Girls – Lust for Life
2009 · Directed by Aaron Brown & Ben Chappell
24K Likes
Best comments
1.“I suddenly have the urge to go to American Eagle for some reason.”
More comments
- 2.“Was this a music video or an American Apparel ad?”
- 3.“After 10 years – and crying to this song in a Walmart parking lot – I can confidently confirm this is one of my favorite songs of all time.”
The story
Girls were a San Francisco band built around Christopher Owens, who grew up inside the Children of God religious group, bounced around Asia and Europe as a kid, left the church at sixteen and only started writing songs at 28. He and producer Chet JR White formed the band in 2007. Lust for Life opened their debut, plainly titled Album. It has nothing to do with the Iggy Pop song, though Stereogum noted it runs on the same hedonistic fuel. Pitchfork gave it Best New Music and Spin ranked it number four among the best summer songs of 2009.
Aaron Brown and Ben Chappell shot the video on Super 8 film around San Francisco, one three-minute roll per take. Eighteen friends of the band sing the song, alone and in couples, indoors and out, a few of them familiar from the band's earlier Hellhole Ratrace video. Stereogum compared the look to the photographs of Nan Goldin and Ryan McGinley. A director's cut went further, with enough nudity to earn an NSFW warning.
Eighteen friends, eighteen rolls of film, one very San Francisco summer.
