It’s been a silly week for music videos whose musical vibe don’t quite mesh with the chosen visuals (looking at you, Billie Eilish), and leading the pack is Miss Lipa, going all wild wild west. In a hotel lobby. With an egg. And clowns, for some reason. I’m not sure what it is with all the dead-eyed singers these days, but I miss the naughty sparkle in the eyes the best pop divas used to have – Whitney, Mariah, Celine, down to the Britney contingent. Was it the coke? Was that just Whitney? Anyway. Dua always gives good pouty face, and Future Nostalgia is such a banging party album all throughout, it’s hard to hate. Love the song, but she’s had way better music videos.
You Should Be Sad – Halsey
I’m going to give Halsey props for the shout-out to the original queen of the country-pop crossover – Shania Twain – but that’s about as close to authentic country as You Should Be Sad can visually get, banjos bedamned. It’s probably not on purpose – clearly she’s just borrowing (appropriation? gasp!) a theme here, and the song is cute, but it’s pretty much girl gets mad at loser ex-BF and decides to go writhe on the floor of a barn because, I don’t know, boobs. Or something.
Don’t Tell Me – Madonna
Yes, rounding this off with another one from the vault, because the 90s was the golden age of the music video, and yes, I am willing to die on this hill. Don’t Tell Me is a stripped down, earthy, modern take on cowboys, bucking broncs and the rugged terrain of the American West – a stylized encapsulation of exactly what it is that makes this bit of Americana so instantly recognizable. With nothing but plaid, dirty jeans and a giant belt buckle, Madonna did it first, and did it better. Maybe I’m just biased. Maybe I’m just an old. It’s probably both, but hey, I choose my choice!
Eeeee! He’s back! Can you name any currently active male singer who is as unafraid to embrace the cheese of a nostalgic R&B vibe as Bruno Mars? Because I can’t. I thought Versace on the Floor was it and we’d never get anything as good or better, but this was an immediate jam for me. Even though the music certainly alludes to some clothes coming off a little later, no one gets unclothed in this video. It is perfection. After all the boobs and butts and twerking and stripper poles and gangsters and trap, it is so very nice to have a little Bruno Mars in our lives again. Adele once called him the best vocalist she’s ever heard, and the woman did not lie. With an equally mischievous Anderson .Paak – bringing the extra wink wink, nudge nudge in their new joint project, Silk Sonic – this, ladies and gentlemen, is foreplay for your ears. So smooth, so sexy and oh so naughty.
I’m trying to keep from thinking about the e-mail my neighbourhood Shoppers Drug Mart just sent. One of their employees just tested positive for the COVID-19 virus last Thursday, the very day I had to go in for some female things. Ugh. My anxiety levels are high, and I’m distracting myself with YouTube videos featuring themes of prison, jail, cages, being trapped, etc., etc. I’m not sure if it’s really helping, but it’s this, or escapist videos of beautiful lives and butterflies, and I do love a timely theme, so let’s start off with an angry, incarcerated cry for help in the form of…
They Don’t Care About Us – Michael Jackson
The prison version of They Don’t Care About Us is lesser known than the one set in a Brazilian favela, and came with a disclaimer, because not only was the song (and its lyrics) controversial at the time, so was the imagery of human rights abuses.
Michael Jackson was a true creative genius who used the chaos of his personal life to fuel his creative output. His songs of love, isolation, hate and injustice still ring true, decades after he first came out with them, and his vision was always prescient (also see: Earth Song). It’s a shame his legacy has been left so tarnished.
The Sweet Escape – Gwen Stefani
Now why does this look familiar? Oh, yes. Do you know anyone working from home right now, complaining about how life is so hard, they’re going to need therapy when all this is over? What about the ones going “we needed this” from the safety of their own homes, secure in the knowledge that they don’t necessarily have to go out to earn a livelihood? This video is for you. Here’s Gwen Stefani in the bougiest gilded cage known to man, singing about how she yearns to be free, while us poors putting ourselves at risk look on, wanting to kick her in the tits. I know, I sound bitter (and really, that’s not what song is about, lol). But like I told someone earlier this week, if you’re happy and not in any way, shape or form endangered by homeless crack addicts at the moment, I’m not interested in hearing “we needed this” from you.
Telephone – Lady Gaga (feat. Beyonce)
Speaking of we needed this, Lady Gaga’s Telephone (featuring Beyonce) is arguably the music video that established her as a musician with a definite point of view – she was going to be weird, she was going to be out there, she was going to be seen, godamnit – and she wasn’t going to be cheap about it. I’d argue that Gaga injected some much needed energy into the (then) fading music video landscape with this short film masquerading as a music video. It was a throwback to the glory days when music videos that had stories to tell ruled the airwaves, and you can bet Beyonce never allowed herself to be this upstaged ever again.
Jailhouse Rock – Elvis Presley
“Number forty-seven said to number three, you’re the cutest jailbird I ever did see, I sure would be delighted with your company, come on and do the Jailhouse Rock with me…” Homo-erotic? Scandalous? For 1957, this is a big fat yes. I never really saw what about those hips made the girls scream and quake and throw their underwear, but I saw parts of Preseley’s leather-clad comeback in HBO’s The Searcher, and finally, finally got it. He ruled for a reason. Elvis Presley in his prime was hot.
I started this post with the King of Pop, and I’m ending it with the original King of Pop – you didn’t think I was going to leave out The King, did you? Elvis Presley is in the building with those wicked, wicked hips of his, singing about having yourself some good old fun in the clinker. And we should take note of his advice. After all, if we can’t find a way to amuse ourselves right now, we’re going to go nuts.
It must’ve been the depressing strangeness of the past week, because I found myself recalling the over-the-top insanity that was Aqua when they first started. Barbie Girl, that crazy, life-in-plastic single, was everywhere. Their songs were like Covid-19 – horribly catchy. Aqua released earworms that dug their way into your brain and refused to die. The way my brain works is that it reminds me of the stupidest and most random music videos at the weirdest times, so I found myself grinning ear to ear when I remembered (and found!) the music video for…
Dr. Jones – Aqua
For their debut album, Aqua always had the hokiest, Halloweeniest music videos. The themes and cheesy backdrops were set to insidiously happy, earwormy dance pop that could only have come out of mid-90s Scandinavia. “Presented in Aquascope,” they did Mattel, they did pirates, they did astronauts, and here, they do the jungle safari. Naturally, that made me want to cut a path through the jungle, and who did it better than…
Roar – Katy Perry
Katy Perry is the logical successor to Aqua in terms of music videos; she never goes for the subtle if she can help it. But the girl does commit. When she’s in, she’s all the way in, from the props to the lousy acting, all the way to the inevitably happy, triumphant end.
Anaconda – Nicki Minaj
Speaking of triumphant ends, Nicki Minaj is here to help you find yours. While she flaunts hers. Everybody wins! This really should’ve just been called ASS because who can even see the jungle for all the jiggling butt cheeks in your face? It’s practically softcore porn, but let’s just pretend it’s a rap video, enjoy the, er, scenery, and forget we ever saw Drake, shall we?
Waiting for Tonight – Jennifer Lopez
Social distance? What social distance? How do you celebrate the turn of the millennium? By having a rave. In the jungle (or is it a rainforest? I can’t tell). With lasers. As we do. I’ll say this for La Lopez, it’s been twenty years and God knows how many sacrificial virgins, the woman hasn’t aged all that much. She had it then, and she still has it now. She’ll probably always have it, and very soon my patron saint of aging will probably change from Jane Fonda to Jennifer Lopez.
It takes a lot of guts to do confessional type music videos, ones where they allow the camera to focus on them and nothing but. There are no distractions, no costume changes, no choreography or hairography. It feels like close-up music videos are having a small moment, so without further ado let’s start with Selena Gomez and the blind item that is her music video for…
Lose You to Love Me – Selena Gomez (2019)
Oh, the shit that got stirred when Selena released this three days ago, mere weeks after famous ex Justin Bieber married someone who wasn’t her. The op-eds on who she was singing about flew fast and fierce hours after this video showed up on YouTube. How could they not? The moment Selena sang “in two months, you replaced us”, Buzzfeed, Cosmopolitan, and Elle scrambled over themselves to remind us that two months after their last official break-up, Justin Bieber had moved on with model Hailey Bieber, whom he married for the second time this year. It’s not the first time she’s alluded to how difficult the Justin Bieber era of her life has been through song, but as crazy as that part of her love life has been, at least she knows enough to mine it for all it’s worth. In the video, Selena is no longer the sad, self-hating mess in The Heart Wants What it Wants. Here she’s a little bit older and a little bit wiser, shaken, not stirred. It’s an admirable effort, but the true vulnerability that’s required when you do close-up videos like this one is missing.
Memories – Maroon 5 (2019)
Maroon 5 has a way of releasing catchy little earworms, singles that wriggle their way into your ears and never seem to leave. You’ll find yourself singing or humming along to their releases almost as soon as you hear it the first time. We’ve only just driven out last year’s Girls Like You from our collective psyche, and now they’re back again with Memories, Maroon 5’s ode to their recently departed manager. The band knows enough to entrust their frontman with the heavy lifting when it comes to their visuals, and he’s has always been more than happy to acquiesce. Here, Adam Levine meets us head-on with nothing but lush, fully grown-in beard and body art. As a statement, it’s braver than Selena’s – Adam Levine’s take seems less concerned with looking pretty than it is with working through his issues and moving on. That’s what I like about Adam Levine – he seems so comfortable in his own skin, he’s able to just sit there in nothing but his birthday suit and even in grief, put on a show. As the camera moves slowly farther away from the Maroon 5 frontman, a little part of me can’t help wondering if we’ll see a surprise dad bod, but it stops just short of showing us everything we want to see.
Nothing Compares 2U – Sinead O’Connor (1990)
Everyone knows the late – and sorely missed – Prince wrote Nothing Compares 2U. Die-hard enthusiasts like to cite the song as an example of how prolific Prince really was – enough to be able to practically give away a hit with nary a second thought, he wrote it under an hour for a side project. It’s likely he never intended Nothing Compares 2U to be anything other than a throwaway song inspired by missing his housekeeper. Then along came Sinead O’Connor, huge doe eyes swimming in tears, features as starkly beautiful as her interpretation, her version a miserable wail of longing and loss. Apart from a few seconds of random, scene-setting scenery, it’s five minutes of staring at nothing but Sinead, and not once do we want to look away from her or her anguish. A testament to her sheer pull as a budding artist, the video for Nothing Compares 2U is arguably the precursor to all the close-up music videos that have come after it. It set the template for how to do it, and while there have been a few of note (see Radiohead), none have come close to capturing lightning in a bottle the way this music video did. It was, and is, an unforgettable visual that deserved all the awards it won in 1990, the year Nothing Compares 2U was released.
Who doesn’t love country music? I adore songs that tell stories of love and heartbreak and longing, and sometimes I turn to country pop when I find myself facing the relative wasteland of today’s current pop offerings. While the country and pop divide is easily breached, rap and country isn’t always as smooth. I’ve never been that big a fan of rap, but sometimes the subversive marriage of country and rap actually works and works well.
Old Town Road – Lil Nas X feat. Billy Ray Cyrus
Old Town Road has been everywhere for the past couple of months, and for good reason. It has a catchy hook that digs its claws into your eardrums and won’t let go. The video goes all in, cheekily celebrating everything that makes country country, presenting it with the unmistakable beats of hip-hop. Witness the hats, the fringe, the sparkly denim, even that white moneybag with a dollar sign on it straight out of some B-movie about a robbery. An enjoyably campy video with Lil Nas X doing the cowboy shuffle to a different beat, Old Town Road embraces everything that screams country cowboy, including a cameo from Billy Ray Cyrus, owner of the achiest, breakiest heart on the yee-haw circuit.
Over and Over – Nelly feat. Tim McGraw
Can you name anyone who can rock a cowboy hat as well as Tim McGraw? It’s almost as if the man was born to wear one and imbue it with effortless cool.
Speaking of effortless cool, who doesn’t love Nelly at his catchiest, most earwormish best? His music video for Ride Wit Me has one of the best visuals for contemporary country you’re bound to see, but I chose Over and Over because I love the vocal stylings of McGraw layered over Nelly’s smoothly laid out hooks and the way the video explores the differences in cultures even further. Check out Nelly’s urban bachelor’s pad and Tim McGraw’s rustic country cabin/McMansion in classic split-screen goodness that heightens the juxtaposition of rap and country. This single and its video will always be one of my favourite Top 40 offerings. You wouldn’t think the marriage of rap and country would work out as smoothly as this one does, but here it works and it works quite well.
Wild Wild West – Will Smith feat. Dru Hill, Kool Moe Dee & Sisqo
Someone on Twitter reminded me of this particular Will Smith offering. It’s got the hallmarks of a high profile music video event down pat, from the elaborately choreographed dance numbers, multiple collaborative artists and the celebrity cameos liberally dropped in all over the place. While the single is pure pop-rap, the video itself is country – with a futuristic bent that toes but not quite oversteps the boundaries of steampunk – going all on in with leather vests, cowboy hats, an elaborate saloon and saucy corsets and petticoats.
It was 1999, and no one did this to intentionally be “woke.” People weren’t necessarily interested in force-feeding us political-correctness as if we’re ducks and they want foie gras, which is what it sometimes feels like these days. Wild Wild West gets points for doing it just because the concept seemed like a cool thing to explore creatively. Also, it doesn’t look like it was made in 1999 – if a person didn’t know better, it could’ve been made in the past few years.
Sadly, the actual movie (a movie that Will Smith turned down the role of Neo in The Matrix for) turned out to be a bloated, ridiculous mess. Oh well. We can’t have everything.
While robots in music videos is no longer an original theme, it’s always interesting when done right, and there’s a couple new music videos floating around out there that have pretty good visuals, starting with…
365 – Zedd (feat. Katy Perry)
When Taylor Swift came out in 2017 to address her haters with a music video featuring her as an all powerful android, it made quite the splash. Not to be outdone, here’s Tay-tay’s arch-rival with her own version of redundant robot in her collaboration with current hot property Zedd. I say redundant because she isn’t just a Stepford girlfriend, she’s a robot Stepford girlfriend which of course is too much of a good thing. Katy Perry is not known for her subtlety, but she does work hard to ensure the music videos she puts out are at least visually striking. While Taylor’s version was more Ghost in the Shell meets Westworld, 365 draws heavily from Black Mirror, with the mega DJ as a pretty believable human foil.
Nights Like This – Kehlani (feat. Ty Dolla Sign)
February was a good month for robot things, what with Alita: Battle Angel, the previous music video and Kehlani also releasing a music video with a robotic theme. Technology and how it runs our lives has been a running theme since the nineties gave way to the millennium. Maybe it’s a reflection of the increasing disconnect we as a society feel from the everyday. Like 365, Nights Like This also borrows heavily from a Black Mirror-esque plotline.
All is Full of Love – Bjork
Bjorks All is Full of Love was released in 1999, and yet it’s as strikingly modern today as it was twenty years ago. Watching it then felt like being witness to a major breakthrough in visuals. I’ve read enough Vice articles on how wacko the dating world has become with all the dating apps out there, so watching it now in this day and age makes it seem almost prophetic, because this is what human interaction has become, now that we are all well and truly plugged into the matrix. Directed by Chris Cunningham (who also gave us Madonna’s Frozen), All is Full of Love is still the best music video featuring robots (and robot sex) out there, bar none.
ps. that said, my favourite robotic music video is Garbage’s The World is Not Enough, which I loved then, and still love now, although it may not have aged as well as Bjork’s oeuvre.
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