Imagine Dragons' 'Radioactive' Video: Empowerment, Lou Diamond Phillips-Style

Imagine Dragons' new "Radioactive" video features gratuitous puppet-on-puppet violence, ominous Old World scenery and, uh, Lou Diamond Phillips ... none of which have anything to do with the song itself, but all of which automatically make it one of the oddest clips of the year. Which was exactly what the band was going for.

"We read through a ton of scripts from really talented directors, and we came across one that stood out to us in particular, because it put into visuals the general theme of the song, which is kind of an empowering song about an awakening, but it did it in a way that was very different," frontman Dan Reynolds told. "A lot of people probably see a post-apocalyptic world when they hear 'Radioactive,' understandably, but we wanted to deliver something that was maybe a little different from that ... a lot different from that."

Different indeed. The Dragons shot the clip in Upstate New York, just before Hurricane Sandy swept through to the south — "It's sinister out," Reynolds said, "which is fitting for the video" — and though, on set, things were getting plenty dark, the song still managed to shine through ... mostly because, despite all its doomy trappings, it is first and foremost an anthem of empowerment.

" 'Radioactive,' to me, it's very masculine, powerful-sounding song, and the lyrics behind it, there's a lot of personal story behind it, but generally speaking, it's a song about having an awakening; kind of waking up one day and deciding to do something new, and see life in a fresh way," Reynolds explained. "A lot of people hear it in a dark way, but, I think, without saying the word too many times, it's empowering, and so we wanted to display that in a way that the listener wouldn't see normally."

And, after seeing the finished product, we can't help but agree with him.

What do you think of Imagine Dragons' 'Radioactive' video? Let us know in the comments below.