Arcade Fire use HTML5 to create interactive music experience

“Imma” let you finish Kanye, but Arcade Fire have the best video of ALL TIME!

If Kanye West wants to interrupt anyone for any reason at this year’s MTV awards then it should be over Arcade Fire’s latest video for “The Wilderness Downtown”.

It’s a refreshingly different way of creating a music video, utilising some pretty slick web technology such as HTML 5, Google maps API, and a mash up between the two, including 3D tree rendering on the maps, and a flock of birds flying from window to window.

I like it because it’s not a traditional video in any sense and, more importantly, it’s not a traditional website. It doesn’t follow any of the web standards that we are so used to seeing.

Yes, it’s not the nicest design in terms of the window pop ups, but I like it for that; it’s honest and it’s really more about how the site interacts with the user. The relevancy of the technology to the song makes the video a complete experience; the song is about childhood so you are asked to enter the town in which you grew up in, which then becomes part of the video.

I’d really like to see more like this on the web and hope that this inspires designers and developers (and even marketers willing to take the risk!) to break free of the current website formulas and really utilise the web to its full potential; creating truly dynamic pieces of work.

There are many HTML5 examples out there but this is bringing the technology to a different audience. If you know of any other sites that really break the mould then let us know in the comments section!

(Oh, and if the Kanye reference is lost on you, take a look at this YouTube video.)