Culture
Alexander Skarsgård Plays Mr. Charm So Well The Rolling Stones Are Now His Backing Band
By Bruno Von Falken, . BSN Network. Satire.
The Rolling Stones, a band that has spent sixty years being the most magnetic thing in any room they enter, released a music video this week for 'Mr. Charm,' the lead single from their new album 'Foreign Tongues,' and in a creative decision that will be studied in film schools the way generals study Waterloo, they cast Alexander Skarsgård.
Skarsgård, who is six foot four, Swedish, and has cheekbones that appear to have been commissioned by a Renaissance patron with very specific instructions, plays the titular Mr. Charm. He does this without apparent effort, which is the problem.
Mick Jagger, who invented rock-and-roll magnetism in a converted pub in 1963 and has been running on the fumes of that achievement ever since, appears in the video for approximately forty-five seconds. He is seen in profile. He is wearing a coat. He is moving away from the camera.
Keith Richards is present in the sense that Keith Richards is always present, the way a very distinguished piece of driftwood is present on a beach: technically there, atmospherically significant, not going to win a stare-off with a Scandinavian actor.
Director Francesca Cilio, who is presumably still employed, told a Swedish entertainment outlet that working with Skarsgård was 'a profound experience in understanding light.' She did not elaborate. She did not need to.
Skarsgård himself, reached by a journalist who described the encounter as 'briefly destabilising,' said the song resonated with him on a personal level. 'There is something in the melody that feels ancient,' he said, 'like a memory of something you never actually experienced but feel you deserved.' He then apparently tilted his head slightly and the journalist filed the quote without a follow-up question.
The album 'Foreign Tongues' was recorded over eighteen months across studios in London, New York, and the South of France, which is an itinerary that costs a remarkable amount of money to produce what is, at its core, a video in which the world's most famous rock band watches a tall blond man lean against a wall and feel things.
Fans of the Stones have responded with the particular warmth of people who have decided this was the plan all along. 'It makes sense,' wrote one commenter, with no further explanation, attracting fourteen hundred likes.
Jagger has not publicly commented on the video, the casting, or the critical consensus that the most arresting thing in the frame is a man he hired. His Instagram this week featured a photograph of a sunrise.
The Rolling Stones resume their Foreign Tongues tour in March. Alexander Skarsgård is not on the bill, which is going to be a logistical relief for everyone involved and an aesthetic problem they will notice immediately.
The story we are making fun of: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/alexander-skarsgard-the-rolling-stones-mr-charm-music-video-1235635756/