Hey, King! - ＂Beautiful＂

What this video is

Released January 25, 2021, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, 'Beautiful' by Hey, King! functions as both a personal document and a cultural artifact of pandemic escapism. The band — real-life couple Natalie London and Taylor Plecity — self-directed the video as a road-trip adventure filmed outdoors during a period of lockdown and collective uncertainty. The production philosophy rejected studio artifice…

Why it matters

Represents the 2020s wave of self-produced, artist-driven indie-rock videos that dissolved the line between band and director. Hey, King!'s anthemic sound — compared by critics to Arcade Fire and Sufjan Stevens — channeled emotional catharsis through accessible road-trip imagery, reinforcing the…

The director

Natalie London is a Canadian songwriter, vocalist, and multi-instrumentalist. Taylor Plecity is a Tucson, AZ-based vocalist, percussionist, actor, and filmmaker. Together they form the indie-rock duo Hey, King!, signed to ANTI- Records. Plecity has a…