The archive · Content & Film · Marketing decision · 2024
Idles' Gift Horse video turns a discount megastore into consumer chaos
Idles' Gift Horse is filmed inside an American discount megastore, where one-shot portraits and surreal vignettes capture the chaos of modern consumerism.
Idles
What it had to solve
Gift Horse needed a music video, and the setting chosen was the most ordinary place available: an American discount megastore. The goal was to capture the chaos of modern consumerism through surreal vignettes of everyday absurdity and the breakdown of social norms.
How it works
Gift Horse is a music video by Idles set in an American discount megastore. Its subject is a condition rather than a plot: the chaos of modern consumerism, the everyday absurdities and the slow breakdown of social norms that play out among the aisles and shelves.
The execution stays close to that idea. One-shot portraits and dynamic cuts build surreal vignettes inside the store, so ordinary retail life becomes strange simply by being held in frame — an approach the project credits to inspiration from the 'People of Walmart' series.
The concept gives a disposable commercial setting the weight of a stage. The work is preserved in the D&AD awards archive under Music Videos, which records no view counts.
Why it lands
- The discount megastore is instantly familiar, so the audience recognises the world before the strangeness begins.
- One-shot portraits make the vignettes feel observed rather than staged, closer to documentary than to a typical pop video.
- Drawing on the People of Walmart sensibility lets real everyday absurdity do the work of surrealism.
What it did
The video turns an everyday place into a stage for modern consumerism's absurdities. The work is preserved in the D&AD awards archive under Music Videos; the page records no view counts.
What you can take
Give the setting the job of the concept: when the idea is that everyday life is strange, choose the most ordinary place and let observed reality supply the surrealism.
Since then
Gift Horse is preserved in the D&AD awards archive under Music Videos; the page records no view counts. The takeaway is the choice of stage: placing the video in the most ordinary commercial space and treating it as theatre makes consumerism's absurdity visible without leaving reality.
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