‘Waydown’ Revisits Issue: What Comes First, Video or Song?

It’s a pretty safe bet that airlines won’t be featuring the Catherine Wheel’s “Waydown” as their in-flight video. The English band’s 3 1/2-minute video features a plane crash in progress, depicting the panic and terror of passengers as they face their last moments inside the plummeting fuselage.

Following a loud explosion, a child cries and clutches her doll, a man sweats and clutches his chest and an unnervingly saccharine flight attendant mechanically demonstrates safety instructions. The dread escalates from there.

Meanwhile, the camera intermittently focuses on singer Rob Dickinson’s diabolical smile as he screams, “I’m on my way down!”

“Waydown” is as good as psychological terror gets in video-land. The clip, directed by Mark Pellington (who did Pearl Jam’s “Jeremy”), is clever, manipulative, well executed and shockingly scary. While some may argue it’s in bad taste, it’s undeniably an attention-getter.

It’s difficult at this point to tell to what degree the band’s music and Pellington’s evocation of our worst fears have contributed to the success of “Waydown,” which has become a hit on college/alternative-rock radio.

The record’s massive guitar noise and disturbed vocals are powerful, but the song doesn’t have nearly the impact of the video. While the song is somewhat memorable, the video is indelible.

The “Waydown” duality is the latest manifestation of the chicken-or-the-egg argument that’s been going on since videos first emerged: What exactly is it that’s appealing to the pop audience, the image or the music?

Though videos started out as lame appendages that often dated and dragged down the songs, the tables turned as technology and artistic ambitions advanced. There’s no doubt that videos are now the colorful packaging that’s crucial to the selling of a song. But what happens to a band’s value when the director’s ideas are more innovative than the actual song?

The tunes still become hits, but the band is like a secondary entity in the equation. Basically, instead of song and video coexisting, the video wears the song.

Consider “California,” a dull song by the band Wax that received wide notoriety due to a brilliant video by Spike Jonze that featured a man walking casually down the street on fire.

Another video by Jonze, for Weezer, used a less painful but equally successful method of grabbing attention. The sugary single “Buddy Holly” was spruced up by splicing the band into an old episode of “Happy Days,” complete with footage of the Fonz dancing. There’s no way Weezer would have been half as popular as it is without the aid of that video.

In a case like Catherine Wheel’s though, the competent band (which plays at the Hollywood Grand on Aug. 12) may end up competing with its more inspired video.

“Even though the video is making such an impact, I think the integrity of the band still shines through,” says Catherine Wheel’s Dickinson. “The attack and the mad rush of the music goes hand-in-hand with the visuals. It’s so closely related, it seems inseparable.

“If people get off on the video, they’re gonna get off on the song, and vice versa. I don’t see how it can be any other way. There’s not much else we could have done for this song that would have been so perfect.”