Super Furry Animals – (Drawing) Rings Around the World
2001 · Directed by Pedro Romhanyi
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Best comments
1.“Beach Boys meets Motörhead.”
More comments
- 2.“If all else fails, there is Wales.”
- 3.“At 3½ minutes long, why does this sound like the shortest song ever made?”
The story
Gruff Rhys got the idea for this one from his girlfriend's dad: the rings of radio waves and signals wrapped around the Earth. Rhys said the song is about communication, pollution and radioactivity, which is a lot to fit into a glammy rock and roll tune with four Welsh guys harmonizing. For the sound collage, the band phoned numbers around the world and recorded the irate people they woke up at four in the morning.
Pedro Romhanyi's promo puts the band in an all-white room under an SFA Television logo, and keeps flicking away to other channels with parody names like Cartoon Animals and CVQ. Over there, actors, newsreaders, puppets, a golfer, an astronaut and a weatherman all sing along. At one point the band appears in silhouette, a nod to the cover of the Rolling Stones' Hot Rocks 1964–1971. Channel surfing as a song.
Rings Around the World came out in July 2001 on Epic, the band's first major-label record, and it went out as what Wikipedia calls the world's first simultaneous album and DVD release, complete with a surround mix and videos. The album hit number 3 in the UK and got a Mercury Prize nomination. This single reached number 28 that October. Paul McCartney is on the album too, credited with celery and carrot. Naturally.
