Nick Cianci's "Goodnight, and Happy Birthday!" video explores our grittier tendencies when struggling with loneliness
In January, Brooklyn’s Nick Cianci put out his first single since the release of his 2018 EP, High Fidelity Depressed. “Goodnight, and Happy Birthday!” depicts a birthday party, narrated by an anxiety-ridden protagonist who just desperately wants both to be alone and not lonely. The scope of the music video amplifies these fears and personifies them, with a gristly twist.
Cianci rallied together a star-studded cast for this project. Maya Hawke (Stranger Things 3), Camrus Johnson (Batwoman, The OA), and indie rocker Samia all play prominent roles in telling the story of what happens when you can watch your fears take shape in front of you, and when you stop caring when they do.
Hawke plays an anxious young woman who appears to have one foot in her life, and one foot in a compulsion. She is shown going through seemingly innocuous every day motions, with flashes of what seems to be her anxiety, personified, dancing around her, pulling her into uncomfortable and potentially dangerous situations. Hawke is unfazed when envisioning stepping in front of a subway car, and she’s unfazed when she begins to see things that she shouldn’t.
Samia is this anxiety - a blood-covered figure, taunting Hawke to step outside of herself and let go of the loneliness. Johnson and Cianci also embody these “other” roles, both comforting her in the realization that she isn’t alone, and shocking the viewer by their very existence. Johnson’s character is back from the dead, someone Hawke has missed. They dance together in a gut-wrenchingly romantic way while the off-kilter frames flash between the couple dancing and Hawke dancing alone. Cianci is a clown, a final, deranged push towards accepting that you can be alone with your demons without letting them hurt you.
Cianci has seen a tremendous amount of success following the release of “Goodnight, and Happy Birthday!” and the follow up single, “The Night We Crashed Your Dad’s Car.” Since then he has opened shows for Adam Melchor, Van Williams, SONTALK, and toured as a guitarist for NYC indie acts Samia and Del Water Gap.