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Brooke Candy Explains Opulence Video

06/04/2014
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(Radio.com) Just floating along the surface of it, Brooke Candy's major label debut music video for "Opulence" is a visual feast for the eyes as its pedigree would demand. It was directed by photographer Steven Klein, who is known for his work with Madonna on several live videos and the short film Secretprojectrevolution as well as his advertorial shoots for flamboyant luxury fashion clients including Alexander McQueen, Dolce & Gabbana and Balenciaga. The video was styled by Nicola Formichetti, the current artistic director for Diesel and the fashion director of the Haus of Gaga from 2009-2011. He was the architect behind the meat bikini, which lead to the infamous meat dress.

Candy tell us the video's overall concept was conceived by herself and Formichetti one drunken night at a dive bar in Shibuya, Japan. Over cocktails while a drag queen performed, the duo got into what Candy describes as an "existential" conversation about the progression of the modern pop star. While mulling over the evolution from Madonna, who would create a new character with every album, to Lady Gaga, who Candy describes as being "a different human being every single day," the pair wondered if they could showcase 500 looks in a three-minute music video.

The problem with executing their original idea was timing. When more sober heads tracked how long it would take to capture 500 looks on film, Candy says they realized it was "actually physically impossible" to do in a video even approaching the length of her song. Scaling it down to 100 looks still would have required 30 days of shooting, which was more than Candy and Formichetti's schedules and budget would allow.

The two held on to the concept of creating multiple looks to express Candy's multiple personalities, but when Klein became involved after he and Candy met on the set of a V magazine shoot, he brought them what Candy calls a "more realistic" execution of concept.

The scaled down version of that idea, in its actual staging for the video, is a performance art interpretation of something like Picasso's "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon." In his famous Cubist painting, five prostitutes are painted with African face masks and disjointed bodies; a political statement and cautionary tale on the dangers of prostitutes, whose freely shared STDs had killed or infected several of his artist friends. For Candy, she takes the personas of many women onto herself: she is every pop star and all of their demons and pitfalls. A lot more here.

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Copyright Radio.com/CBS Local - Excerpted here with permission.

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