Badly Drawn Boy - Year Of The Rat

JUL 12 2004 · 12:00

Badly Drawn Boy - Year Of The Rat (2004) Director: Monkmus Era: Mid-2000s Indie Animation Era (2004) - A period in which independent UK singer-songwriters commissioned bespoke animated music videos as an alternative to live-action performance clips, riding the tail of the post-Britpop alternative wave and the rise of auteur animation directors in the music video space. High curatorial value as a confirmed animated music video from a critically acclaimed UK indie artist, directed by an award-winning animation auteur at a peak moment in both careers. The video bridges UK alternative pop and American independent animation, offering a rare documented example of Monkmus's early music video work prior to his wider commercial career. Its inclusion on the US promotional CD-ROM single also marks it as an artefact of the transitional physical-to-digital distribution era. Context: Released in 2004 as a single from One Plus One Is One, Badly Drawn Boy's fourth studio album and final release for XL Recordings, 'Year of the Rat' appeared during a particularly fertile period for UK indie-pop. Damon Gough had by then established himself as a Mercury Prize-winning eccentric (The Hour of Bewilderbeast, 2000) and film composer (About a Boy, 2002). The use of an animated video directed by Monkmus, an American animator with roots in indie and alternative music video culture, reflects the cross-Atlantic creative exchange of the mid-2000s indie scene, and the growing prestige of auteur animation as a music video format beyond novelty or children's programming. Director notes: Confirmed via IMDb (tt3320822) and IMVDb as the director of the 2004 animated music video for 'Year of the Rat' by Badly Drawn Boy. The video is categorised as Animation/Short on IMDb. It was released as part of the promotional campaign for the album One Plus One Is One (XL Recordings, 2004), and was included as a CD-ROM video on the US promotional single. Monkmus's style, described as possessing 'whimsical flair, off-beat humor, and emotional resonance' (StudioDaily, 2008), aligns closely with the quantitative data: a fast editing pace, warm colour temperature, and moderate motion score consistent with controlled 2D animation rather than live-action. The video is listed among Monkmus's key career credits alongside his work for Mogwai ('Travel Is Dangerous', 2006) and Kid Koala ('Basin Street Blues', 2003).