Progressive house and EDM duo VAVO are one of the hottest names in the industry right now. Consisting of Vancouver native, Jesse Fischer and London born, Alden Martin. Currently based out of New York, these two DJ/Producers originally met online. Alden heard some of Jesse’s work and reached out to him to hopefully be able to connect and make music together. The pair share an equal love and passion for dance music with early influences including Avicii, Afrojack and Tiësto. In May of 2017, VAVO released a reboot of Russion electronic dance artist Tony Igy’s ‘Astronomia’ which garnered a lot of attention and millions of streams around the world, topping Spotify dance charts. In just a short few months, they had the attention of the industry. With personal support from Tiësto, David Guetta and The Chainsmokers, a collaboration with Dutch producer John Christian with a song feature on one of his CLUBLIFE albums and invitations to work on multiple remixes for Republic Records – their rise to fame was skyrocketing. Fast forward a few years, these two have topped the charts of the biggest streaming platforms in the world with over 40 million streams. Unfortunately, the pandemic halted their 2020 tour but instead of melting away like the rest of us, VAVO continued experimenting with new sounds and making music we all want to dance to.
On August 27th, VAVO released their new high-energy anthem ‘Why Do I?‘ with nicopop. and ZOHARA via Kess Records. Simultaneously, they released a fun and colorful lyric video to pair with the track. The lyric video is clearly influenced by the single cover art, giving me complete Pop art vibes. Originating in the 50s, this style features thick outlines, bold colors and Ben-Day dots, similar to what you would see on an old comic strip. This video uses an aesthetically pleasing combination of solid colors, consisting of soft pink, blue and white, as a base palette and darker toned polka dots which create texture. These colors are pulled directly from the single cover art which will help create familiarity with the song for fans.
I love the creative decision to use these dots as an audio waveform visualizer. This special effect adds high production value to the music video as it’s movements are perfectly on beat to the song. The eye-catching comic style font with the thick stroke is an excellent choice which also matches the single cover providing further consistency for the theme of the video and the brand of the song. The lyric video recreates the lips which are featured on the single cover art, but expands this universe into animated attention-grabbing smiling mouths, puckering lips, beating hearts, and falling tears. Pop art cartoons tend to revolve around simple single illustrations and these represent that movement perfectly. These custom illustrations are simple but super effective and pleasant. With the combination of ZOHARA’s catchy vocals and VAVO and nicopop.’s impressive production, this lyric video really represents the upbeat energy of the track.
On September 29th, as if the custom illustrated lyric video wasn’t enough, VAVO, nicopop. and ZOHARA released the official animated music video for ‘Why Do I?‘. First and foremost, WOW! This looks like it is straight out of a Marvel cartoon. The illustrations in this video live in a similar space as the previous, with bold solid colors and thick black outlines. When the video starts we can clearly see it takes place in New York and we are brought inside a Stark-style building called Kess Headquarters (I see you Kess Records). Inside are two of the main characters, a cartoon version of both Jesse and Alden (shout out to Jesse’s hat and Hawaiian shirt) who seem to run this hero HQ, when they are alerted by an alarm (and a hologram of the big boss) that an alien is on it’s way to wreak havoc on Earth.
Without skipping a beat, our two protagonists gear up and transform into superheroes, Power Rangers style. This is one of my favorite scenes, and the attention to detail is out of this world. They each open their arms and a flash of light shines up from the bottom of the video, reflecting off their face which is a really creative touch. The energy around each character changes causing even their hair to blow around from the burst. The viewers can feel VAVO’s superpowers as the video starts to shake and the build up to the beat drop is nothing short of intense. We meet our next superhero nicopop. who is just chilling in his office eating lo mien when his superhero alarm goes off too. Lastly, we meet a beautiful cartoon version of ZOHARA as she wakes up to start her day. At school, ZOHARA lays eyes on her hunky high school crush and she’s lovestruck. Not everything is doves and roses when we see the alien monster shoot down from the sky in an enormous fireball and smashes down right in front of ZOHARA at the school. She’s unharmed and continues her day at school as planned, but the viewers watch her discover that not everything is what it should be. Now ZOHARA’s hands are glowing green and she has super powers of her own.
Our original three crusaders show up to save the day in their awesome outfits but quickly realize they aren’t the first on the scene. We see ZOHARA face-to-face with the massive green alien outside in attack mode holding her crush hostage between his claws. Without skipping a beat, she transforms into our newest superstar warrior and with the help of Jesse, Alden and nicopop., they defeat the alien sending pieces of him scattering across the screen. What’s exciting about this animated music video is that it leaves fans with a total cliffhanger, wanting to see what our beloved heroes are up to next. This is a fun opportunity to explore future adventures with these characters and fans will become familiar and will want to tune into every future animated VAVO video.
Not every artist puts such attention to detail into their video releases to ensure consistency and high production value. With VAVO, nicopop. and ZOHARA’s ‘Why Do I?‘, fans get both an animated lyric video and an animated music video to bounce back and forth from while enjoying their new favorite club banger. We know VAVO won’t wait too long for another epic release and we are here on the sidelines waiting to see what they come up with next!
Check out the fun animated lyric video and music video for ‘Why Do I?‘ on YouTube here: