Music Insights
VIDEO VIEWS BY JC: Zayn Malik – Stand Still
Zayan Malik gifts us with an unexpected ode to planet Earth in the music video Stand Still.
Released a timely fews days before Earth Day 2019, the second single from Malik’s album Icarus Falls uses imagery that could be taken straight out of the Greek myth it borrows it’s name from. Made up entirely of drone footage that puts the BBC to shame, hypnotically beautiful images of the Earth move slowly out of frame and vanish into the distance. A foreboding atmosphere develops as the first few notes tempo Malik’s uncharacteristically eerie vocals.
Break a ball upon your fence now
Yet your beauty would still shine
Opening meaningfully on the tip of an iceberg, the video progresses through Earth’s vistas one by one, dropping into mountain tops, desert sand dunes and jungle scenes with equanimity. At the center of each shot is a nameless woman, barely visible as she sits alone in contemplation. As the shots zoom quickly away to take in the full vantage point of the surrounding scenery, it’s easy to be left with a sense of smallness and fragility. The landscapes progress in their movement and slide suddenly into one another, becoming a Rorschach inkblot reflecting back on itself. An analogy could be made of the sliding mirrored images of the planet and our own shifting perceptions of the environment, but despite it’s darker themes, Stand Still chooses to end on an uplifting note, and seems to intend to remind us that beauty is indeed in the eye of the beholder.