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Sonic Youth - Addicted To Love

Music Video | 1988
ArtistSonic Youth
SongAddicted To Love
AlbumCiccone Youth
DirectorKim Gordon
GenreRock
IntroNo
OutroNo
Sound MixStereo
Technical Specificationscolour - format unknown

Wiki

Synopsis

Kim Gordon performs Ciccone Youth's stripped-down, deadpan cover of Robert Palmer's "Addicted to Love" in a deliberately cheap-looking video. Standing in front of projected footage resembling a Vietnam War documentary, she lip-syncs and dances with an awkward, detached presence. The homemade presentation sharply contrasts with Palmer's glossy 1986 original, replacing its polished fantasy of pop glamour with something lo-fi, dissonant, and faintly comic. The result feels less like a conventional performance clip than an underground parody of the original video's visual language.

Factoids & Trivia

  • "Addicted to Love" is credited to Ciccone Youth, the temporary experimental project involving all four Sonic Youth members. The track appears on the 1988 album *The Whitey Album*.
  • Kim Gordon recorded the vocal in a karaoke booth, using the commercial backing track as the basis for her deliberately flat and unconventional performance.
  • The video was made at a do-it-yourself video booth inside Macy's. These booths allowed customers to perform in front of projected backgrounds, making the clip an unusually inexpensive production for a recognized alternative-rock act.
  • The projected imagery appears to draw on documentary-style footage of the Vietnam War, creating a stark counterpoint to the glamorous studio setting and mannequin-like models of Robert Palmer's original video.
  • The clip turns Palmer's polished pop spectacle inside out: instead of reproducing its seductive confidence, Gordon's performance emphasizes awkwardness, distance, and the artificiality of karaoke.
  • Ciccone Youth's name references Madonna's birth surname. The project used pop covers and electronic experiments to play with the relationship between mainstream music and Sonic Youth's underground identity.
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