A kung fu fighter in a disco

But "understatement as intense emoting" only works if the intense emoting manages to get evoked, which usually has to do with timing in the midst of a maelstrom or something, but NO is classic Symbol Stands In For The Effect for me, symbolizing understatement where actually nothing is being stated. Thing is, you've got strong dance beats, and then the voice comes on like a wet blanket. I can't get past that, and I don't see why anyone should. I do like "True Faith" where the surrounding sound makes the vocals effectively funereal (or effectively irrelevant, though I do think the melody is important, so I guess they're not irrelevant). What you say about Ian represented by the skeleton makes theoretical sense but does diddly for the music.