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Music

Avicii's "Waiting for Love" Is the World's First 360 Degree Interactive Music Video

Viewers get to pick their own camera angles.

Swedish house sensation Avicii released the new single "Waiting for Love" off his upcoming sophomore album Stories via a quaint animated lyric video last week, but the official clip for the song is a touch more ambitious. Avicii has taken advantage of Youtube's new 360 degree interactive video support to present the world's first fully interactive music video.

"Waiting for Love" is an ambitiously choreographed sequence featuring dancers moving in and out of doors situated in a circle around the central camera hub. It's smartly staged so you don't catch everything in one viewing; while you're trained on one set of dancers there's another doing something extravagant just out of frame. You might not even notice its brief cameo from the artist himself for all the fuss. Viewers adjust their point of view using an on-screen directional pad a lot like what's used in Google Maps. The arrangement rewards repeat plays.

The tech is promising, but use is limited for now to Youtube's six Space locations in New York, Los Angeles, London, Berlin, Tokyo and São Paulo. As such, "Waiting for Love" feels like more of a commercial for the tech than a fully realized work of its own; as cool as the dance moves are, the ever-present blockiness of the studio they're filmed in can be a formidable distraction.

Avicii's Stories is expected later on this year.