Röyksopp – Happy Up Here
2009 · Directed by Reuben Sutherland
36K Likes
Best comments
1.“Alternate title: East German car defeats early capitalist Western computers in a game of Space Invaders.”
More comments
- 2.“This video is better than Pixels... yes, I'm being serious.”
- 3.“I've sung this song to my child since birth. He's 19 now and super happy with himself as a person! Couldn't feel more blessed. This will always be our song.”
The story
Röyksopp gave this one away. The Norwegian duo put Happy Up Here out as a free download in January 2009, the first taste of their album Junior, and it still went to number three in Norway and number 44 in the UK. The groove comes from funk royalty: it samples Parliament's 1976 single Do That Stuff, which is why George Clinton, Garry Shider and Bernie Worrell share the writing credit.
Director Reuben Sutherland of Joyrider Films turned it into a game of Space Invaders over a city. The camera pans across a skyline where boxes lit with light bulbs float in the air, and then you clock what they are: the aliens, rebuilt in 3D. Cars down on the street play the defenders. The whole thing runs like the arcade game, cut tight to the beat, until the surviving invaders give up and retreat. Cartoon Brew first took it for live action mixed with CG, then decided it was almost entirely CG.
A bleepy, cheerful little song and an alien invasion that politely calls itself off. Röyksopp in a nutshell.
