Last year, the Philly-based indie artist Shamir released one of the best albums of 2020 and its lead single “On My Own” was also one of the year’s best songs. Today, the prolific songwriter is back with a quirky music video for another song from that record, “Diet”.
Although Shamir released four singles prior to that self-titled album, which was his second full-length of 2020, “Diet” was not one of them. However, after the record came out in October, it had quite an impact on Shamir’s fanbase and is currently the most popular song on his Spotify page.
For the track’s music video, Shamir and his co-director Christina Thompson headed out into “vivid and beautiful nature” to capture the singer in front of various seasonal settings. From a snowy forest and a picturesque body of water, to a cozy fireplace and a loaded dinner table, Shamir remains coy and consistently well-dressed as he sings along in every scene.
In a statement, Shamir explained that he didn’t expect “Diet” to take off the way that it did and that he never anticipated having to film a video for it, especially considering its dark subject matter:
“The origin of the song is pretty dark, taking inspiration from the film ‘My Friend Dahmer’. But the deeper meaning of the song is less about the gore or even Jeffrey Dahmer and more about the battle we all have with our darker urges and/or neurosis that tend to appear during our adolescence/pubescent years and how that plays a part in developing our moral compass. The video was filmed in different locations around Lake Tahoe in my home state of Nevada.”
Check out the full video for “Diet” below.
Outside of gracing our end of the year coverage, Shamir was also the guest in the inaugural episode of our podcast series Going There. During his chat with Dr. Mike Friedman, Shamir opened up about living with bipolar disorder, how challenging it can be to feel out of control of your body, and how his mental illness intersects with his career as a musician and label owner. Listen to the episode here, or below.
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