Originally a YouTuber from Alabama, 23-year-old Ricky Dillon has now created a strong presence for himself in the music industry. Earlier this year, he released his first EP titled RPD (his initials), which was a huge success amongst his online audience of 2.5 million YouTube subscribers and 2.1 million Twitter followers. Today marks the release of the music video for Ricky’s new single “BEAT.”
The first thing I noticed as soon as I watched this music video was the video’s high production value. The viewer can instantly tell that a lot of hard work was put into this video, all the way from the carefully choreographed dance routines to Ricky’s various highly detailed outfits. Seemingly shot in just two or three long takes, the video has a black and gold color theme to it, which was very captivating and intriguing as well. Overall, the production quality of this video is excellent, and I highly commend Ricky for putting a significant and notable amount of effort into his work.
By far, my favorite part of the song “BEAT” is the chorus, in which Ricky sings, “Bass comes in like bump bump bum bum / Trumpets go up like bump bump bum bum / Harmonies in like bump bump bum bum / Everybody sing loud, rumpa bum bum.” As a whole, the track is extremely catchy, and the beat is definitely something I can see myself dancing to in any setting. While Ricky does not execute any extremely outstanding or shocking vocals on this track, he does a great job with his harmonies. The harmonies on this track layer perfectly together and add to the track’s overall dominance and slightly haunting vibe.
One editing flaw that I noticed occurs in the last scene, in which Ricky leads a 12-piece marching band. While almost everyone is marching to the powerful beat of the song, the male dancer in the front row to the right of Ricky is walking out of time. In my opinion, if I were the director, I would have reshot this sequence to make sure everyone was moving in sync. Furthermore, some of Ricky’s dancing throughout the music video is slightly stiff and awkward, but considering he is not a dancer, he did a fairly good job.
Overall, “BEAT” is an extremely fun electro-pop song with a music video that matches it perfectly. Ricky commands the screen throughout the video, and the viewer simply cannot take their eyes off of him. He is a natural in front of the camera, which is one of the reasons why I believe that this music video is going to be extremely popular.