“My imagination’s too creative,” sings Ariana Grande in “in my head”, the fourth single to drop from thank u, next, hinting at why the video might be so pared down. Directed by Bardia Zeinali, it puts Grande, wearing a distinctive puffer jacket from NY label AREA, in a lightbox – the fisheye lenses and bright white saturated backdrop giving us 90s Hype Williams videos meets Jonathan Glazer for Jamiroquai.
Except for Grande’s trademark thigh high boots and ponytail (at points in the video, she suddenly disappears, leaving these behind in her place), the nostalgic R&B aesthetic is not what we were expecting, but Zeinali is never one for the expected – his contrarian and ironic humour is what has earned him a reputation as the guy that made fashion videos funny.
A pop videographer, admired by everyone from Paris Hilton to Pat McGrath, Zeinali’s work blends of high and low culture, as he told Lil Miquela for Dazed Beauty: “I absolutely do not believe in ‘guilty’ pleasures! I hate that term. If something *sparks joy* you shouldn’t feel any guilt or shame!”
Zeinali started out making Britney tribute videos on his Windows PC as a kid, and as an adult, scored a job as Vogue’s visual content creator, before going freelance as a director. Zeinali was the brains behind Troye Sivan’s soft and floral video for “Bloom”, the black and white visuals for Shawn Mendes’s video “If I Can’t Have You” and the camp hotel-room-voyeur concept in Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Party For One”.
“in my head” premiered on Vogue today. Watch it below.
