Even if Gwen Stefani’s recent single “Spark the Fire” is a little repetitive, it comes to life in the colorful blend of animation and reality that characterizes its music video. Stefani floats into the frame on an adorable cartoon cloud, high above a candy-colored animated world. Her lyrics pop up in text message bubbles with emoji-like icons illustrating the love, energy and fire of which she sings.
Pharrell, who produced the track, said the song is about feminism, though the lyrics only briefly touch upon “balanc[ing] the scales.” The video’s brand of feminism seems to consist of bringing together a bunch of attractive dancers dressed in L.A.M.B., burning down the club with confidence. It’s a start, at least.
On the whole — aside from a few moments of comically conspicuous product placement — it’s not only a rousing three minutes, but it also makes a compelling case for Gwen Stefani’s face to be added to the set of new emojis for Unicode 8.0.
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