To me, 2001 feels like yesterday, not a space odyssey. If nothing else makes you feel old today, check out these younguns and their music video homages. So nice of them to respect their elders! And to think millennials get so much flak.
Lost in Japan – Shawn Mendes feat. Zedd
Confession: I barely remember Lost in Translation. This is a solid effort, but will Shawn Mendes’ fanbase even get the reference? It’s likely they’ll think it’s just him having fun doing Japanese karaoke, even with that total giveaway of a title. Hell, it took me about a minute into the vid to realize what I was seeing, but I’m like, old, so what do I know?
Fancy – Iggy Azalea feat. Charli XCX
Unlike Shawn Mendes’ ode to Sofia Coppola, Iggy’s oeuvre is pretty clear from the get-go. It technically shouldn’t be included in this post because the movie came out in 1995, but whatever with a capital W and if you don’t get it, you’re Clueless. That’s all I got.
Thank U, Next – Ariana Grande
It’s a video homage en Grande! Not one, not two, not three, but four movies get referenced, in a very legally-bringing -it -on-the-mean-girls-going-on-30 kind of way. While I don’t usually go for Ariana’s 24/7 sex kitten schtick (still don’t) this video is worth watching, if only for the part where Kris Jenner gets all meta as an overly excited stage mom. Bonus points for getting some of the actual stars to cameo, plus a little more for the sheer shade of leaving Lindsay Lohan completely out of it.
… Baby One More Time recently hit the big 2-0(we are O-L-D!) and I’ve lost track of the number of think pieces I’ve read about current times being so dark it’s left us all yearning for a happier, seemingly more innocent era. Can’t disagree with that, those days did seem a lot happier. Back when the hole in the ozone layer was still a tiny tear in the stocking of the atmosphere, everyone was buying McMansions, the Antarctic ice shelf was still for the most part frozen and polar bears were healthy, the ascendant music was pop, unapologetically bright and almost aggressively cheery. And why not? The internet hadn’t yet ruined everything, trolls were ugly little dolls with weird hair and social media was more about glitter fonts than data mining. The 80’s-90’s were awesome. Even New Kids on the Block, Anne-Marie and Charli XCX very biasedly say so.
80’s Baby – New Kids on the Block feat. Salt-n-Pepa, Tiffany, Debbie Gibson and Naughty by Nature
Things I would do if I’d won Lotto Max: I would hire NKOTB to sing this to my grandma on her birthday. I’d want her on a a chair in the middle of the dance floor in Bethel Guest House with this blaring on the speakers, serenaded by the biggest boyband of the 80’s while the rest of us on the sidelines scream with delight. She’ll be 88 next year. It’d be perfect.
ps. What’s a Sky Pager?
2002 – Anne-Marie
Aww, the early aughts! A charming mash-up of the era’s most recognizable lyrics, Anne-Marie’s ode to dancing in the woods on the hood of a car with a plastic cup hits all the right notes. Bonus points for period-specific lip gloss – remember when the girls had mini oil slicks on our lips? MAC Lip Glass, Lancome Juicy Tubes? It’s a love letter to adolescence and everything that came with it. The stuntin’, the weird shades, the crazy bucket hats, the dawn of the midriff. Say what you will about Ed Sheeran, the little ginger Hobbit is responsible for some of the sweetest, catchiest tunes out there right now.
1999 – Charli XCX feat. Troye Sivan
The flashbackiest flashback of them all is brought to you by BMW, Lyft, Beats by Dre and the iPhone X. Charli XCX’s latest is a pop culture time capsule that has everything that ruled the 90’s: the iMac, Nokia, Casio Baby-G, Hanes, Skechers, the dancing baby and Justin Timberlake’s ramen noodle hair. But wait, there’s more! American Beauty, Titanic, The Blair Witch Project, The Sims, TLC’s Waterfalls, the Spice Girls, bullet time, BSB… it’s like the 90’s partied till 3AM, mixed all sorts of alcohol and threw up in the gutter. Like I said, awesome.
Bonus: Check out Lauren Alaina’s Ladies in the 90’sif you’re want your throwback with a little more country twang!
Remember when the f-word was so bad, saying it made a body feel positively wicked? It’s gone mainstream and all the rebellious energy its use imparted seems to have gone. Well, mostly. It’s still a great way to express some pretty turbulent emotions, as today’s trio will proceed to demonstrate.
F*ck You – CeeLo Green
Sometimes there’s just no other thing to say, when the one you care about takes everything you thought mattered and tramples it in the dust. The best revenge is being successful, and CeeLo illustrates this in his sassy, snappy ode to a former girlfriend. Its genius is in the use of a gospel-tinged melody so upbeat, it almost makes us forget what the song is about and the aggressive lyrical message from a jilted lover to his ex and the man she left him for.
IDGAF – Dua Lipa
Bringing out the dual in Dua Lipa, IDGAF’s stylish music video illustrates the warring emotions that arise when dealing with a jerk who’s broken your heart and wants to come back. It’s an angry, f-bombing ode from a dumpee to a dumper, and Dua Lipa, unlike CeeLo, plays it with a sullen, disinterested, slow-burning anger, rather than glee.
GTFO – Mariah Carey
Finally, the music video that started this all, Mariah Carey is back in the hizzy with a drunken little ditty, and you know what, I’m liking it. It’s been a while since she’s released a single and an accompanying music video, and GTFO is billed as a “lighthearted first listen” of her latest album. If this is Mimi’s idea of lighthearted, she’s got some serious issues, but it’s catchy, with lyrics that belie her delicate vocals. She’s angry, but she’s not going to be trashy about it, she’s just going to down some red wine and run herself a bath like a well-balanced adult who looks a mite too big for the house she lives in, but whatever. I am not going to be able to stop listening to this today.
What is with being a mermaid these days? Everyone is like my childhood friend who was so obsessed with Ariel from The Little Mermaid, he grew up, moved to Australia, became a drag queen and put together a show called The Little Merdrag. I’ve never been one for a tail, but I can see the attraction. Half naked, perpetually wet, sings like a nightingale? Boom, sex. And sex sells. Mermaids are everywhere, and my only explanation for the obsession with this particular magical creature is that we all came from the sea and some buried part of our subconscious yearns for it again. Or it could just all boil down to one word: pretty!
Cher, The Shoop Shoop Song (It’s in His Kiss)
What better way to introduce this particular k-hole’s theme than Cher, with the theme song to the movie Mermaids? My mom rented this on VHS back when Tops and Bottoms had a whole section devoted to movies you could rent, like Dumaguete’s very own bootleg Blockbuster. (In hindsight, I don’t think any of those tapes were originals at all.) She got this along with Wild Hearts Can’t Be Broken, and I remember a young me having a raging crush on Michael Schoeffling, the cute gardener Winona Ryder obsesses over. I don’t blame her one bit for going crazy and seducing him in a bell tower on the day JFK was shot. To this day I still have no idea why the movie was called Mermaids although Cher dons a mermaid costume for Halloween and little Christina Ricci is a swimmer who almost drowns, but who cares?
Sade, No Ordinary Love
The alluring Sade Adu is a sea siren who seduces a sailor during Fleet Week. I’m assuming it was Fleet Week, why else is he in that fun little costume? Running barefoot through the gritty city streets because mermaids are immune to tetanus, Sade throws her own rice grains in anticipation of her own wedding, but Fleet Week is over, the sailor is gone and she’s left on the dock sadly chugging seawater, unaware of how plastic bottles would soon come to pollute the ocean. (It was the nineties, we hadn’t trashed this world quite as much just yet.) With that lovely, seductive beat, Sade’s sultry vocals and the alternating themes of sadness and hope, this is still the best depiction of a music video mermaid.
Lady Gaga, Yoü and I
Never mind Nebraska being completely landlocked, here’s Lady Gaga with fins and a tail thrashing around in a bathtub somewhere outside Omaha, because art! Art, and Taylor Kinney. Although anatomical realities make human to mermaid sexy times an impossibility, I’d try doing it anyway if it was with Taylor Kinney, wouldn’t you? Yoü and I is a mess, but it’s a glorious mess, all bionic haute couture, boy drag and piano-playing in the middle of a cornfield. Gaga toes the line between avant-garde and just plain weird, a balance only she could get away with. Ah, the halcyon days before Artpop.
Nicki Minaj feat. Ariana Grande, Bed
And finally, the clip that started this particular k-hole. Nicki Minaj goes from one slithery creature to another in her latest music video, from anaconda to mermaid! Bed, which features preternaturally pony-tailed Ariana Grande, has all the hallmarks of a Nicki Minaj video – boobs, butt, and highlighter for daaaaaaayyys. Other than that, it’s your standard girl on the beach/sea-side condo, inviting you over for a little Netflix and chill. If Sade’s version was about true love, Nicki’s version is a drunken Tinder hook-up that’ll last for all of two hours before you’re both bidding each other goodbye, washing the sand out of your nethers and booking an appointment at the free clinic the very next day. Oh well. Mermaids!
I’d been waiting for the official video of Carrie Underwood’s Cry Pretty before posting this particular k-hole about songs that deal with a specific kind of emotional catharsis. But before getting to the country queen’s latest oeuvre, I’m getting in a time machine and going all the way back to the past when Aerosmith and Alicia Silverstone ruled the video airwaves…
Aerosmith, Crying
I don’t know what you’re all going on about us being oppressed, female power was just as alive in 1993 as it is today. Alicia Silverstone and her healthy blonde mane acts out after seeing a very young, very attractive, Stephen Dorff inhabiting his standard persona of douchebag-you’d-still-bone cheating on her in a movie theatre. Proving to him and everyone else, including the guy who attempts to steal her backpack (look, Josh Holloway!), that she’s not going to take any shit unless it’s on her terms, this was the first of Alicia’s video collaborations with Aerosmith. She would go on to star in Amazing, and Crazy, to similarly enthusiastic acclaim. With a killer video and sweet vocals, Cryin’ is the Teenage Dream video of the 90’s, before Katy Perry (intentionally? unintentionally?) got her revisionist mitts all over the disaffected teenager storyline.
Justin Timberlake, Cry Me A River
Way before he became the Man of the Woods, Justin Timberlake was living out a revenge fantasy featuring Britney Spears a blonde who famously breaks his heart. He denied the song was about Britney of course, but we all knew he was lying, Liza Minelli! For a brief moment in the early aughts, those two turned a number of pre- and post-pubescent teenagers into a screaming Tyra Banks meme. (We were all rooting for you in matching denim, damnit!). With the help of Timbaland, Mr. Timberlake breaks into a not-so-mysterious blonde’s home like a crazed stalker, tap dances all over her furniture, has sex with a stranger in her bedroom and spies on her while she’s in the shower. Rude! Also, creepy. This video would’ve aged pretty well if it wasn’t for that bulky-ass cam-corder, reminding us all of the lengths we used to go to just to record things for posterity.
Ariana Grande, No Tears Left to Cry
Known more for her vocal chops than eye-catchingly original music videos, Ariana Grande doesn’t do anything to upset that particular status quo in this, her latest video for No Tears Left to Cry. The concept is pretty much blonde Inception on the discarded set of Marvel’s Dr. Strange and it’s a complete disconnect from the song, but who needs concepts and connectivity when you have a new hair colour? It could be the bleach, it could be having a perpetual ponytail, whatever the cause, Miss Grande’s state of mind is up, down, and all around. A bit of a surprise banger, No Tears Left to Cry is probably going to go on heavy rotation from here to eternity. And by eternity, I mean for the rest of the summer. She’s here, it’s queer, get used to it.
Carrie Underwood, Cry Pretty
And finally, the blonde that kickstarted today’s quintet. Round of applause for Miss Underwood (no relation to Frank) who is back with another country ballad about falling apart, wasting mascara into the process. I’m not sure what she meant by saying her face got all fucked up and she doesn’t look the same; I only hope she’s not suffering from some extreme form of body/face dysmorphia, because girl is still looking good. I know some people who are so gay they practically sweat glitter, but Carrie Underwood is going the extra mile by actually crying glitter tears while singing Cry Pretty. A bit on the nose, but way to commit to a concept!
Back in the day, the leadup to the premiere of an anticipated music video was an event, awaited eagerly the way we wait for trailers for a summer movie tentpole. Artists were expected to come out with something worth the wait, and anything less was an insult to the diehard fan.
Not anymore. Not really, anyway. It’s the age of throwaway culture and handheld computers, so anyone can skip the middleman, spend five minutes and make their own music videos. Like these three.
Nicki Minaj, Chun-Li
Does anyone remember when Jennifer Lopez was the one with the booty? We were babies. Look at this. Camera? Check. Giant ass? Check. Nicki Minaj definitely puts the ass in asset and I can’t hate her for working that moneymaker, because if you’re going to commit to having a butt that big what’s the use of not shaking it? While bonered-up fanboys may forgive the crappy lighting, I think it could’ve done with a little less neon pink wash. I don’t get why Chun-Li needs the wi-fi password and Barbie Tingz is lyrically stronger than this, but eh. It’s no Super Bass, but it’ll do for a few replays.
Taylor Swift, Delicate
In a bid to make the world forget that the original video for Delicate is a blatant reenactment of a Kenzo perfume ad, Swifty releases a Spotify video version of Delicate, featuring just… her. In a field. Mouthing lyrics in the sunlight. Lighting-wise it’s loads better than Chun-Li, but its still the visual equivalent of not giving a fuck. It’s clearly the one take, it’s a wrap, I gave people effort with the other video and they shat on me so here ya go kind of vibe. While the video sucks, the single does not and its tropical chill vibe makes it very easy listening.
Maroon 5, Wait
Leave it to notoriously narcissistic Adam Levine to nail the vertical selfie video on the head: utilize an entire array of Snapchat filters, pretend your band doesn’t exist, and just wander around your huge mansion rocking out to a catchy song and being cute. I know a few girls and gay men whose ovaries regularly explode over Adam Levine, and this video for Maroon 5’s Wait isn’t going to help their already battered reproductive areas any. The band did release another professionally shot video for Wait, which features the many looks of Alexandra Daddario and a truly fantastic closing montage, but this first one is a lighthearted romp full of charm and whimsy.
I used to have a rule about liking a particular single: I had to like the music video. It was essential, and a huge influence on whether or not I enjoyed the track. But that rule went out the window with the advent of Spotify. In this, the era of the playlist, music videos seemed like an afterthought. It also felt for a minute like the music video as an art form was no longer really being celebrated, the way it was when MTV put the music in television, so for the past few years, I’d given up checking out music videos.
But like the nineties, music videos are back and having a moment. Lady Gaga, Beyonce and yes, Kanye West, ensured the form was still to an extent, kept interesting and hopefully we’re beginning to surface from a morass of boats, hoes, stripper poles and cash raining down from the heavens. And just like the nineties, CRT televisions are having a moment. With the following music videos, I explore the answer to the question, “where do cathode ray televisions go to die?” (The answer: music videos of early 2018.)
Hey, at least we’re recycling.
Justin Timberlake, Supplies
Not my favourite cut off of Justin Timberlake’s largely pannedMan of the Woods album, the single may not be a standout, but its accompanying music video is a smorgasbord of visual stimuli. Illuminati! White gators! Flashlights! Watching the collapse of a way of life just doesn’t feel the same unless it’s viewed on a wall of old school television sets, does it?
Cardi B feat. 21 Savage, Bartier Cardi
For what it’s worth, Cardi B’s Bartier Cardi only gets a mention because its current. And features a video wall. I can’t get with this single at all. Cardi is fun but so far the only rap she’s done that I really liked was her turn in Migos’ Motorsport. I would just as happily use Celine Dion’s Because You Loved Me for video wall purposes, but it’s not in keeping with our theme, and lordy I don’t want to admit how old I really am. Even if I just did.
The Weeknd, Call Out My Name
The music video that jumpstarted this particular k-hole, word on the street is Call Out My Name is about Selena Gomez. Whomever it may be about, I’m loving this single, and the fantasy of the accompanying lyric video. You can watch a world burn through the eyes of cathode ray televisions and you can also watch a heart break. Somehow this with a wall of flatscreens would be like being at Best Buy. At any rate, this video fully belongs in The Weeknd’s wheelhouse – it’s dark, moody and ever so slightly sad. It’s fitting that his latest album is called My Dear Melancholy.
Saving for Botox 
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