Not for the easily offended...

WARNING: This post contains some bad language.  Turn away now if you can't handle it, and then go cry the rest of the day because you'll seriously be missing out.

I recently saw the video for Cee-Lo Green's song "F*** You," which I have determined is not only an ingenious song (with excellent musical production), but is also clever video which can be appreciated from a graphic design perspective.  Here's the video - with more commentary after the jump.



Every second of this three minute and forty-six second video shows lyrics to the song in white sans-serif font various solid-color backgrounds, and it manages to sustain its appeal the whole time without really introducing any new design elements or video footage.

The backup singers are represented with lyrics written in parentheses, which literally made me laugh out loud a number of times, seen below.  

The song itself is a wonderfully crafted combination of new and old.  It took me a couple watchings to realize just how well the video fit with that concept.

First, the video contains clever use of panning and zoom to show you which word to look at as it is being sung - a modern take on the follow-the-bouncing-ball videos we've seen in the past.

Second, while the style of the white type on solid background is very much a relatively-recent "in" design element (due mostly to the Mac and iPod ads we've all seen over the past few years), there is faux film reel grain and crackle added to the whole video to make it appear as we are watching the video at an old movie theater.

And finally, the Motown sound mixed with modern production techniques and the sailor-like mouth of Cee-Lo Green combines to form something new and old at the same time, and also something unlike anything else I've ever heard.

Cee-Lo Green is the Soul Machine.