Just in time for an upcoming 50th anniversary, Bob Dylan's immortal 1965 anthem Like a Rolling Stone finally has an official music video. The best part about it is that you have input in how it plays out.
The interactive video flips through 16 separate channels, each of them featuring a clip from a show lip-synched to the lyrics. Everything from The Price is Right to the History Channel to a child's cartoon to even Bob Dylan himself singing the song live in 1966 turns up in the reel.
Director Vania Heymann says in an interview with Mashable that the video was created to simulate the feeling of channel surfing.
"I'm using the medium of television to look back right at us — you're flipping yourself to death with switching channels [in real life]."
It's a fun little experience, but it's little more than a passing moment in the long history of this legendary song. More of a gimmick from the modern streaming media age than an official music video, really. The lip-synching is spot on, and the effort it took to make this is obvious, though.
What's best about it though, besides Drew Carey singing along, is that nobody will ever see the same music video twice, and nobody can replicate the same music you just saw, unless you just don't touch anything.
More channels will be added to the video as time goes on.
The music video is released to coincide with a 47 CD collection called The Complete Album Collection Volume 1, featuring Dylan's 35 studio albums and several live albums. Two CDs contain rare material. Dylan is currently touring in Europe.
