Spot works hard and plays hard. In its latest video, Boston Dynamics’ quadrupedal workhorse invokes the Jagger swagger in tribute to the 40th anniversary of The Rolling Stones’ Tattoo You album. “Spot Me Up” finds a quartet of Spot robots doing their best to mimic the 1981 “Start Me Up” music video.
Viral videos, of course, have been an important marketing tool for Boston Dynamics for years now — and the feats have only become more impressive as the robots have grown more sophisticated. The Stones, too, have had their dalliances with tech marketing. In fact, the band licensed “Start Me Up” for a well-known Windows 95 campaign in the mid-90s, when selling songs to corporate commercials wasn’t the ubiquitous activity it is these days.
The split screen finds the robots doing their thing as the video plays, with the Stones at peak spandex form (RIP Charlie Watts, always the best dressed of the bunch). The track “Start Me Up” reportedly took The Stones six hours to record — no word on how long it took to choreograph the Rolling Spots, though, as we’ve seen, a lot goes into a minute and a half video, moves like Jagger or no.
The video drops during a time of increased scrutiny of autonomous robotic systems.