagiarising The 1975’s promotional material and neon lettering aesthetic in their unsuccessful ‘Remain’ campaign. So Snakehips, if you’re reading this watch out for The 1975 legal team!