Have you ever found a song and just replayed the living hell out of it?
I don’t know why this thing hits me like a sledgehammer from the special personal collection of Peter Gabriel.
But I keep replaying the thing, over and over. Here, watch this thing we called a “music video” a hundred years ago when this cable channel appeared that showed music videos ALL DAY LONG. Brilliant business model. People send you videos, you play them, you sell ads–it’s a license to print money.
The only way this could go wrong is if you stopped playing free music videos and started paying money to produce stupid reality shows.
Here’s the music video, which I hadn’t seen until I wore out this song on Spotify or whatever:
It smacks you upside the feelings, doesn’t it? That twist in the end makes M. Night Shyamalan jealous. Super rare to have in a song. As a writer, I could not love the lyrics more. The repetition with a purpose, and the twists each time–beautiful.
This is why I love the genre Angry Acoustic: songs are stripped down, lyrics actually matter, and they tell stories instead of the usual pop song that repeats the same lyric 3,423 times until you bring out the shot glasses and down some Draino.
I have replayed this song again. I’ll play it more today. And I hope other people find this song, and that each time it gets hit on Spotify or YouTube, she gets paid, because Lizzy, you deserve it.
VERDICT: 11/10, give is more of this. MORE MORE MORE.
SPECIAL BONUS: Acoustic version, which also rocks. If you search the series of tubes, there’s also a sped-up version, very Alvin and the Chipmunks, but I will not link to it, because that is sacrilege.
Yes, this is a music video, and we will play it because MTV resolutely refuses to do their damn job. Have a look and listen, then we will TALK ABOUT ALL THE THINGS.
First off, I come here to talk smack about lyrics, not the actual music video. The video is fine. It’s not blowing my mind and it’s not making me close my eyes and chant a lullaby to make it go away.
The words are what we are here for, and the words are GOOD.
Dissecting the lyrics, but not in an icky dead frog way like biology class
Let’s go after the first few lines:
Half of my high school got too drunk Half of my high school fell in love With the girl next door In their daddy’s Ford Half of my main street’s mini skirts Half of my main street’s dressed for church It could use some rain And a fresh coat of paint
Such a great way of painting a picture of her hometown and the people who live there without giving everyone the same hues and textures.
Because let’s be honest: half of all pop songs are about getting drunk, and half of all pop songs are about falling in love, but few pop or country songs dare to have a lot of nuance or subtlety. They’re more likely to hit you over the head with a single message, like, “I’m on a BOAT!” then repeat that message six hundred times.
Now, the chorus:
Half of my hometown’s still hangin’ around Still talkin’ about that one touchdown They’re still wearin’ red and black Go Bobcats, while the other half Of my hometown they all got out Some went north Some went south Still lookin’ for a feelin’ half of us ain’t found So stay or leave Part of me will always be Half of my hometown
Oh, here we go. I don’t really have a home town, being born on a military base we left after a year. Kept on hopping around bases in the Germany and the Holland and the New York–so if you put a Glock to my noggin and asked me for a single detail about my hometown, couldn’t tell you a damn thing. Throw a blindfold on me and ask me whether an F-15 or F-16 is flying overhead and I’m you’re man.
However: we now live in a one-stoplight logging town, where half the town does show up to wear maroon and gray every Friday night and is still talking about that one touchdown. So I feel these lyrics in a way that Justin Bieber could never reach me with the lyrics of his masterpiece, “Baby, Baby, Baby.”
Half of our prom queens cut their hair Half of them think that it ain’t fair The quarterback moved away and never came back Half of my family is happy I left The other half worries I’ll just forget Where I came from Same place where they came from
I could not love this more. Beautiful lyrics and they do touch on the touch choice facing anyone from a small town: stay for family and neighbors and friends, or leave for opportunities and dreams. Totally get that.
Now we get the chorus again, so I’ll delete that chunk and give you the next real bit. Say hello to the bridge and the closing:
Backroads raise us Highways they take us Memories make us wanna go back
To our hometown, settle down Talk about that one touchdown Raise some kids in red and black Go Bobcats, while the other half Of my hometown was in the crowd They knew the words They sang them loud And all I wanna do is make them proud Cause half of me will always be Knoxville, Tennessee My hometown My hometown
Heard this song again and again, making the ending anything but a surprise. I know exactly what is coming. And the last lines still hit hard.
VERDICT
Here’s the deal: I enjoy pop songs and Angry Indie Acoustic stuff far, far more than country music. However: country and rap songs tend to tell this thing we call a story. They also get more inventive with lyrics, echoes, and reversals with wording.
The Chicks song, TRAVELING SOLDIER, is a freaking masterpiece.
Do the lyrics to MY HOMETOWN do the job? Paula Abdul would say, “Yes, yes, a thousand times, YES!” but she’d mean it and Emelio Estevez would mean it this time and they’d still be married today. Ben Affleck and J. Lo, do not listen to this song, move to a small town, and get married to each other or another human being again. Hold off for a decade or two.
Kelsea Ballerini nails it in a few hundred words. Seriously, count them up. If you don’t count the repeated chorus, it is shocking how few words she uses to do a complicated job of making us see her hometown and feel all these choices and people.
You may ask yourself, “Is that really a hard question?” And you may tell yourself, “The first was VIDEO KILLED THE RADIO STAR, everybody knows MTV played that when it went live right after the Civil War, because Abraham Lincoln sent a telegram requesting it.”
Some say the first real music videos were made in this place called Oz, a mystical land where every animal is poisonous. And there is good evidence for this, with Australian TV news staffer Russell Mulcahy shooting videos for local bands like AC/DC back in the ’70s, years before MTV went live.
However, there’s another video released around the same time–1975–that is a far better song, a song that’s massively famous and universally beloved. We’re talking BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY by Queen, and I could die happy if we settle on this epic as the First Music Video Ever.
Case closed.
Queen also had the first music video banned by MTV, which gives them 150,000,000 rebellious rock points, so let’s go with Queen.
Except that’s not really the first music video, not even close, because Bob Dylan was doing black-and-white music videos while inventing memes long before neckbeard edgelords were spending all their time learning the Adobe Creative Suite to make it to the front page of reddit with their HQ gifs. How do you pronounce gifs, with a G like it’s spelled or J like we’re talking peanut butter? I know the answer. Come closer and I’ll whisper it to you: “Gif is officially pronounced HOWEVER THE HELL YOU LIKE, because this is the dumbest controversy ever and I do not care one itty bitty bit.”
Here’s Bob Dylan doing his thing ten years earlier than Queen.
Okay then, we have a winner. Right?
Maybe.
Not really.
It all depends on what your definition of musical video is, and how far you want to (a) stretch it and (b) go back in time and technology. Wikipedia lists all sorts of musical short films in the 1920s, along with musical shorts / teasers that ran before the film you paid a full nickel to watch. There were Soundies in the WWII years with short dance sequences set to music and stuff happening with jazz and funky things going on in France with alien jukebox video technology (actually not really making that up, go check it out).
I mean, you could go crazy going down this rabbit hole, which I will not do, because who will pay for my therapy?
HOWEVER: What we all should agree on is that VIDEO KILLED THE RADIO STAR is not really the first music video. At all.
I’m an original viewer of OG MTV–which actually played music videos all the time instead of JERSEY SHORE SEASON 11: LET’S PRETEND SNOOKI AND THE SITUATION AREN’T BOTH 37 AND MARRIED, OK?.
So I take pride in knowing my weird and wonderful music videos, from the Hair Bands of the ’80s to Adam Ant and poofy shirts to Drake making roller-skating look cool again.
How could something like YOU DON’T KNOW by 702 slip past me?
It’s got everything a weird music video needs. Take a look and we’ll chat.
Taking it apart
Since I know nothing about the band 702, here’s my take:
This is one of those things that FEELS like a good idea, when you talk about it, then doesn’t work on film.
The production values are high. The space apocalypse costumes look good, like they stole them from a movie set. The music and singing is fine, and the band looks great.
Where does it get weird but go wrong?
First thing: The robotic dancing.
You can dance like a droid without looking like a dweeb. It is possible. Breakdancers have an entire branch where that’s their schtick, and there are amazing dancers out there.
The singers aren’t any good at it. They should have stuck to singing and leave the dancing to professional dancers.
Second thing: I kept getting the feeling a studio exec built this band from the ground up, trying to copy TLC, down to the haircuts. Could be completely wrong. Maybe TLC copied 702, for all I know, back in the paleolithic era. This is just the feeling I get without using any googling powers to divine the truth and it kept distracting me the whole time. Is this one trying to be Left Eye or Chili?
Third bit: This video keeps switching from robot space apocalypse to modern dresses and sets, which is confusing. Stick to one or the other.
Lastly, the storyline, whatever it is, didn’t catch my interest or make any sense.
Were the singing, dancing robot people from the space apocalypse really in any danger? Why were they being chased? The song and visuals never made me care or understand.
Verdict
Weird, but not wonderfully so. Would not watch again.
As part of my ongoing mission to explore all music, and go where MTV no longer goes anymore, here’s another video: I WANT YOU TO WANT ME by Cheap Trick.
Why show this old thing from 1879 or whatever, when they had to plug their guitars into steam engines?
Three reasons why:
IT.
IS.
AWESOME.
This is a case where simple and repetitive works, because there’s a nice little pattern here with the words: “I want you to want me. I need you to need me.” And so forth. Nothing fancy. Nothing complicated. But it is inspired, and it’s the kind of song a moderately talented punk band could learn to play, you know, the kind of band that knows four chords and forgets two of them in the middle of the show after they finish off two bottles of cheap vodka.
So in that way, this thing is genius. You don’t need a degree in music to play it. You don’t need a great voice to sing it. It’s the perfect cover song, which is why so many other bands have covered it.
Also, it’s one of the few songs that sounds good live versus all auto-tuned and cleaned up in the studio. A gritty garage band can play it and fudge notes without ruining the thing.
You — yes, you — could probably do a decent job singing this thing at a karaoke bar, even if you are TOO DRUNK TO SPELL KARAOKE.
Bottom line: a simple, study, lovable song. A punk-rock deal with interesting twists in the lyrics.
I like it, I love it, I want some more of it.
;
Special bonus: my favorite cover of I WANT YOU TO WANT ME by Letters to Cleo. (This cover doesn’t have a music video. Somebody made one with scenes from the show CHUCK, and they did alright. Here you go.)
The lyrics are way, way below, just for fun. Straight-forward stuff – no need to dissect or improve these. They’re perfect.
I want you to want me.
I need you to need me.
I’d love you to love me.
I’m beggin’ you to beg me.
I want you to want me.
I need you to need me.
I’d love you to love me.
I’ll shine up my old brown shoes.
I’ll put on a brand new shirt
I’ll get home early from work
if you say that you love me.
Didn’t I, didn’t I, didn’t I,
see you cryin’ (cryin, cryin’).
Oh, Didn’t I, didn’t I, didn’t I,
see you cryin’ (cryin, cryin’)
Feelin’ all alone without a friend
you know you feel like dyin’ (dyin’, dyin’).
Oh, didn’t I, didn’t I, didn’t I,
see you cryin’ (cryin’, cryin’).
I want you to want me.
I need you to need me.
I’d love you to love me.
I’m beggin’ you to beg me.
I’ll shine up my old brown shoes.
I’ll put on a brand new shirt
I’ll get home early from work
if you say that you love me.
Didn’t I, didn’t I, didn’t I,
see you cryin’ (cryin, cryin’).
Oh, Didn’t I, didn’t I, didn’t I,
see you cryin’ (cryin, cryin’)
Feelin’ all alone without a friend
you know you feel like dyin’ (dyin’, dyin’).
Oh, didn’t I, didn’t I, didn’t I,
see you cryin’ (cryin’, cryin’).
Feelin’ all alone without a friend
you know you feel like dyin’ (dyin’, dyin’).
Oh, didn’t I, didn’t I, didn’t I,
see you cryin’ (cryin’, cryin’).
Feelin’ all alone without a friend
you know you feel like dyin’ (dyin’, dyin’).
Oh, didn’t I, didn’t I, didn’t I,
see you cryin’ (cryin’, cryin’).
I want you to want me.
I need you to need me.
I’d love you to love me.
I’m beggin’ you to beg me.
Dance and music videos go together like peanut butter and chocolate, salt and pepper, bacon and eggs, coffee and newspapers.
Janet Jackson has made dance music videos forever, and my fake news version of “forever” includes before Dua Lipa was born. (She’s 23, so yes, no lie.)
Today, we’re looking at the latest from Janet, MADE FOR NOW, versus an interesting twist on the dance video from Dua, IDGAF, and yes, if you’re offended by bad words, Dua has a bad one right up there in the title. Sorry. Didn’t write the song.
First up: Janet, then Dua, before we dissect both videos.
I bet you the title to my car that Janet’s video cost far, far more than Dua’s–it certainly looks slick and expensive.
In this case, money and production values don’t win.
Dua has a better song and a far, far more entertaining video.
The acid test to me is whether (a) you’d have to pay me to rewatch it or (b) I’d happily watch and listen to something again. I’ve happily put IDGAF on loop while you’d have to pay me to hit replay on MADE FOR NOW, a repetitive song and boring video.
And that’s too bad. Janet’s got talent to burn. She’s made iconic music videos for years.
RHYTHM NATION was groundbreaking and still works today.
So I’m disappointed because Janet’s playing it safe with this. So safe that it fails.
Here’s the thing: once you’ve already had crazy success and so much cash you can’t spend it without buying private islands in the South Pacific, playing it safe is a losing strategy. You’re coasting instead of pushing yourself, and the audience feels it.
Though I’m no fan of Madonna’s music, she did a tremendous job of recognizing this and picking a hot new producer for every album to reinvent herself. That was bold and risky. It made her a star for decades instead of a one-hit wonder.
The best music–rock, pop, rap, whatever–attacks the status quo.
Aggressively. Relentlessly. Without mercy.
The worst music defends the status quo.
Limply. Lamely. Apologetically.
If you’re a famous singer or band, please take your piles of money and try to make something insanely different, new and interesting.
Rebel again.
Because that’s the real point of art, to shock us into seeing the world in a different way.
Here’s what makes WIRED FOR SOUND a masterpiece in the genre of bad music videos:
First, the song has to be genuinely bad, and it is boring and repetitive, with insipid lyrics.
Second, you want terrible production values, as in “We rented the local skating rink for $50 and only have four hours to shoot this thing, so let’s get it done.”
Third, the costumes need to absolutely pop, and these spandex unitard-things make everybody look like Teletubbies had a fling with Jane Fonda during her leggings and aerobics phase. Then they they discovered a hot tub time machine and went back to 1977 to find the nearest disco.
Which means I absolutely love this video.
Most terrible music videos are annoying, like DJ Khaled shouting his name six times while Justin Bieber tries to rap and look edgy with more tattoos. Here we go with a supercut of DJ Khaled doing his thing, saying his name in songs.
Note: Don’t confuse him with the singer Khalid, who did the brilliant LOVE LIES, one of my favorite songs and videos ever. To cleanse your palate, give this a listen.
WIRED FOR SOUND isn’t purely annoying.
This thing is so bad, it circles back to good, rewarding the viewer who rewatches it to discover new details, like anthropologists from the future wondering what specific drugs we were on and whether the different colors of spandex unitard-things denoted your cultural position and class rank.
There’s a story that (a) makes sense and (b) fits the lyrics.
We’ve got funky, Weird Science effects and skateboarding tricks that are actually cool and doable by normal people. And it all works together in a package that fits the song.
I truly like this video. They’re not desperately trying to be deep, awards or boost the ego of band members. This video is meant to be a good time, and it gets that job done.
Great job, Clean Bandit and Demi Levato–I’d love to see more like this.
Ariana Grande possesses an illegal amount of talent.
If you’ve seen her on SNL, Jimmy Fallon or at awards shows, you know she can imitate everybody from Whitney Houston to Celine Dion to Britney Spears.
It. Is. Uncanny.
Her music videos tend to be creative, too. Good on her.
GOD IS A WOMAN may be peak Ariana so far.
This video is a spectacle, with trippy visuals and interesting effects. Every time you watch it, you see something new.
Compare that with MINE by Bazzi, an equally trippy music video in an entirely different style.
Note: there are some bad words in Bazzi’s video. Don’t play this at work with your speakers cranked up to 11, though that’s a pretty safe thing to say about just about every pop song today.
I bet Ariana’s video cost a lot more than Bazzi’s, and it’s definitely more ambitious and slicker. You get the sense a giant Hollywood production crew worked for a month on Ariana’s, where this dude you knew in college who’s good with AfterEffects went to town on Bazzi’s video.
However, Bazzi wins this round. With the GOD IS A WOMAN video, I’m fully aware of how slick and perfect everything is, which makes me want to find flaws.
MINE is gritty and raw, which lets you enjoy the details without wondering if they cost more than the Gross Domestic Product of Paraguay.
VERDICT: People rightfully like the message and spectacle of GOD IS A WOMAN, which is genuinely good. But the underdog, Bazzi, does her one better. Give us more like this, Bazzi.
Listen: I grew up watching music videos, back when we had this thing called MTV, which played music videos 25 hours a day, eight days a week.
So there isn’t much that shocks or impresses me, seeing how 99 percent of music videos fall into these categories:
(1) Solo divas belting away while backup dancers go crazy
(2) Boy bands lip-syncing while dancing like crazy
(3) Metal bands in black-and-white videos, trying to look tough, no smiling allowed
(4) Concert videos with screaming, adoring fans
(5) Artistic mini-movies that only prove singers should sing and actors should act
This video is something truly different. Donald Glover can act, sing and dance–and while he’s making a number of political statements in this video, none of them are on-the-nose. You have to rewatch this video three or four times to catch them all, including imagery from GET OUT.
Here, take a look and a listen:
Glover debuted this song live when he hosted SNL, and did a nice job there, too.
VERDICT: I’m shocked and impressed. A tricky thing, trying to send a powerful message through a song and music video without bonking your audience over the head with that message. Pretty easy to be far too heavy or way too subtle. Glover threads the needle with skill and care. I want to see more of his work now, and it’s easy to see why this video has gone beyond viral.
The Red Pen of Doom 