OK Go

OK Go is an Alternative Rock/Power Pop band. The band formed in 1998, and have gone from being an also-ran in the early 2000's "Return of Rock" that also spawned The Strokes and The White Stripes to being internationally famous for their inventive music videos which are often complex, shot in one take and on a low budget.

Their most recognized song is "Here it Goes Again", famous for the music video where the four members performed a choreographed dance over several sets of treadmills (see right). More recently, "This Too Shall Pass" gained a degree of notoriety thanks to its Rube Goldberg machine video.

The group currently resides in Los Angeles, California.

The band's albums are:

• OK Go (2002)
• Oh No (2005)
• Of the Blue Colour of the Sky (2010)
• Hungry Ghosts (2014)

Their videos include:

• "Get Over It" (2002)
• "A Million Ways" (2005)
• "Invincible" (2006)
• "Here It Goes Again" (2006)
• "Do What You Want" (2006)
  • An alternate video for "Do What You Want" was shot before the better known one, largely comprising of footage from their tour.
• "WTF?" (2009)
  • official commentary video
• "This Too Shall Pass" (2010):
  • Marching band version
  • Rube Goldberg Machine version
• "End Love" (2010)
• "White Knuckles" (2010)
• "Last Leaf" (2011)
• "All Is Not Lost" (2011)
• "The Muppet Show Theme" (2011)
• "Needing/Getting" (2012)
• "Skyscrapers" (2012)
• "The Writing's On The Wall" (2014)
• "I Won't Let You Go" (2014)

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OK Go provides examples of the following tropes:

• Adorkable: The entire band.
• Bald of Awesome: Tim. This, along with his glasses and handlebar mustache have become something of a signature look for him.
• Black Sheep Hit: Their first major hit was "Get Over It" which is much different than their other material
• Blatant Lies: In "Oh Lately It's So Quiet" there's a lyric "I don't think much about you anymore"... even though the entire song is him wondering what his ex is up to.
• Bow Ties Are Cool: The band members wear them in several videos.
• Call Back: One of the sample messages for their interactive video for "All Is Not Lost" is "Let it go, this too shall pass."
• Color Coded for Your Convenience:
  • End Love:
    • Tim: pink/orange (?)
    • Damian: yellow
    • Andy: red
    • Dan: blue
  • This Too Shall Pass:
    • Tim: red
    • Damian: blue
    • Dan: green (get it?)
    • Andy: yellow
  • "Needing/Getting", same color scheme as "This Too Shall Pass".
  • The booklet for Of The Blue Color Of The Sky. Each track represents a different color in the various graphs.
  • Their whole video for Sesame Street. Well it is meant to be teaching kids about the Three Primary Colors.
• Dream Team: Lead singer Damian Kulash recorded 6 songs with Amanda Palmer, Ben Folds and Neil Gaiman in 2011 as 8 in 8^[1].
  • "Tomorrow's Supergroup today."
• Dream Within a Dream: The ending of the Muppet Show Theme video.
• Everything Is an Instrument: Toyed with briefly in the second video for "This Too Shall Pass", but taken Up to Eleven in the video for "Needing/Getting", in which the song is played by a car driving on a rally course, with various appendages attached to strike different instruments and objects as it passes by.
• Mythology Gag: In their video for the cover of The Muppet Show Theme Song, they have Animal holding up Dan during the sequence where the Muppets are using the band like puppets.
  • It also has a shot of the band on treadmills, though not lined up in the same setup as "Here it Goes Again".
• New Sound Album: Of The Blue Colour of The Sky is a lot more electronic and down-tempo than their previous sound.
• No Budget / Off-the-Shelf FX: The guys take special pride in using cheap things like furniture from Ikea ("White Knuckles") or gaffer's tape and things found at the 99 cents store ("WTF") in their videos.
• The Oner: The music videos for "A Million Ways", "Here It Goes Again", "WTF?", "This Too Shall Pass"^[2], "White Knuckles", "I Won't Let You Go"; they're masters at this technique.
• Product Placement: Many of the inventive music videos that have made the group famous were underwritten by different sponsors, most notably the Chevy Sonic featured in the "Needing/Getting" video. Since the sponsors tend to lay off on the Executive Meddling and just let OK Go do their thing, this is arguably one of the more positive examples of the trope.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: Bunny, Damian's dog, who has been featured in their videos, "White Knuckles" and "The Muppet Show Theme Song" and is Surprised Dog on youtube.
• Rube Goldberg Device: in their "This Too Shall Pass" music video.
• Stuff Blowing Up: "Invincible".

1. ↑ They were trying to make 8 songs in 8 hours, but ended up doing 6 in 12.
2. ↑ The second, more famous video does feature two post-production cuts to help the video synch up to the song, but the contraption was really run all the way through on the take used.