Miracles of Modern Science – “Bad Body” (video) (premiere)

At the end of last year, the Princeton-founded, Evan Younger-fronted Miracles of Modern Science pulled off yet another miracle that was all their own making: their second full-length proper, Mean Dreams, landed on PopMatters’ own list for The Best Pop Albums of 2015.

Easily the best release of their young career, the indie rockers with a penchant for stringed instruments celebrated their distinct mix of indelible pop songs and conversational lyrics with a seemingly never-ending barrage of music videos, Mean Dreams ten songs yielding no less than four clips so far (in addition to their always-entertaining barrage of quirky cover songs), nearly all of them funded by their fans via rolling contribution website Patreon.

Yet for “Bad Body”, arguably their most mature and dynamic song to date, the group wanted to take things in a different direction. “‘Bad Body’ is about the seven year itch,” says Younger. “The lyrics are ‘very personal’ — my partner cringes whenever I sing them — though they’re not 100% autobiographical. Geoff (our original cellist) contributed several key lines, and we’re both a touch less pessimistic than this narrator. But even the happiest relationships have enough latent doubts and frustrations to fill a few songs.

“For the video,” Younger continues, “we collaborated with director/choreographer duo the Kuperman Brothers. We gave them their choice of song and free rein with the concept. (Our only prompt was that there should be dancing, and boy, was there.) They had the idea of shooting in an empty white room and using bodies as sets, props, and instruments.

“The whole team was a joy to work with and I’m sure will be recurring collaborators of ours. Indeed, right after we finished this, I brought the brothers on as choreographers for another MOMS video I directed (stay tuned).”