When you take Meg Myers to the disco as her album drops this summer, make sure you don’t fucking touch her without asking. Pro tip: This advice also applies to everyone, everywhere, in any given situation.
Myers has released the video for her lead single “Numb” — from her forthcoming record, due out July 20 via 300 Entertainment — and it rips society a new one. Dealing directly with the constant poking and prodding women experience on the daily, Myers erupts with a fury directed at the pushiness of both her record label and society.
“The song is about how I was feeling when my record company was looking for something out of me that just didn’t feel right for many reasons,” Myers says. “I was frustrated and it came through in this song. I discovered that this feeling was something I’ve experienced my whole life and decided to look within and confront it. I wanted the video to make the viewer experience this uncomfortable feeling.”
We’re not all signed to record labels, but we, as women, are all subject to the same routine bullshit, which conjures up an unfortunate sense of relatability in the video.
For the person on the receiving end, unwanted physical contact is always very blatant — and disrespectful, and intrusive, to name a few — but to the outside world, the attention often becomes an invisible touch, completely normalized or otherwise unnoticed. The video for “Numb” aims to spell out the inappropriate behavior in neon lights, highlighting everything from frisking to hair-touching, often at the same time.
Music video director Clara Aranovich echoes Myers’ sentiment and message with clips that hone in on the building discomfort.
“In ‘Numb’ I interpret Meg’s sentiment as one of desperate pleading for space, for room to exist quietly and at her own pace in a culture that insists on so much of her and for her as a female,” Aronavich adds. “As I listened to the track on repeat I just couldn’t wrest my thoughts from a dance piece by Pina Bausch in which a woman is continually touched and measured by a mass of men in suits. So I decided to write an homage narrative that expands from Bausch’s conceit but that turns away from a purely gender-based backbone to a broader, societal one.”
Dive into Myers’ immersive unease below.
Featured photo by Brantley Gutierrez.