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My Reaction to Palaye Royale's "Dying in a Hot Tub" Music Video

As you may or may not know, I got into a few new bands in 2018. Palaye Royale was one of them and they quickly beat out Panic! at the Disco as my favorite band. Which is saying a lot because Panic! has been my favorite band for the past ten years.

I did a Kinda Review of Palaye Royale's album Boom Boom Room (Side B) in October, which was kindly shared by the band on their Twitter which I appreciate so much.

Today, I'm writing about the music video for their song, "Dying in a Hot Tub". It finally came out and as I mentioned in the Kinda Review post, I really love this song. I'm pretty sure"Dying in a  Hot Tub" has been my most played song from Boom Boom Room (Side B).
As I have said, Palaye Royale fully encompasses my aesthetic and this video was no exception. I watched the video a few times so this is no longer a reaction and more like a review. But to keep my blog organized, I am not changing the title.

The video opens with a logo similar to the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer logo. You know, the movie logo with the lion that roars. I love music video openings like this. An opening card is always good, in my opinion. You see the band sitting in a bathtub with fake waves moving below them which represents a body of water or the "hot tub" in this case. The fake waves, fake backdrop and the closing curtain towards the end make me wonder if that's part of the narrative. It's set up like a school play. Obviously, if the band wanted it to look real, they would have done the video differently so I think this decision is deliberate. I don't quite fully understand why. I have not looked into any fan theories.

When the band started playing, it reminded me of old Queen music videos when it's just the band on a sound stage putting on a performance. I just thought I'd throw that in.

I don't know the meaning behind the video. I will say the aesthetic is on point. I enjoy that with the lyrics "You're a dinosaur today / Then you're an astronaut tomorrow / You're a spaceman in the Milky Way" you see a dinosaur and astronaut toy in the water and you see Sebastian lying on a bed floating on the water and he's wearing a helmet that I assume is an astronaut's helmet.

I love the floating beds. I don't know why I just love it. It adds a certain beauty to the video. That is the only way I can describe it.

You saw Emerson jump into the water after a coin. Then you see Remington and Sebastian go in after him to try and save him. They try to swim out of the water, but they fail. You see one of them reach towards the camera but miss it. That is either them trying to get out, or them trying to get something from the water. Maybe the coin? But I'm not here to theorize.

You see them die in the water. Or at least they've lost consciousness. You see bubbles, which obviously they could have put in a cut where there were no bubbles, so I think this decision signifies that they took their last breaths. The song is called "Dying in a Hot Tub". It makes sense.

Then you see the curtain close as a "The End", but it's not, because you see some unknown figure pull them out of the water. This person remains unknown. We, the audience, never see their face, but this band is too smart for that person to not be a metaphor for something.

The closing image of the whole video is Emerson's hat floating in the water. It's a nice final shot.

The video was shot beautifully, especially the water shots. The director did a tremendous job with this video.

It's a video I have fallen in love with and one I would rank in my top 100. And that's saying something because I am a huge nerd for music videos.

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