Ellie Goulding is a 24 year old British singer, who became the winner of Sound of 2010, BBC’s annual poll of music critics and industry figures that was established in 2003 to find the most promising new music talent. Previous winners include Keane, 50 Cent, The Bravery, Adele…
Ellie released her debut studio album Lights in 2010 and it went on to debut at number one on the UK Albums Chart and sold over 380,000 copies by the end of 2010. She started her US ‘invasion’ this year in April, when made her American television debut on Jimmy Kimmel Live performing her biggest single “Starry Eyed“.
Ellie released music video for Starry Eyes on 20th January 2010, but a year and a half later, on 28th July 2011, another version premiered on YouTube. It’s an alternative version that was released for the US market and the video reached over 1 million views in just 3 days. Today, on 11th August it has almost 4 million views, which is at the moment roughly 4 times less than original UK version.
US version of the video is more polished and includes some product placement. There are obligatory Beats by Dr. Dre headphones and a Mini Cooper (you can spot both brands in the first 15 seconds). Dan Spritz of The Professor of Pop Culture reviewed Ellie’s new version and said »UK version was released back in January. I can see why they filmed a new version for the US release. It is not a great video.« He gave it a grade C with the comment »Mediocre. Not sure what’s going on, but it does have a lot of star imagery.«
I have to admit that I agree with the rating. Video is nothing special and product placement is mediocre too. Was it even worth it?
