Kevin Bronson on July 8th, 2020

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We’re not sure it was their desired effect, but Silversun Pickups’ new video for “Toy Soldiers” puts one thought at the forefront of our mind: What really happened with Martika, the Cuban-American child actress-turned pop sensation who had a No. 1 hit at age 19, collaborated with Prince on her second album and walked away from the music industry at age 22?

“Toy Soldiers” was Martika’s breakout hit, and SSPU chose to re-imagine it while “thinking about songs from the ’80s that we loved growing up, that had a big radio moment and [were] part of our cultural DNA,” frontman Brian Aubert says of the tune, which was made with Butch Vig, who produced the L.A. quartet’s 2019 album “Widow’s Weeds.”

“This version doesn’t feel bombastic and over-the-top; it’s crackling and tiny at times,” Aubert says. “Butch really helped with this. I don’t think I’ve ever sung this intimately before. The guitar solo during it was very important to me, and we quickly realized that the solo worked during that time period, but not when we did it. We threw in a curve ball, some weird things, inspired by Johnny Greenwood. We put our weird stamp on it and it really came together.”

The video for the song, directed by Claire Marie Vogel and animator Aaron Hymes, captures the pandemic-era vibe. “Creating a video from a distance makes for many limitations, but I love how limitations can shape an idea,” Vogel says. “The song’s melancholy nature and the sense of isolation permeating the world right now were both very influential when writing the treatment. The video we made speaks to that collective sense of yearning and disconnection many of us are experiencing.”

As for Martika, the singer has said in interviews promoting occasional nostalgia tours that her retirement was a case of “too much too soon.” Surely there’s a longer story to be told.

||| Watch: The video for “Toy Soldiers”