Glitz and Gloom: Exposing Music’s Dark Side for JADE ‘Angel of My Dreams’

“To me it felt like a Christmas choir… then a drug dealer shows up.” 

‘Angel of My Dreams’, former Little Mix member JADE’s solo debut, surges between emotional ballad and heavy club beats – a chaotic reflection of the singer’s love-hate relationship with a pop industry that’s simultaneously aspirational and deeply toxic. It’s matched by an equally turbulent music video from Pulse Films director Aube Perrie (Harry Styles ‘Music for a Sushi Restaurant’, ‘Satellite’; Megan Thee Stallion ‘Thot Shit’; The Hives ‘Bogus Operandi’).

The music video — which was teased months prior to its premiere in Fontaines D.C. ‘Starbuster’, also directed by Aube — is a manic montage of a glamorous superstar’s rise and fall, reminiscent of a messy ‘00s celebrity hounded by ever-hungry paparazzi. The music industry, personified in the larger-than-life villain ‘M’, continually abandons JADE for newer versions of her, setting off a Stockholm syndrome dynamic between a big dreamer and a cutthroat industry that sees talent as a disposable money-maker.

It’s a true feat of filmmaking down to the last detail: the mouth movements of JADE singing as a child appear to match up with the lyrics of the song; what first seems to be her own anguished scream transforms into the excited shrieks of fans; and a chair (being used as a weapon by one JADE to whack another iteration of her round the head) bounces off the ground perfectly on beat.

To learn more about the making of the music video, LBB’s Zara Naseer spoke to Aube.

LBB> How did you first get involved in ‘Angel of My Dreams’, and what brief were you given?

Aube> JADE's team reached out back in November 2023, no brief but a short description of the album and the song, pointing out a couple key lyrics. The lyrics honestly make it a brief though, JADE's love/hate relationship with the entertainment industry and her own real story. Lyrics fun to play with are always very exciting, where to go from there was kept totally open which made it even better. The track itself was the most inspiring brief, this felt like a grand classic pop song, greatly reminding me of some No Doubt/Gwen Stefani or Britney, that was also bringing something different, some sort of fun soft nightcore vibe. I also felt this needed a hostile take-over. 

LBB> The song itself is so different from one part to the next. How did you reflect that journey and storytelling in the video?

Aube> That’s what’s great about it. To me it felt like a Christmas choir… then a drug dealer shows up. So to speak. 

It has this very special storytelling within the musical structure, whilst still feeling like a proper old-school pop piece in the best way possible. I loved that grand classic pop song feeling, so my first intention was to not add anything on top of it and just go for the song-only video personal pleasure, but very quickly extra layers would force themselves naturally on me, finding their natural habitat within the story, like the aggressive paparazzi mayhem moment before the pre-chorus kicks in. [There was] a visual natural order of things for the video living alongside its existing musical structure, like a symbiotic parasite of the track. It felt like the song didn’t care, for the best of course, about mistreating or shocking the listener, so we played with that even more, really giving a tone that I would describe as ‘paparazzi-like’. We kept this idea in the way we approached edit, sound design, and grade. [I] wanted it to feel aggressive, reality TV, invasive, trashy, intrusive, with a British grit, in the most pleasurable way.

LBB> What was JADE like to collaborate with and how involved was she in the creative process for the music video? How did you elicit the best performance from her?

Aube> It’s been fantastic. I wanted this to be a piece that would never be self-censored with anything and JADE was very very on board for this. She made sure very early on I would be totally hands free and kept giving her absolute trust on everything. Any door was wide open to make the very best video we could. I could always bring something up, like connecting her debut world with the ‘Starburster’-verse for example, and teasing her video three months in advance inside our Fontaines D.C. video… she would be up for that in a minute. Directing JADE was just as fantastic, she created that super easy-going relationship because that’s who she is, and pushing her performance was never a one-way thing, we were both extremely on board to do just that.

LBB> You and JADE have both established distinctive creative styles. How did you merge the two to create a visually cohesive experience?

Aube> The tone and aesthetic that I personally dreamt to give to this video was really immediately obvious as soon as I heard the track, an iconic pop journey blended with a very reality TV paparazzi-like aggressive approach that we talked about earlier. I think I was just extremely lucky that it connected with JADE right away. I think we both grew around many similar references that we profoundly love and it just clicked very easily. I was genuinely very into it, I think we both were.

LBB> What were the main challenges you faced when making ‘Angel of My Dreams’ and how did you overcome them?

Aube> Finding a chair that had good rhythm enough to bounce on the ground, perfectly choreographed to the music. The chair pulled it all off.

LBB> What are you most proud of in the finished product?

Aube> Ticket man, bouncing off a pile of trash to punish the driving rascals through a great deal of tickets. 

LBB> What can audiences expect to see next from you?

Aube> Something involving a subway, an orange and a breakbeat track that I love dearly, releasing in about two weeks.