Thursday, October 23, 2003
MUSIC VIDEO REVIEW
"Stand" by Jewel
Directed by Chris Applebaum and Brand New School
Grade: B-
Jewel writes a song enjoining us to join her in taking a stand. For what? Against what? Amongst other things ... we should disapprove of cops robbing from corner markets to pay whores, of brain cancer, of hypocrisy, of soldiers dying in war. In the middle of these literal-minded tableaux, Jewel takes a shower.
Look, this is just dumb.
"Stand" by Jewel
Directed by Chris Applebaum and Brand New School
Grade: B-
Jewel writes a song enjoining us to join her in taking a stand. For what? Against what? Amongst other things ... we should disapprove of cops robbing from corner markets to pay whores, of brain cancer, of hypocrisy, of soldiers dying in war. In the middle of these literal-minded tableaux, Jewel takes a shower.
Look, this is just dumb.
Wednesday, October 22, 2003
MUSIC VIDEO REVIEW
"Me Against the Music" by La Britney featuring Madonna
Directed by Paul Hunter
Grade: Like It Matters
To avoid confusion, I will point out that I want to fuck Britney Spears. This is the sole source of her appeal; men want to fuck her and women want to be fucked like we want to fuck her. Beyond this fuckability, there is nothing, nothing to recommend Britney to the world.
Does she have talent? She can dance a little, and sing enough. You'd think that latter point would stop her from being a pop star -- nay, a pop goddess -- and then you remember that nowadays, singing doesn't matter in music. Britney has no soul to her singing, and the songs she sings are lackluster drones that occasionally have enough energy to keep you from muting the TV while your fuck fantasy brain cells go into overdrive. This isn't Janis Joplin we're talking about here; this isn't even the Shangri-Las.
Is she smart? She rejects the Sundance Film Festival as "weird" because "you have to think while you watch" the films on display. And part of her public image is as the innocent who doesn't, doesn't try to, and doesn't want to know over her physical power over men. As pointed out in her current Esquire profile, she is either a genius or an idiot; a fuck-doll savant.
And she's no longer virginal, having given herself to an infantile twit with even less talent than she, but with a bigger ego and more misplaced sense of importance. Of course, the Britney consortium as turned her into a victim, defiled then spurned by the playboy with a heart of lead. At long last, the Britney image allows something that is probably true.
All of this is part of an ongoing plan of evolution, where the trevails in Britney's life and "songs" mirror those of the young girls actually deluded enough to pay money into the enterprise, and therefore comprise her core audience. From the doomed schoolgirl crush ("My loneliness is killing me," she purred in "... Baby One More Time") to resiliant young woman ("My loneliness ain't killing me no more" was a proclamation in "Stronger") to the explorative sex kitten with the spelling skills of Prince in "I'm a Slave 4 U."
Of course, the mother of all career reinvention, and the mother of the modern female pop star, is the overexposed Madonna. La Britney's public admiration of Madonna was early and obvious, and Madonna returned the favor by wearing shirts featuring Britney's moniker. The comparison was always fatuous to some degree; Britney has yet to dress in the garb of Gaultier, walk naked on Hollywood streets, or publish a collection of artsy photographs of her cooch. Regardless, Britney has constantly tried to be the daughter Madonna finally had, and Lourdes has quite a bit to live up to, what with Britney's convincing Single White Female on her mother's career.
This video animates an inane song, full of inane lyrics and banal beats. Madonna shows up in white to oppose Britney's black (reminiscent of Madonna's "Vogue" period), as though they were engaging in some cosmic diva chess match. Britney dances on the floor in mechanical moves, Madonna appears on a screen, and in between Britney chases Madonna -- which of course she has been doing for her entire "life."
Madonna has a short bridge to handle, in which she advises Britney to "bare [her] soul," which may be something like asking Hitler to bare his inner yarmoulke. Shockingly enough, this may be Madonna's real advice to her spiritual daughter. "Wanna be like me? Reveal the inner you." But what if there isn't one? What if the essence of Britney is really a fully fleshed media creation? Well ... is that really so different than Madonna, anyway? The difference -- the importance of which we cannot discount -- is that Madonna did it first.
The video concludes with Britney attempting to recreate her iconic sapphic moment with Madonna, only to find Madonna vanishing into the vapor, the unattainable dream that the soulless Fuckbot can never grasp, the original the replicant dreams to be. Is Madonna aware of these implications? Does Madonna ally with Britney as part of her own public relations career? Perhaps there are more chapters in this Diva of the Nibelung waiting to be written, sung, and gloriously and fantastically fucked.
"Me Against the Music" by La Britney featuring Madonna
Directed by Paul Hunter
Grade: Like It Matters
To avoid confusion, I will point out that I want to fuck Britney Spears. This is the sole source of her appeal; men want to fuck her and women want to be fucked like we want to fuck her. Beyond this fuckability, there is nothing, nothing to recommend Britney to the world.
Does she have talent? She can dance a little, and sing enough. You'd think that latter point would stop her from being a pop star -- nay, a pop goddess -- and then you remember that nowadays, singing doesn't matter in music. Britney has no soul to her singing, and the songs she sings are lackluster drones that occasionally have enough energy to keep you from muting the TV while your fuck fantasy brain cells go into overdrive. This isn't Janis Joplin we're talking about here; this isn't even the Shangri-Las.
Is she smart? She rejects the Sundance Film Festival as "weird" because "you have to think while you watch" the films on display. And part of her public image is as the innocent who doesn't, doesn't try to, and doesn't want to know over her physical power over men. As pointed out in her current Esquire profile, she is either a genius or an idiot; a fuck-doll savant.
And she's no longer virginal, having given herself to an infantile twit with even less talent than she, but with a bigger ego and more misplaced sense of importance. Of course, the Britney consortium as turned her into a victim, defiled then spurned by the playboy with a heart of lead. At long last, the Britney image allows something that is probably true.
All of this is part of an ongoing plan of evolution, where the trevails in Britney's life and "songs" mirror those of the young girls actually deluded enough to pay money into the enterprise, and therefore comprise her core audience. From the doomed schoolgirl crush ("My loneliness is killing me," she purred in "... Baby One More Time") to resiliant young woman ("My loneliness ain't killing me no more" was a proclamation in "Stronger") to the explorative sex kitten with the spelling skills of Prince in "I'm a Slave 4 U."
Of course, the mother of all career reinvention, and the mother of the modern female pop star, is the overexposed Madonna. La Britney's public admiration of Madonna was early and obvious, and Madonna returned the favor by wearing shirts featuring Britney's moniker. The comparison was always fatuous to some degree; Britney has yet to dress in the garb of Gaultier, walk naked on Hollywood streets, or publish a collection of artsy photographs of her cooch. Regardless, Britney has constantly tried to be the daughter Madonna finally had, and Lourdes has quite a bit to live up to, what with Britney's convincing Single White Female on her mother's career.
This video animates an inane song, full of inane lyrics and banal beats. Madonna shows up in white to oppose Britney's black (reminiscent of Madonna's "Vogue" period), as though they were engaging in some cosmic diva chess match. Britney dances on the floor in mechanical moves, Madonna appears on a screen, and in between Britney chases Madonna -- which of course she has been doing for her entire "life."
Madonna has a short bridge to handle, in which she advises Britney to "bare [her] soul," which may be something like asking Hitler to bare his inner yarmoulke. Shockingly enough, this may be Madonna's real advice to her spiritual daughter. "Wanna be like me? Reveal the inner you." But what if there isn't one? What if the essence of Britney is really a fully fleshed media creation? Well ... is that really so different than Madonna, anyway? The difference -- the importance of which we cannot discount -- is that Madonna did it first.
The video concludes with Britney attempting to recreate her iconic sapphic moment with Madonna, only to find Madonna vanishing into the vapor, the unattainable dream that the soulless Fuckbot can never grasp, the original the replicant dreams to be. Is Madonna aware of these implications? Does Madonna ally with Britney as part of her own public relations career? Perhaps there are more chapters in this Diva of the Nibelung waiting to be written, sung, and gloriously and fantastically fucked.
