The Wanted - Chasing The Sun: Music Video Review

We're on the battlefield of pop and two well-preened armies are looming around each other like preying vultures. On the left hand side you have One Direction, five young lads with floppy hair and cheeky grins who like running on the beach. Favorite word - Na (three times). Weakness - Flip your hair and find out. They've tackled the Battle of Koala-STDs and are engaged in an ongoing uprising from contenders to the throne One Direction US. On the right hand side you have The WANTED, five not-as-young lads with stubble who love capitalisation and to party. Their syllable of choice? The powerful, destructive Oh. Weakness - Lightning and/or being rejected by hot women. Now, both have made an early stab at world domination starting with the American field - The WANTED get a top 5 hit, One Direction get a top 5 hit - it was neck and neck. Now times have changed and the balance has shifted in favour of the Band-Who-May-Have-To-Change-Their-Name-From-One-Direction, what with a number one album and second single charting in the US charts. How will The WANTED return fire, I hear you ask? 'Right, well then. This is an issue. I'm not confident that the Americans will like our other songs so we need to regroup, find a new line of response. Let's get a new song done and dusted and think of a video where we look all sexy (but actually over the age of consent) and mysterious.... I think I've got it! It's totally inspired and original too. Why don't we have - Sexy Vampires. I've only ever seen that in True Blood, Twilight, Vampire Diaries, Buffy, Angel, that really awful James Corden/Matthew Horne film... oh.' So here we are then: The WANTED - Chasing The Sun and the completely never been done before sexy vampires in a dive bar/on rooftops video concept.

This one is directed by Director X (as opposed to Director P who was on holiday in the Bahamas) taking the video helm for the third time. First there was Glad You Came, basically a video depicting what most men hope a holiday overseas with the lads will be like completely skipping out the parts where your best friend gets bottled, you drunkenly cheat on your girlfriend and that annoying friend-of-a-friend you didn't actually invite gets herpes from the local brothel. This video may have been more interesting if it'd been halfway between the Hangover and The Inbetweeners film. Second Director X feature was for Warzone which you probably don't remember because it kind of sunk without a trace in the charts. Let's just say it features that extremely common awkward moment where you find out your girlfriend and all your friends' girlfriends are cheating on you with the same guy. Lolz.

You know the WANTED, they're bad boyz (with a Z fo sho) and to prove that to you they've decided to open this new video up with a spot of loitering. At night. By steel girders. Woah, arrest them right now for crimes against serious face. By the way haven't you all got a party to be going to? I mean you had one for Lose My Mind and Glad You Came and Gold Forever and Lightning, any excuse. Aah, spoke too soon - look Max is designated driver for this evening, how kind of him. Typical for a boyband member though he can't escape the stalker fans and some blonde lady has decided to seduce him in the middle of the street because she's classy like that. Remember Max you have a long-term girlfriend so you know you shouldn't really... oh dang, the mark of Michelle Keegan scorned! You shouldn't have touched her, I did warn you. Right off to the party with you before you get yourself killed...

http://youtu.be/RFS5N_yAGTo Time to give you a mighty quick run-down of the extensive narrative of this video: get to club, dance, drink, back to dark rooftop brooding, back to club, each finds a girl conveniently placed in different places around the club, tattoo, tattoo, tattoo hideously placed around belly button, tattoo transfer x4, varying levels of wow-i'm-so-shocked-by-how-bad-this-tattoo-is face, leave club in a goofy fashion, arrive at new club, bad tattoos are actually bad nightclub stamps, rooftop brooding now in the sunlight, leaning in for kiss x5, girls are vampires, sunlight brooding, bite x5, varying levels of wow-i'm-so-shocked-at-the-fact-you've-bitten-me, leave club. End. It isn't the most dynamic video by any stretch of the imagination and someone thinking vampires would work alongside a song about chasing the SUN seems idiotic at best. Sure there's plenty of time to ogle at your WANTED member of choice, they all get a decent amount of screentime, but if the band want to keep on side with the American public (for this is who this single is really for) then they could have done with doing a little more than just repeating the Glad You Came video. They've literally just switched a speedboat for rooftops, made the girls have fangs and reversed the whole sunset/sunrise thing for goodness sake. The song itself is also incredibly similar with the Oh-Oh's there but in a slightly different order for the post-chorus bit and quiet verses that build into the louder chorus. This isn't the final strike that the WANTED probably wanted (no pun intended) or needed and I doubt the Americans will go for it either. Breaking into America is the battle but keeping their attention is the war. Look sharp lads or you'll be left in the wake of a floppy-hair/cheeky grin trail of destruction...