280-Plus Clips for 273 Songs: Madrid's Mike Sain't Louis Explains the Rules Behind His Music Videos

Madrid, October 25, 2026.

Do the math and something odd turns up: Mike Sain't Louis has released 273 singles and more than 280 music videos. There are more videos than songs. Some tracks, in other words, got a second visual life, because at some point the artist decided that one version on screen wasn't enough. "That's not the usual thing," he writes. "Normally a song gets its video and that's it, if it's lucky."

The Madrid-based indie alternative artist, who presents himself as "the first AI singer-songwriter," directs every one of those videos. In a new post on his blog, titled (in Spanish) "More than 280 music videos later: the criteria I use to think up a video," he skips the step-by-step technique, which he says keeps changing anyway, and focuses on something more durable: the handful of questions he asks before starting and the ones he asks when something isn't working.

Rule one: don't explain the song

The first rule is the one he finds hardest to keep. When a lyric tells a story, the temptation is to film it shot by shot. The video becomes a translation of the words, and a literal translation, he argues, is almost always redundant. "The person is already hearing the story," he writes. "If they also see it told the same way, they get bored or, worse, they feel you're treating them as if they hadn't understood."

What he wants instead is for the video to add something: a tone, a contrast, a detail the lyric leaves out. Sometimes he manages it. Other times he realizes halfway through that he's just illustrating, and he stops.

A recent change to his website helped. Every song now has its own page, with the video and the full lyrics side by side. Anyone who wants the words can read them in full, so the video is free to go somewhere else.

Tone comes first

His songs mix humor and hurt, with a good dose of camp and a touch of copla, the dramatic Spanish song tradition. A title like "La vecina cotilla" (roughly, "The Nosy Neighbor") calls for one thing; a song about an ex who still hurts calls for another, even if both are full of jokes. Before picturing a single image, he asks what temperature the song is at: is it for laughing, for laughing a little and then going quiet, or for going quiet altogether?

"If I get that wrong, nothing else saves it," he says. He has watched videos of his own with beautiful images that still felt off, and the reason was nearly always the same. "The video was going one way and the song another. Like two people in the same room not talking to each other."

What TikTok taught him

Plenty of listeners found him through "Tan Cateto," which went viral on TikTok in 2024. That taught him how much the opening seconds weigh. Not every video needs a shock at the start. But the first moments have to make clear what the piece is about, even if only through atmosphere. "Someone scrolling with their thumb decides very fast."

At the same time, a full music video has to hold up to the end, which demands that something change from beginning to finish. He admits he doesn't always reconcile those two demands. Shorts, which he makes by the hundreds, solve part of the problem: there he can keep the punch and forget the rest.

Why some songs get two videos

The extra videos weren't a plan. Some songs, once the first video was finished, left him feeling there was another possible reading, "not better or worse, just different." He wonders whether that is generosity or indecision and suspects it's a bit of both. Making a second video is a way of not choosing, he concedes, and choosing is the part of the craft that shows the most.

One planet, many neighborhoods

With more than 280 videos, the risk is the same as with any long series: either everything looks too alike or nothing looks related. He wants someone who watches three of his videos in a row to feel they come from the same place. That place has a name, PLANETA GAYFOLK, and the idea of a planet helps: somewhere with its own rules, climate and people.

Inside that planet there's room for very different neighborhoods. "La primera drag" and "Mi novio de Albacete" don't need to live on the same street, he writes. What they must share is a gaze: a way of treating his characters with affection even while laughing at them.

Directing means throwing things out

"Directing is mostly discarding," he says. It's the same habit he applies when producing music with artificial intelligence tools: decide, discard, choose. Most of what occurs to him never reaches the final cut, and he's fine with that. A video with all his ideas in it would be a disaster.

Why it matters to American audiences

For U.S. viewers raised on the music video as an art form and now scrolling short clips, his notes offer a rare look at how a fully independent artist thinks about images at scale, without a label behind him. His work is written for Europe and Latin America, but his songs come in Spanish and also in English, French and Portuguese.

Mike Sain't Louis writes all of his lyrics. The music and the vocal performance are generated with artificial intelligence, which he uses as a production and arranging tool under his own artistic direction.

Where to watch and listen

The full post, in Spanish, is at https://mikesaintlouis.com/blog/mas-de-380-videoclips-despues-los-criterios-con-los-que-pienso-un-vide. Every song, with its video and full lyrics, can be streamed and downloaded for free at https://mikesaintlouis.com. His music is also on Spotify, Deezer and other major platforms.

About Mike Sain't Louis

Mike Sain't Louis is a Madrid-based indie alternative artist who calls himself "the first AI singer-songwriter." He is a lyricist, composer and music producer, as well as artistic director and CEO of his own independent label, MIKE SAIN'T LOUIS. Over roughly two years he built PLANETA GAYFOLK: 273 singles, more than 280 videos and the GAYFOLK trilogy, a three-album journey to a planet where everyone can live as they are. His queer alternative pop runs from electropop to copla and ballads, uncensored and full of humor. Working with professional support, he turns years of relationships with narcissistic partners into songs, so that survivors of psychological abuse feel seen and believed.

Press contact

Email: info@mikesaintlouis.com Website: https://mikesaintlouis.com Instagram: @planetagayfolk