Kanye West premiers awesome video for his new single, "Power"

Actually, he would prefer if we called it a "painting," which I refuse to do, but isn't necessarily as off-base as you might imagine. After last night's episode of The Jersey Shore, we were treated to a short clip of the video to West's new single, "Power", which was directed by multimedia artist Marco Brambilla. West's been gaining points with me for a while now — he doesn't seem any more humble, but he does seem less obnoxious and is able to laugh at himself more. (I've said it once, I'll say it again: his Twitter feed. Follow it.)

So even though he casts himself as the godly figure in the center of this video "painting," I have to give him credit. Because this thing looks awesome. Part Renaissance painting, part orgy, part 300 homage:

Can I take a moment here to say that I really believe that music videos are having a very good moment, right now? Not all of them, obviously, but some very big artists seem to be taking chances and going for more unusual and striking imagery much more then they were a few years ago. Yes, of course Lady Gaga is one of them, but she's certainly not all. Just check out this video for Jay-Z's "On to the Next One", which came out early this year:

Are there dancing girls and fancy cars? Yes, but they're sandwiched in between references to Keith Herring and Damien Hirst, which makes things much more interesting. Bring on the weird, cool videos, people! We've been waiting.

Via Vulture.