Intelligent Life On Planet Rock
Girls on Film
First up is Lady Gaga new video which is astonishing for a mainstream music film being in parts visually arresting and in general leaving the likes of Madonna in the shade. In parts it reminded me of Matthew_Barney (Mr Bjork) cremaster series with it's weird twisted sexual imagery and it even ends with a joke of sorts
Next up Cheryl Cole I only heard/saw this today and was shocked at how poor it was considering she's on the top of pyramid of British pop industry with the weight of ITV and polydor behind her. I couldn't believe how poor this was, visually it's all over the place. Some of the dancing strangely reminded me of Mc Hammer but not in a good way.
Lastly some light relief Joss Stone's film which one can only hope is a spoof as it's so poor it’s hilarious. It’s like a dream sequence from the some middle European version of Footballer Wives or that SKY sub Holly Oaks soap about budget airline cabin crew. It has to be seen to be believed.
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GaGa
has that indefinable something that seperates certain individuals from the ordinary. One of my first posts here was about her and the response was mostly favourable. Which on a site like this says a lot for her sheer interestingness.
Cole is the worst of manufactured pop without any substance, but if she's making people happy there's no harm done.
Josh Stone is beyond parody because of what she's become. She is just caricature of herself. At least Cole is not trying to fool anyone, I'm not sure what Stone is trying to acheive.
How girls like this feel when they just can't get that break God alone knows.
With apologies to Sheev
The answer, as usual, is David Bowie, because Lady Gaga is the best pop star since the original glam him. Yes, really: smart, stylish, self-aware, musically gifted, commercially savvy... It was clear with her second single, "Poker Face", that she was going to be a dominant figure in Teenies pop. But now we can see she's not going to settle for that; it's going to be an absolute monarchy that may even put '80s Michael Jackson in the shade. (She overtook Madonna and waved as she went past earlier this year. Madonna's response was to get Paul Oakenfold to gurn and shake his booty. I think that was her way of sighing slowly and saying "You win".)
Ra-ra, ah ah ah ah, Gaga, oh la la indeed.
No need for apologies
It's just a phrase that expresses a natural and observable truth.
Will have to give this Gaga chap a go if all you say is true
I watched all 3 of them now - OK, I admit I gave Cheryl
the hook after about a minute - and I see what you mean about Joss Stone. On the other hand, I laughed out loud in a couple of places in her video and that song is the only one of the 3 that I will actually be spending any money on.
Cheryl
It also sounds very like this
OMG
Sorry Chris I just checked out the link to the Joss Stone. This is what happens when pop "stars" have creative freedom and no budget. Jesus ! It looks like someone did it as a bonding activity on a middle management away day when the task was create a pop video.
Great Post
But aren't 99.9% of videos inexcusably terrible?
I was watching a Fleetwood Mac documentary the other night. I was struck by the fact that while all the records were still wonderful, all the old promo videos, however they looked at the time, were now awful. This led me to wonder whether, with rare exceptions, just about all videos are terrible. This wouldn't in itself be surprising. They're stupid little concepts, just about worthy of a fourth form drama class, acted out by people who can't act and directed by people who really want to get work making commercials. The Joss Stones is, of course, risible, but only because the poverty of its central idea and the gauche way it's acted out is exposed by the fact that its director hasn't yet learned the key pop video skill - cut every second and it'll be moving so fast people won't realise how stupid it is.
The only 'videos' I enjoy watching...
are those that complement and reflect the perceived character of the band in question and keep things simple. The Rolling Stones' Jumpin' Jack Flash and The Beatles' Strawberry Fields Forever promo clips were (and remain) wonderful because they really succeeded in capturing something of the essence of both groups at that stage in their careers.
DH
the other sad thing about Joss Stone seeing her dressed in curtain on Jools holland last night is seems to lack anyone to help wht her career. Even if you are not a huge fan it's a little sad to see vocal talent thrown away on poor videos and even worse dreadful choice of songs.
Rare Exception
If you can find an A list actor who can dance to your tune.
This is still wonderful:
Or if you can't be arsed to lip-synch it
Lady Gaga
The video's good (although I know some J Pop fans who would be screaming plagiarism) but is that her best song, because it's extraordinarily slight if it is.
Not her best, and yes it's slight
This song is basically just "Poker Face Rejiggled", true. (Did I say "jiggled"? What was I thinking?), but "extraordinarily slight" is also what everybody said about every T. Rex single - that's the T. Rex who had nine Top-3 hits in succession, in case anyone's wondering.
I like the "rah rah ooh la la" bit
which compares favourably with the Cheryl Cole song which is equally lyrically dumb and yet I can't remember any of it dummb is good in some pop songs. I was genuinely surprised how poor the Cole number was as we are constantly led to believe whatever your personal taste that her and girls aloud are the acme of "perfect pop". And as for not being able to dance.
Check out Biology,
by Girls Aloud, Chris G. It's one of the best songs of the decade and is part of the reason they have earned that tag. Deservedly so, in my onion.
Sound of the Underground is also good and I am
quite partial to Love Machine as well.
Her songs always make me think of Army of Lovers
for some reason.
I'd forgotten all about Army of Lovers
Let's have a dose of their gloriously camp classic.
But without girls making pop videos
Kate Bush would never have worn a chain mail bikini, at least not in public. That must be worth something.
make sure you stay till the end
Thanks for the tip. Eyeball popping for sure, but stay with it - the end is priceless. Anyone who can send themselves up like that is ok in my book. As you say, beats Madonna at her own game, soundly.
That's part of the problem for me,
it is 5 minutes long and the middle drags so much you never get to the end. I skipped to the end to see what the fuss was about and I guess she is having a pop at Madonna there. Since Madonna is (a) a pop legend and (b) in her 50s but still a sex bomb I guess she can absorb the blow.
You don't need a big budget to make an entertaining video
I'd be surprised if Uncle Earl's budget amounted to much (unless John Paul Jones chipped in a few quid). Awesome video all the same. I particularly like the bit where they shout Ebay! Ebay!! I think the blonde pigtailed dancer's mad laugh is dubbed by the very talented Laura Cortese who is one of the clog dancing crew and who played bass with Uncle Earl on their last UK tour
Good excuse
to post this, that I'm currently obsessed with. It's the Black-Eyed Peas doing Meet Me Halfway on last week's X Factor. The track is off their *terrible* new album which makes extensive use of the vocoder / Autotune or whatever we're calling it this week, and though it's a deliberate stylistic decision and is used accordingly, it just doesn't play to BEP's strengths and serves this particular song very poorly indeed.
On the album, that is.
On the X Factor, however, they did it mainly live, and goodness does the song breathe. Even if this really isn't your type of thing, I urge you to click into it 3.00, where the guys are doing their dancing and Fergie really lets rip. It makes the hairs on your arms stand up. Well, it does mine anyway. Fergie has looked better, it has to be said, but she's sounding fantastic.
I never liked Black Eyed Peas before
but there's something about the new album that I like. It's got a (slightly cheesy) stadium rave feel to it, but strangely melancholy, like they're remembering the e-rush but not doing it anymore. It's one of my favourite albums this year alongside the Ga-Ga one, but there you go - I turned 40 this year and I'm still a pop kid....
I've really tried
but just can't warm to it.
That's the first thing I have seen/heard from it
but I do like that I must say (and Fergie is genuinely hot).
I think one thing
this tells us is don't put pop stars on narrow ledge 10 ft above the stage and expect them to look anything but like they are bricking themselves! :) Think I might watch if it wasn't for all the bollocks witt voting, "journeys" and simon cowell but then it would be a "live" version of top of pops. Does every song get a standing ovation on xfactor?
wow, does she look
wow, does she look uncomfortable on her little perch, hanging on like a desperate commuter on the circle line - is there a 'mind the gap' notice down by her feet? But have to agree, when she comes down to earth, suddenly she can sing and lets go rather wondefully. She does look like a princess.
I'm sorry but
that video is horrible and I watched it to the end in hope that you were all right. But you weren't.
Can someone please tell me what is good about the video. The aesthetic has been done a million times before. The song is rubbish. There's no spark to her performance. It is so CGI, S and M, plastic nastiness. It isn't sending itself up at all I don't think. No even the brief joke at the end.
It just IS modern hyper-image-manipulated-sexualised-fragmented-confused-culture. That was a really unpleasant 5.07 minutes of my life. I only watched 2 mins of it when I was recommended it on the word newsletter... but since everyone was raving here I thought I must have been mistaken. I really really wish I had been.
Mind you I enjoyed that Black Eyed Peas track so it wasn't completely wasted.
Lady Goo Goo
It's OK but is just being Madonna with an up to date twist singing a heard it so many times before cliched techno euro dance groove which happens to have a bit more of a tune to it than you usually get with such records really so remarkable? I think Madonna's 'Hung Up' a better effort really, even though it relies on a much older hit for much of it's appeal.
come on everyone but lady gaga and madonna at her prime
there is surely no contest!
and even later period madonna beats lady gaga
Having said that Kylie is better than lady gagga as well for sure. Similar aesthetic but a damn good song and more real self awareness:
Ga Ga
is still on her first album, her prime is still to come. I don't remember Madonna playing the piano sitting down, never mind standing on the piano stool! (I do love Kylie though)
hey I'm judging that song and vid not ga ga forever
and judging on that video and song she's certainly up there with the great pop performers. That's inspired stuff.
And crucially the song is good, catchy and has a nice varied dynamic and arrangement, which is heightened and expanded on by a really creative live performance design. What it has is humanity in it. You can relate and attach to it. When she stands on the chair and moves the microphone you are aware she is doing it, when she wiggles her bum when its high in their air its playful rather than obscene, the piano and her costume are kitchly futuristic and knowing but also fun and childlike. It doesn't cut about and distract from what its doing. It doesn't throw a million different images. It is much less hyper sexualised whilst certainly not being vanilla.
And thank god this song lacks the faux sean paul nonsense of the ga ga ooo la la bit. God that makes me cringe.
Even though the video and song descends into a pretty standard pop dance sequence, that is undercut and made greater by the sheer theatrics of it, and the fact that the song is GOOD!.
If this thread was about that video I would understand the praise and pro ga ga stuff.
Cheers, daveross for posting it.
interesting link on Slate about this
http://slate.com/blogs/blogs/browbeat/archive/2009/11/13/notes-toward-a-...
yep that well observed and researched blog
pretty much sums up all the reasons I find it repugnant. The post modern end of human, end of sex, everything is a tissue of quotations with no soul and no purpose but to provoke a reaction.
But it doesn't have to be that way, it can be beautiful:
Going gaga for Gaga
After performing (with the Bolshoi Ballet as her backing dancers) at the L.A. Museum of Contemporary Art's 30th-anniversary bash, Lada Gaga has been given the thumbs-up from some interesting names:
Dave Ross and I have been banging on about her for months. She is not Kylie II. Trust us.
Archie
props for supporting LG but don't diss Kylie in the process your getting into the areas of religion and belief systems and it could get ugly..
I respect all faiths
I was merely responding to the claim above that The One True Gaga is merely emulating St Kylie of Minogue and not as well.
I was comparing one song to another
not artist to artist. Dave Ball wrote that particular Kylie song anyway. I dunno who wrote the song this thread is about. But they weren't very good at it... however Poker Face I am impressed with and will be giving more listens and consideration to.
Yes
She seems to be impressing people most with material other than the hits - look I can sing and play proper grown-up stuff too. Personally I would say 'Just Dance' is her best hit to date. The track in the OP is not so special.