Video: MICHAEL LOVE MICHAEL Shares New Music Video 'Death Row'

Following Michael Love Michael's monthly releases of new music videos supporting her second album, To Build Me a House, out now on Get Better Records, the New York pop artist also known as Michelle introduces us to a gothic, fashion-forward fever dream for album highlight "Death Row." Intentionally timed for a Juneteenth release (June 19), the song and video calls into question our collective values, and urges us to act for justice. 

On the track, which deftly fuses shoegaze elements in the vein of Mazzy Star with a muddy reggaeton sound, Michelle sings about liberation as a Black trans woman,  and what it takes to live a life of awakened purpose in trying times. As always, she blends the personal and the political with sharp lyricism: "The first thing we have to change is absolutely everything," she sings. "Gimme pleasure/I cannot take the pressure."

For the video, which works in symbolic hues of red, black, and white, Michelle dons various editorial looks, styled and shot by Santiago Castillo and photographed by longtime visual collaborator Brett Lindell. (See the full editorial here.) The editing and alluring visual FX were handled by Travis McClung, who first teamed up with Michelle for her "Blue Eyed Devil' video, which V Magazine calls "enticing... futuristic."  The video is a powerful feast for the eyes about emerging from the shadows, ready to fight the good fight.

About Michael Loves Michael

As a Black child growing up queer and trans in the Midwest, pop artist Michael Love Michael (pronouns: she/they) didn't always feel encouraged to be herself. Her emotional sensitivity, effeminate appearance and artistic expression was often shunned by those around her, so she retreated into writing and storytelling, and when she finally got a desktop computer at 16, she quietly made songs in her bedroom about her isolation, desperate for a way out of it.

As 2020 yielded a new revolution for marginalized voices, Michael, having broken free of societal restraints, is determined to use hers to call attention to issues affecting the LGBTQ community and beyond. Michael's musical influences span wildly from M.I.A., Bjork, Interpol, Nine Inch Nails and powerful female acts including Aaliyah, TLC and Madonna, which can all be heard on her acclaimed 2020 debut album, XO, and her sophomore LP, To Build Me a House.

To post a comment, you must register and login.