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Lazer Beam

"Lazer Beam"
Sfa-lazerbeam.jpg
Single by Super Furry Animals
from the album Love Kraft
Released 15 August 2005
Format Digipak CD, 7"
Genre Alternative rock, indie rock, funk
Length 4:55 (Album version)
3:36 (Radio edit)
Label Epic
Songwriter(s) Super Furry Animals
Producer(s) Mario Caldato Jr, Super Furry Animals
Super Furry Animals singles chronology
"The Man Don't Give a Fuck"
(2003)
"Lazer Beam"
(2005)
"Show Your Hand"
(2007)
"The Man Don't Give a Fuck"
(2003)
"Lazer Beam"
(2005)
"Show Your Hand"
(2007)

"Lazer Beam" is a single by Super Furry Animals. It was the only single to be released from the Love Kraft album and reached #28 in the UK Singles Chart. The song is "about making your own reality" and tells the story of aliens coming down to earth to shoot humans with laser beams which "make them intelligent rather than being jerks". Some of singer Gruff Rhys's lyrics were lifted from a speech made by Tony Blair at the Labour Party Conference in 2004.

Although critical response to the track was mostly positive, with some journalists hailing "Lazer Beam" as a "return to form", some reviews were scathing with the NME even going so far as to call it "the worst Furries song ever" in their review of 2007's Hey Venus!

Two music videos were produced to accompany the song's release as a single. The first, directed by Palumbo & Coch, features a fluorescent cityscape with the band and a monster with their 'SFA' logo, appearing between the translucent buildings while the second, directed by Aurelien and Florian Marrel, features a fictional sideways-scrolling arcade beat 'em up in the style of Metal Slug and Michael Jackson's Moonwalker.

In a 2005 interview with The Big Issue Gruff Rhys claimed that some of the lyrics to the song are based on Tony Blair's speech at the Labour Party Conference in 2004, in particular his opening line 'a radical new vision is needed': "I've nicked that wholesale, but I am offering a radical new vision whereas he wasn't. He was offering a 19th century imperialist vision and "Lazer Beam" offers an end to Hollywood romantic comedies and imperial colonialist bastards". According to guitarist Huw Bunford the song is "about making your own reality": "Today's reality is insane so we may as well make our own. It's about aliens coming down from space and zapping humans with amazing lazer beams that make them intelligent rather than being jerks. It's obviously a highly unlikely scenario".


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Wikipedia

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