The Writing's on the Wall (OK Go song)

"The Writing's on the Wall" is an alternative rock and pop rock song. OK Go frontman Damian Kulash said "The Writing's on the Wall" was written around "that moment in a relationship when you realize it’s coming to an end and that it’s inevitable", where there is the "feeling of having something coalesce and fall apart, like chaos and order". The song lasts three minutes and thirty-five seconds. The arrangement of the mix consists of two heavily distorted bass guitars and drums, which producer Dave Fridmann described as "very standard". The band spent a lot of time working on the bass parts sounding distorted, which were re-tracked with a Music Man StingRay. Fridmann said "it was fun to track a live band because it was highly unusual for that session. We just knew that on this song, having them play together was the best way to tell whether our ideas were working." ==Music video==

, in which the illusion of the floating triangles made up from painted surfaces, is achieved by viewing from a specific vantage point. The four-minute video is shot in a single take using a hand-held Panasonic Lumix DMC-GH4 camera mounted in a stabilizing Fig Rig frame, moved about by members of OK Go and assistants through a warehouse with about 28 stations consisting of everyday objects mounted on supports, clothing worn by the band, and painted walls and floors of the warehouse in specific arrangements. All the illusions were created by the camera shots, without the use of any post-processing special effects. The warehouse set was located in Bedford–Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, where the band lived during the setup and filming of the video. During testing, they found that some concepts required fine tuning, such as positioning an apparent pile of junk as to resemble band member Tim Nordwind's face at the right angle without losing the fact that the junk was still made from common household objects. Within a week of its premiere, the video had received over 7 million views on YouTube. The video won the award for Best Visual Effects at the 2014 MTV Video Music Awards. ==Release and reception==

The band released "The Writing's on the Wall" alongside three other songs as the Upside Out EP on June 17, 2014, as a teaser for Hungry Ghosts. while Chris Conaton of Popmatters called it "catchy, with a compelling vocal performance from Damien Kulash and a strong lyrical premise". "Writing's on the Wall" debuted at the top position of Billboard's US Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles chart, an extension to the Billboard Hot 100, The song was featured in The Amazing Spider-Man 2. ==Impact==

Apple Inc. used a similar video concept in their September 2014 keynote announcing the iPhone 6. The band has accused Apple of stealing its concept for the video, stating that they had previously gone to the computer company to obtain promotional funding for the band's video but the company turned them down. The band further contends that afterwards, Apple hired 1st Ave Machine and the same director they had used to make Apple's video. The band is exploring legal options to move forward. OK Go was hired by the Chinese furniture company Red Star Macalline to create a video advertisement using similar single-take filming and optical illusion techniques as used in the video for "The Writing's on the Wall"; the music uses a mix of another song from the Hungry Ghosts album, "I Won't Let You Down". ==Chart positions==