Yavin’s pop tends to speak in colors. The icy teal of his single “Bitter” gave us shivers, a lusty shade of pink for “Hot” mimicked a blush, and these days, his palette brims with Crayola-loud hues of red, yellow, and blue. It’s the kind of festive color combo you’d find under the big top — because for his newest music video, the Boston singer is sending in the clowns.
But we’ve surveyed the landscape, and a costume-clad Yavin is the only damn clown in sight. Befuddled onlooker and featured artist Michael Christmas can confirm it.
In his music video for “Dumb.” (released yesterday, June 23), Yavin sports his perceived “true colors” as a boyfriend, as he romps around the Red Line and the Boston Public Garden. After a fictional failed proposal in the vid, Yavin literally commits to playing the fool.
“I tend to live in my own little world sometimes,” Yavin explains. “I’m easily distracted, I can get absorbed by my work at any given moment, and the consequences of that can impact everyone else around me which obviously isn’t very fair. I tell my partner that I love him every day, but what is that worth if I’m not showing it?”
The video effortlessly taps in to today’s pop trends: Shameless camp and self-deprecating humor. Yavin’s lyrics explicitly speak to his self-doubt (“How the fuck have I not been replaced?” is a choice jab), but his concerns spring to life in the video’s bumbling-but-adorable narrative, captured by videographer Colin Pagnoni.
“I come from a theatre background and took part in a lot of campy shows along with being inspired by the Sara Bareilles’ and Ingrid Michaelsons of the world, who always attack their music with a certain level of wit, so my music just tends to come from that place even if it’s centered in a place of pain and vulnerability,” Yavin shares with Vanyaland.
Michael Christmas spits a few brazen bars before the videos pans to both men sitting on a park bench, brown-paper-bagging a few bottles of wine.
“He’s another artist who just has a natural wit to him so he just felt like a perfect fit — and he didn’t disappoint,” Yavin says of the Boston rapper. “When he originally sent me his verse he had a million different takes of improvised lines that had me cackling as me and Dephrase — engineer and co-producer — sifted through which takes to keep.”
If Yavin’s bringing the tragedy, then Christmas is serving up the comedy. “Dumb.” is “theater kid” energy personified — and frankly, no bungled relationship can burst that kind of bubblegum pop.
Grab a ticket to Yavin’s one-man circus below.