Dance Your Pain Away

At 10 am BST today (almost three hours ago as I write this) Agnetha Fältskog’s new video ‘Dance Your Pain Away’ was to debut on YouTube.

In June a competition was held through Agnetha’s website, Facebook page and Twitter. Fans were invited to submit videos of themselves dancing to ‘Dance Your Pain Away’. The ten clips that attracted the most votes would be included in the official music video.

Surprisingly the clip was actually online several hours before the anticipated launch time, which led to many hours of discussion among fans online. As it was not on Agnetha’s established YouTube or Vevo channel, it was widely supposed to be fake.

Finally launch time rolled around and the clip was announced to the world on Agnetha’s various online presences. It was indeed the clip that had been online and discussed. Fans everywhere have since been complaining about the quality of the clip ever since. They are expressing their outrage at this insult to Agnetha’s legacy (to paraphrase some of the hyperbole), ignoring the fact that Agnetha has final approval on every aspect of her comeback.

Having watched the clip a few times now, and getting over the initial shock, the biggest problem is the attempted insertion of Agnetha into the clip. Opening and closing with the single sleeve, with multiple stills of Agnetha flashing across the screen, and seemingly random inserts of Agnetha’s appearance at Stockholm Pride last week actually cheapen and detract from the rest of the clip, with people joyously dancing to Agnetha’s music.

Judge for yourself.