Roll Camera! Pop Stars & The Future
David Bowie, Jamiroquai, Charlie XCX & The Zuck?
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David Bowie looked into the future back in 1972 in the iconic ‘The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars’. Jamiroquai predicted a technological messy world in 1996 on his track ‘Virtual Insanity’. Charlie XCX predicts… well, not much actually, in her 2026 song ‘Camera’.
But they all land up in this week’s dispatch.
Doubt they could have predicted that.
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Cheers,
Shakey
Off Camera: The future is for everyone. Especially Meta.
On Camera: Charlie XCX feels the feelings in a one-shot video.
In Camera: Beefeater brings Jamirioquai’s Insanity back.
➕ · One Disney · No AI on Charts · Title Nominees ·
1. Off Camera: The Future Is for Everyone.
Even David Bowie?
It’s the ‘summer’ of 2026. Why has David Bowie entered the conversation?
A simple answer would be- he never left. Creative, visionary, saw things others couldn’t, did things others dared not, all-round icon variety.
His kind are always here, sometimes hovering, sometimes smacking their feet on the table and demanding to be heard. This week though, he enters our consciousness courtesy the Zuck and his team.
Say, what?
Meta, like all the other philanthropic tech behemoths of our time, are all-in on AI. Unlike some others though, they now want to shape a different narrative, maybe occupy a different place in the AI discourse, in the new inevitable world being shaped by our soon-to-be-sentient overlords.
That place is one of optimism, warmth and humanity.
No, really- Mark said so. And they made a little video too.
So here we have it, this is a company that has been part of most/all of our lives for many a year- joyously, cutely, weirdly, insidiously, entertainingly, devastatingly. It now wants to restate its take on the future, and make sure we come along for the ride. Smiling.
“Some people will have you believe AI will have us less connected, will leave you behind. We couldn’t disagree more.” With that, the spot careens off a ledge of positivity, with a montage of happy people, sunshine, children, smiles and tech. And creators, of course.
This stance on AI comes amidst swirling AI scepticism, sure- but much of that is not about being less connected. It is about surveillance, privacy, copyrights, bias, ethics, the environment and unchecked power.
So this also feels like them taking an opportunity to improve Meta’s brand perception, in laypeople (customers!) who are increasingly conscious of the harms that social media and big tech have dealt to society at large. Yet, between the creeping (and creepy) unease with the Meta glasses, the mess with Muse video generation, the internal shenanigans, this dose of optimism and belief in the good of humanity can be a hard pill to swallow.
“Call us optimists. Call us dreamers. Just as we’ve always done, we’re betting on people.” This has really struggled to ring through with many, given all the ups, downs, oddities and missteps Meta has been through both internally and externally- and given that their bet on people is, essentially, on advertising.
It’s talking to Silicon Valley and its investors, trying to reassure them that the vast amount of money being thrown at this isn’t all for naught. What it’s really saying is this: We’re betting that the public will eventually come around. _Fault Tolerant
Erm, but David?
Despite all that, maybe the most interestingly dissonant bit about the spot?
Its song choice. David Bowie’s ‘5 Years’ plays behind this dryly optimistic voice over, urging us to be positive about the future… except this is a song about the end of the world.
It literally is reacting to the news of an apocalyptic end to earth and humanity in five years. Sure, you could choose to not bother about the intricacies of a song from more than fifty years ago, but hey- a message about warmth, optimism and real human connection loses any fizz it might have had, when you realise all that warm human effort seems to have picked a song for just one line that repeats the word ‘people’ a lot.
BUT- there is always a but. Meta’s take (yes, they chose to wade in and defend this) was that Bowie himself meant the song to leave us “having optimism for the future.”. Just to get the entire context, I had to go look up his interview (Bowie’s, not the Meta spokesperson’s). Here’s what he said,
“I would strive to use that position to promote some feeling of optimism in the future, which might seem very hypocritical related to ‘Five Years’. There the whole thing was to try and get a mocking angle at the future. If I can mock something and deride it, one isn’t so scared of it. People are so incredibly serious and scared of the future that I would wish to turn the feeling the other way, into a wave of optimism.”
Make of that what you will.
Jeremy D. Larson of Pitchfork wasn’t ambiguous. “Hearing Bowie’s work used for AI just feels especially and specifically nonconsensual,” he said.
Internet punters don’t care much for it all- the song mismatch, or the general theme.
Prof G called Meta “the last people to be talking about the upside of AI.”
Ad Age called it ‘defiant’.
Techbrew finds it hard to believe the company is “betting on people”, saying Meta’s AI optimism comes “with a huge asterisk.”
Fault Tolerant questions who it’s really for (spoiler: investors).
Other kind terms I have seen include gaffe, ironic, awkward and facepalm.
To be sure, this is not the first spot (or movie or TV show or random IG reel) that has used a song out of its original context, so there is that too.
If this optimism is too much, you could always go back and watch Claude’s weirdly bleak spot from a few months ago,’ There’s Hope In Hard Questions’, where they might have taken the idea of ‘embracing your sector’s challenges’ a little too… literally?
You might find this Meta effort meh, or woeful, or wonderful- but if nothing else, take it as a sign to go listen to (discover? rediscover?) Ziggy Stardust? That would make me optimistic.
2. On Camera: Charlie XCX
I love oners- single uninterrupted camera shots that come with some mix of clever scripting, nifty movement, live set movements and usually some serendipitous goodness.
This one is fun.
‘Camera’ is a track from Charlie XCX’s latest album, and they’ve set this on what feels like a movie’s climax scene. The inimitable Vincent Cassel brings his expectedly compelling presence- a clearly grumpy, possibly preoccupied and devastatingly pissed-off star… about to be shot dead.
An uncut scene, portraying the fragility of all those moving parts coupled with the intensity a performer brings and how reliant it can be on everything and everyone else.
“When the camera is on, it makes me feel….
Makes me feel… feel the things I don’t normally feel.”
For what it’s worth, I think he was better in the first take where the blood doesn’t burst!
Only thing- it was too short! That’s me being a greedy viewer, I suppose- just felt unfulfilled at not even getting to see the ‘final take’.
But I guess that’s what pop songs are these days - 150seconds long short.
Director: Aidan Zamiri · DOP: Stuart Winecoff · Steadicam: Derek Walker ·
Production: Object & Animal · EP: Morgan Clement · Producer: Jacob Swan Hyam ·
3. In Camera: Jamiroquai
Remember Jamiroquai?
That depends on your vintage, where and when you grew up, what you watched and listened to… wait, that’s way too many parameters. But you’re likely familiar, if for nothing else than a pretty memorable music video back in the 90s where this odd-hatted man with oddly cool movements seems to glide about on a moving floor.
That MV for ‘Virtual Insanity’ won a bucket of awards, and spawned imitations and inspirations and spoofs. And oh, the floor wasn’t moving at all, that entire room was on wheels, so the ‘walls moved’.
“We thought the 30th anniversary of Virtual Insanity was the perfect moment to finally set Jay Kay free from that little white room,”
Now, 30 years later, we kinda know what Jamiroquai was reaching for, off cam- a glass of zero-alcohol gin!
Beefeater orchestrated his ‘freedom’ to promote their 0.0 drink. This time- the floor does move! In fact, the production team built nine practical sets (and found more hats) so ‘Jay Kay’ really does go beyond. They also want to point out that the production eschewed AI & CGI, instead “relying on in-camera choreography, set design and performance.”
It’s a fun (and well executed) riff on something three decades old, and I suppose it works for the TG that’s very much from Jamiroquai-land.
*Confession- I never really took to the video or the song back then, something about it just…. irritated me. So I would flip channels, and there was no Youtube to go check it out more ‘academically’, if one were so inclined. But years later I did acknowledge it was a cool little video with some very smart moves.
Directed by Julien & Quentin · Production Magna Studios · Producer John Bannister ·
· Agency Lucky Generals · CCO Tad Greenough ·
➕Quick Hits
The new-ish Disney CEO has been pushing the concept of ‘One Disney’- it is for not just kids and superheroes but adults and sports too. This is less alien to those of us in Asia (no sports though!), but it will take some doing to have it seen as a universal destination, especially in the US.
Major record labels have called for AI songs to be disqualified from Global Charts. They’d like only ‘primarily human made’ songs, and any AI-generated tracks included only if the AI use is authorized, lawful, with no issues around fraud or chart manipulation.
Here’s a tasty look at all the Emmy nominated Titles. I love titles.
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