Calvin Harris recently released the music video for his latest single, “Outside,” featuring Ellie Goulding. “Outside” is one of the fifteen songs off his newest album, Motion, and it’s one of my personal favorites for its catchy beat and lyrics. The music video, on the other hand, is not as good. Granted, all EDM music videos can be a little weird and hard to understand. I suppose I’ll just have to put this music video into that category.
“Outside” is the second music video in which you see both Calvin Harris and Ellie Goulding as the key actors, the first being “Need Your Love” by Calvin Harris. In this video, Ellie Goulding is seen kneeling outside what looks like a picture-perfect neighborhood, singing the words to the song in anguish. The music video cuts between her singing and snippets of two relationships; Ellie’s and Calvin’s. Both relationships seem doomed, as they both progressively get worse with fighting and throwing objects. At one point towards the end, time stops, and I’m not sure what it’s supposed to mean.
The music video overall is a little confusing and hard to understand. I’m not sure why Ellie Goulding and Calvin Harris wear the same outfits when they are acting as miserable people in separate, doomed relationships. I’m also not sure why a motorcycle stops above Ellie Goulding’s head as she’s singing. There’s a lot that is hard to get about this music video, which is why I’m not the biggest fan of it. There’s also this weird editing error where Ellie’s hand goes through the wheel of the motorcycle frozen above her. It’s a small detail, but I noticed it, so it can’t be that small, right? I’ll give the video credit for synchronizing the drops in the song with important parts of the music video; that was pretty cool.
On a whole other note, the song itself is a hit. The drops are fun to jam to and the beat is catchy enough that you’ll want to blast this song in your car when you hear it on the radio. It’s a fun beat to dance and sing along to, just like all other Calvin Harris songs. I think Ellie Goulding’s unique, soft voice was a perfect match for this song and I love how it all came together. The lyrics are also the type of EDM lyrics that have meaning and will have you singing them even when you aren’t listening to the song. Ellie sings things like, “Myself was never enough for me / We did everything right / So, you give me no reason / For me to stay close to you” and it’s just so easy to tell what this song is about. For all you doubters of EDM lyrics with sentiment out there, take a look at the lyrics to this song.
Calvin Harris did a great job creating another hit single with a popular artist that everyone will love if they don’t already. I just wish the music video had lived up to the song. It’s not memorable, unique, or particularly relevant to the lyrics and should have been easier to understand if there is some underlying meaning to the video. It could have been a lot better and frankly, I’m disappointed.