OK Go – Bursting With Wonder

Always looking for new ways to document their elaborate videos, OK Go’s Damian Kulash, Timothy Nordwind, Andy Ross, and Dan Konopka wore Ray-Ban Meta glasses throughout the production to capture behind-the-scenes footage – watch HERE. Learn more about the Universal Robots in the video HERE. For a more in-depth behind-the-scenes documentary on the making of the video courtesy of Project Management Institute – please view  HERE.

“We’re always drawn to spectacle and wonder,” says Kulash, “and the goal, this time, was to take them somewhere more heartfelt and emotional than we have before. This song is so personal for me, and the infinite reflections bouncing between two mirrors are a perfect metaphor for the kind of overwhelming, reality-shifting love that I’m singing about. Two simple things come together, and new dimensions burst from them into existence. Magic unfurls endlessly.  It’s the impossible, right there before you. That’s the kind of wonder that can bring me to tears.”

Combined views of OK Go’s previous video, the stunning moving mosaic for “A Stone Only Rolls Downhill” that features 64 videos playing across 64 phones, has already surpassed five million.  Directed by Kulash and Chris Buongiorno (Star Wars: Skeleton Crew), it required more than a thousand takes, and over two hours and twenty minutes of single-take clips which are condensed into the final frame. Filmmaking magazine Shots marveled, “Whenever a new OK Go video drops, the creative community’s mixture of anticipation and professional jealousy is palpable.”

The album packaging also demonstrates boundless creativity and meticulous attention to detail. The first vinyl pressing, limited to 3,000, is a two-LP set on 180-gram, 45RPM discs in a foil-stamped gatefold with full-color inner sleeves. A 3-dimensional sculpture pops up when listeners open it. The packaging was designed by Yuri Suzuki and Claudio Ripol from Team Suzuki with 3D sliceform design and popup structure by Wombi Rose, Hà Trịnh Quốc Bảo, and Emilio LaTorre for Lovepop.

To listen to And the Adjacent Possible is to be taken on an emotional rollercoaster… in the best way possible. While the music is largely upbeat, the lyrics can be dark. OK Go’s sardonic wit drives “Impulse Purchase,” a playfully direct address to the algorithms that will choose its audience: “Now, as a practical matter it’s pointless/to address you directly here/Any probabilistic adjustments/will dissolve in the sea/of the everything-everyone-everywhere-ever-has-done that you swallowed before.” Even the brightly titled “A Good, Good Day at Last” features lines like, “Anger, she’s more loyal/than her fickle sister Hope.” Yet rays of hope (“Love,” “Don’t Give Up Now”) also abound.