Before I Forget

Slipknot is my favorite band of all time. One of my favorite song is Before I Forget from their newest album, which is their best video for its artistic approach. Most of their other videos are a little crazy and hard to follow, but I like this one because of its simplicity. Normally, Slipknot wears masks when they perform such as a mutilated clown face or a pig face or a sort of Hannibal Lector mask. They are well-known for these masks, but in the Before I Forget video they are not wearing them. I think its a great idea to show the masks hanging by themselves and never showing the artists face. Here all the band members are wearing all black in a white room, possibly symbolizing their outcast state in society to most people because they do not accept a band as crazy as Slipknot.

I also believe the weird masks are really a way to show what's on the inside. I mean everyone has faces but when do they ever show what or how we feel on the inside. Maybe some people can read emotions in faces, but you cannot tell the real character or thoughts going through a persons head. The masks that Slipknot wears are a way to express what is going on inside of them. For instance, Corey Taylors zombie mask shows he feels dead on the inside. Joey Jordison's ancestral Japanese mask shows his stolid and calm self inside. Mick Thompson's Hannibal Lector mask shows his need of restraint of the insane person inside. To show the artists without a mask brings them back to being human, but the fact that they are still in the video creates the feeling that no matter what's on the outside the person on the same stays the same.