Roses

Released a full eighteen months after “#SELFIE”, “Roses” elicited a reaction of equal parts admiration and bewilderment. Society simply was not prepared for a song by the Chainsmokers that was not just listenable, but downright enjoyable. To this day, it remains one of the few Chainsmokers songs that can be enjoyed completely guilt-free. It stands apart, not just as a song in the Chainsmokers discography, but as a singularly fascinating objet d’art, a radio-friendly crossover jam that holds within it a nearly endless list of contradictions. It’s a second hit song by a band that immediately destined to languish as one-hit wonders. It’s completely divorced from most people’s image of the Chainsmokers, but it’s the first song where either of them contributes vocals, the first step towards establishing themselves as pop stars. It was, in a way, the most important moment of the group’s career, but it stands totally removed from the controversy and criticism that have dogged them their entire careers.

As if in acknowledgement of the song’s paradoxical nature, the Chainsmokers produced two separate videos for “Roses.” The first video, shot by future “You Owe Me” director Rory Kramer, is a video travelogue of the duo on tour in Europe. Sharply edited to fit the song’s chill-yet-upbeat vibe and shot with an eye for the quieter moments of a long overseas trip, it accomplishes its modest goal with a skill that calls to mind Joe Zohar’s work on the video for “Let You Go”: it makes the Chainsmokers seem fun to hang out with.

This is not to say that Taggart and Pall are, in reality, unpleasant to be around; nor is meant to excuse the less-than-admirable things they’ve said and done. But when you see the two of them jumping between the twin beds in their tiny hotel room, or having a glue-fight with their friends, or just quietly sticking their heads out the window of a car while they ride through a foreign city, it’s hard to work up any serious ire. And while their off-stage antics have never reached loathsome heights (depths?) as did those of Justin Bieber, it’s not surprising that Bieber hired Rory Kramer to be his full-time videographer shortly after “Roses” was filmed: if he can make the Chainsmokers look good, he can make anyone look good.

The second video is unique in its own way: it is the first, and thus far the only Chainsmokers video in which neither member of the group appears on-screen (though the lead actor, Scott Lyon, looks like what might happen if you merged Taggart and Pall together with some sort of facial compositing software). It’s almost as if they made the first video, focused solely on them and their trans-continental exploits, in order to purge their essence from this video, which, like the song itself, succeeds because of how it subverts our expectations of what the Chainsmokers can do as a group.

Directed by Andrew Roberts and James Zwadlo (working under the moniker “Impossible Brief”), the “Roses” video features a woman (Callie Roberts) caught in an ambiguous but clearly loving on-again/off-again relationship with a visiting man. We see them spend time together, relaxing on a couch and smoking weed before having sex. It’s more or less a straightforward adaptation of the song’s lyrics, with one unique touch: interspersed between the narrative scenes is footage of Roberts dancing in a nondescript space, illuminated by a ghostly spotlight.

The second video, much like the first, is a simple concept greatly enhanced by the quality of the song. But the visuals here do a better job of matching the audio. The video, like the song, has a straightforward, almost swaggering quality that is anchored by a sense of vulnerability and longing. The shots of Roberts dancing communicate the emotion that would otherwise be missing from the more muted narrative sections — and there’s one truly sublime shot of Roberts floating through the air that almost reaches the heights of magical realism. 

There is, technically, a third video for “Roses,” in which the Chainsmokers enlist an Uber driver to play the song for his passengers, all of them singing along in what is, if not a legal infringement on the work of James Corden, then at least highly derivative. And while there’s not much to say about this video, it’s worth noting because, taken with the other two videos, one really gets a sense that someone — the Chainsmokers themselves, or maybe their label — was hedging their bets. “Roses” was a turning point for the band, and by producing three distinct videos with totally different styles and purposes, they were doing their best to make sure that people heard it. And, I mean, hey. It worked.

Waterbed

Believe it or not, “Waterbed” is the first truly awful Chainsmokers video. “#SELFIE” was lazy and obnoxious, but it lacked the ambition necessary to be a true failure. Joe Zohar returns as director, seemingly determined to completely undo the creative goodwill he built up in his previous two videos.

Things start off promisingly, with Taggart laid up with a broken leg while a party rages on outside, while he has only an iPad and an adorable puppy to keep him company. Pall stops by to check on him, but his sympathy only extends so far, and he abandons his friend to pursue hedonistic excess. At this point, the video is set to follow the same track as the Simpsons episode “Bart Of Darkness,” itself a parody of the film Rear Window. Taggart decides to attach a GoPro to his canine friend, and for a moment it seems like we might get an entertaining twist on the perils of voyeurism in the modern age — like Disturbia, with a cute dog — but then Taggart, in order to explain the dog’s mission, displays several crude drawings of women with exaggerated sexual characteristics. After this point, things quickly go downhill.

The fact that the main character of this video attaches a camera to his dog for the purpose of ogling women does not necessarily make it irredeemably awful, but the whole situation plays out in the worst possible way. Basically, Zohar uses this premise as an excuse to film as many butts as possible, then justifies it by awkwardly inserting the image of a dog onto the footage, without the slightest attempt at verisimilitude. Again, the cheapness of the visual effect is not the problem here, but the gross objectification of women — and, to be honest, the wasting of a perfectly cute dog.

The video ends as it must, with the poor dog, overcome by the same animal lust that motivates its owner, launching itself through the air to hump an unsuspecting woman’s leg. In the process, the dog causes Pall to take a nasty tumble, resulting in him breaking his leg as well. In the end, Taggart and Pall are consigned to the same bed, bickering as the dog watches on from across the room, and humanity suffers the minor but deeply-felt pain of another blow to our collective dignity.

Until You Were Gone

Zohar’s final collaboration with the Chainsmokers is less actively distasteful than his work on “Waterbed,” but it comes from the same school of misogynistic hackery. The premise is clearly executed but very basic and more than a little creepy: Taggart and Pall, along with guest stars Chad Cisneros and David Reed of the electronic music duo Tritonal, all develop a crush on the same SoulCycle instructor, portrayed by actual SoulCycle instructor Karyn Nesbit. After lusting over her during a class, the four men obsess over her in ways that range from “awkward dork creepy” to “serial-killer creepy”.

Taggart and Pall both engage in some light stalking, following the instructor after the class in order to bump into her and continue their ogling, while Cisneros and Reed hold up in their rooms and stare worshipfully at photos of her. The humor is meant to come from how foolish the four of them look, and, blessedly, the video doesn’t reward any of their upsetting behavior, as their instructor ends the video in the arms of her boyfriend while the four DJs walk away defected. If you could ignore the toxic implications of unwanted male attention being portrayed as laughable or even charming, the whole thing might play as innocent fun, if not for the way Zohar’s camera lingers over the instructor’s body, engaging in the sort of music video objectification that’s so widespread it’s become almost subliminal.

Despite the plot of the video centering around the hilarious misadventures of four American DJs, nearly half of the runtime is given over to another, less clearly defined joke, the entirety of which seems to be: “SoulCycle is hard.” This is likely the result of the video’s genesis as an extended piece of product placement for the almost cultish spin-class service. The Chainsmokers are not the only pop musicians to partner with SoulCycle in recent years — many artists have guest-hosted classes that double as listening parties for their new music — but they are, as of now, the only ones that have extended that partnership into a full-length music video.

For more on this subject, check out this interview that SoulCycle did with the Chainsmokers to promote the video’s release. There are a lot of bizarre touches to this interview; for one, it wasn’t posted online until the video was almost nine months old. Instead of indicating which one of the Chainsmokers was answering the questions, the editors have credited them as a single entity, one that ends every single sentence with an exclamation point. It’s entirely possible that the Chainsmokers do, in fact, answer all interview questions in complete synchronicity and with unnecessary enthusiasm. But it seems just as likely that this entire project, from conception all the way to this promotional interview buried on the ‘Community’ section of the SoulCycle website, was produced by a machine that can only approximate the actions of real-life humans.

Could this be the soundtrack to an experience you’ve had in real life?
Hahaha, it definitely could be. We don’t know a single person who hasn’t had some real life experience that could help them relate to this, whether a relationship or even an experience with summer camp!

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Did anything surprise you about the shoot?
Haha not us, but the extras 100 percent! We don’t think they knew when they came on as extras that they were going to be required to actually cycle for seven hours! By the end of the day, everyone was dead!

What was your favorite part of the shoot?
Well, besides essentially getting a free indoor cycling class for 8 hours, it was just great to hang around there! Everyone is so cool! The amazing SoulCycle team is a large part of why this all worked out so well!

Well, like they say: it’s all up there on the screen.