Here It Goes Again

OK Go have worked out how to be remarkable.

Their first big success was “A Million Ways” which, thanks to a video made and released without permission from their label, was the most downloaded music video at that time:

And, “Here It Goes Again”, featuring an awesome treadmill performance, is one of the all-time most popular internet videos:

So, how do you follow up hits like that?

With even better videos, it would seem.

First:

Then:

However, I think these are very unlikely to be bigger hits.

Look at the progression - the first video was amature in an appealing way (you could imagine the fun they had making it), the second video had just enough polish without looking over produced (you could aspire to have made it yourself), but the last videos looks like they belong on MTV rather than YouTube.

Also, a funky video from these guys is not news, so it’s much less likely to be viral. “Dog bites man” is not news. “Man bites dog” is news. But, “Man bites dog a second time” is a much smaller story.

What do you think?