Watch Mark Ronson, Kevin Parker’s Summery New Two-Song Video
Mark Ronson and Tame Impala‘s Kevin Parker bring hints of summer in the middle of winter with their hazy clip for the pair’s two Uptown Special collaborations, “Summer Breaking” and “Daffodils,” both of which feature lyrics by novelist Michael Chabon.
Theo Wenner — who has photographed Adele, Miley Cyrus, Keith Richards and others for Rolling Stone — directed the colorful retro video. Model and Snapchat personality Sarah McDaniel, recently featured on the cover of Playboy‘s first non-nude issue, stars in the video, which finds her character on vacation with her family. She runs off to explore with a boy she meets, and as the whimsical “Summer Breaking” transitions into the funkier “Daffodils,” day turns into night, and she spends time dancing with kids on a basketball court.
“This video is something that Mark and I have been discussing on and off for a year prior to making it,” Theo Wenner says of the clip. “It came about in a very abstract way. We had long conversations just about color and times of day. I had it in my head the whole time that we should set it in the tropics. That’s the place, those are the colors that I pictured listening to the two songs.”
Ronson released Uptown Special in January 2015, while Tame Impala debuted Currents in July. Ronson recently joined his “Uptown Funk” collaborator Bruno Mars at the Super Bowl halftime show, which also starred Beyoncé and Coldplay. Parker’s “New Person, Same Old Mistakes” off Currents was covered by Rihanna on her long-awaited eighth LP, Anti.
“‘Summer Breaking’ is probably my personal favorite on Uptown Special,” Ronson told Rolling Stone. “And seeing as Kevin and Tame Impala are so hot right now, we thought we could really make the most of this ‘hotness’ by making a video for not one but two of his songs from Uptown Special, ‘Summer Breaking’ and ‘Daffodils.’ Theo Wenner made a beautiful video that really captures (and goes beyond) what we were envisioning when Michael Chabon wrote those haunting lyrics.”