About Drop Nineteens
Drop Nineteens is an influential American shoegaze band whose listeners contributed personal archive footage for a collaborative music video.
Visit Drop Nineteens →About Wharf Cat Records
Wharf Cat Records is a Greenpoint, Brooklyn-based independent label supporting artists across eras, places and genres. It partnered with Drop Nineteens to invite listeners into the production of the official “Kick the Tragedy” video.
Visit Wharf Cat Records →Project overview
Client: Wharf Cat Records
Project: Kick the Tragedy official music video
Type: Music video
Summary:
Wharf Cat Records wanted to create an official video for one of Drop Nineteens’ best-loved songs using footage contributed by the people who had lived with it for more than 30 years.
The label needed a simple way to collect original video files from fans across the world without relying on email attachments, social-media downloads or a patchwork of file-transfer links.
Vloggi provided one upload destination where contributors could submit footage directly from their devices. Each clip arrived in a central project library ready for the production team to review, organize and download.
The campaign attracted 3,964 page views and collected 241 video clips from contributors across North America, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and beyond.
At a glance
241
fan-submitted clips
30
years since release
45
countries
Context
How the reunited shoegaze band turned footage from listeners around the world into a deeply human music video
Kick The Tragedy is “The apotheosis of shoegaze”
A cult shoegaze classic finally gets an official video
That depth of feeling helps explain why the first official video for the song could never be a conventional, polished music promo. “Kick the Tragedy” had already become something personal to its listeners — a song attached to memory, longing, youth and nostalgia. One commenter even described the finished video as “a love letter to a generation.”
So when Wharf Cat Records and Drop Nineteens set out to create an official video, they chose an approach that matched the song’s legacy. Using Vloggi, they invited fans around the world to submit footage from their own lives. The result was a crowdsourced official video built from 241 clips, turning a shoegaze masterpiece into a shared visual memory.
The challenge
A DIY idea still needs a workable production process
Asking fans to send video sounds simple. Receiving hundreds of usable files from contributors around the world is rather less so.
Without a dedicated submission system, footage can arrive through email, direct messages, cloud folders and temporary transfer links. Files become separated from contributor details. Social platforms compress the originals. Permissions are unclear and production teams spend more time administering clips than editing them.
Wharf Cat Records needed:
- one public upload link for the campaign
- a mobile-friendly submission process
- no app or contributor account requirement
- original video files suitable for editing
- contributor information attached to each submission
- permissions captured as part of the upload
- a central library for reviewing all footage
- a simple way to download selected clips for production
The creative concept was deliberately DIY. The collection process could not afford to be makeshift.
Wider context
When a song belongs partly to its listeners
Some music campaigns ask fans to promote a release. This one asked them to help make it.
“Kick The Tragedy” had existed without an official video for more than three decades. During that time, listeners had attached their own places, relationships and memories to the track.
Crowdsourcing allowed the video to reflect that history. Instead of imposing a single visual interpretation, the band assembled hundreds of fragments of real life: landscapes, streets, journeys, friendships, celebrations and private moments.
The result feels less like a conventional promotional video and more like a collective memory set to music.
But fan content only works when the rights are clear.
Vloggi helps labels, artists and entertainment companies collect real fan video through a controlled workflow, capturing the context and permissions needed to turn submissions into usable campaign assets.
READ MORE ABOUT AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION VIDEOSThe solution
One global call-out, one organized video library
Wharf Cat Records created a dedicated Vloggi submission project for the video.
The workflow
Fans followed a shared link and uploaded footage directly from their phones or computers. They did not need to install an app or create a Vloggi account.
Every submission entered the same central library, where the production team could view clips, identify contributors and download the original files for editing. The platform also recorded the permissions required for the footage to be used in the finished video.
Vloggi’s map view showed the geographic reach of the campaign as submissions arrived from across the United States, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and other parts of the world.
The result
241 fragments of real life became one official video
The finished “Kick The Tragedy” video is built almost entirely from the experiences of the band’s listeners.
Some clips are cinematic. Others are domestic, spontaneous or imperfect. Together, they give the ten-minute song a visual scale that no single film crew could easily reproduce.
The response beneath the official video shows that viewers recognized the difference. Comments describe it as “the most authentic music video this platform has ever seen” and praise the way it captures “the nature of the human experience”. One contributor identified the precise moment her footage appeared: fireworks carrying her grandmother’s ashes, now permanently connected to one of her favorite songs.
In their words
“We’re a DIY record label and we wanted a DIY music video. Vloggi was the only platform we found that made that easy.”
Greg Ackell
Drop Nineteens
