What could be more flattering than a pop icon covering your song and shooting a video for it? Moody songstress Lana Del Rey just received the honor with Boy George covering her breakout single, "Video Games."
Shot in a quintessential English gloom, the video is "a story of young love in bleak Britain." A punky, long-distance couple spend a day being all-too adorable together on an empty the beach and a deserted amusement park pier--points if you know which one. The meticulously done-up girl looks like the lovechild of Boy George and The Gossip's Beth Ditto and the boy is (in my opinion) far more swoon-worthy than Del Rey's preferred "Blue Jeans" and "Born to Die" love interest. They ride rides, they scale shipwrecks, they live, they love, and they ultimately say goodbye.
Boy George's cover of the song turns Lana Del Rey's curled lip purr into a melancholic sigh, cutting the church bells and harps for a good ol' acoustic guitar. In some ways, Boy George's version is more relevant to those of us who don't live on a drive-in movie screen, but it still retains Lana's noir-ish tone--which well, Boy George refined decades ago.
Admittedly, without the couple's cool style the video is not much different than the videos they play in the background of Korean karaoke screens (sans the over-the-top angsty-ness), although shot far better. But just goes to show because a couple looks "weird" doesn't mean they don't love just the same way.
Are you Team Lana or Team Boy George for "Video Games"? Leave your comments below!
