Weekly Wideo Woundup.

So it’s time for another music video post, in what is going to be a coming feature installment as we here at INLY try to create a schedule for publishing, (read: a reason for people other than our friends to check this site out) and realignment of what we here at the site will do.

As it stands with Dave, Monday’s will be for movies.

Wednesday’s will be Videos, but to be punny it’s called Wideos, and while you must surely have noted that it’s Thursday, Dave is on GY time, which means that he tends to post the day after. And Friday, if it tops 2500 words.

Saturdays will be for sports, and at the end of the month, we’ll do a roundup with the viral video of the month. As for the rest, it’s blogtastic, with us writing what we want, when we want, and occasionally updating the INLY dictionary.

First off.

The new Beyonce and Jay – Z collabo, Déjà vu, which I believe our good friend James over at Green Pea-ness covered, but as soon as I saw Beyonce in the title, I flipped over to ESPN. Why, because it’s far more interesting to watch Beyonce than to listen to Beyonce.


There is an online petition from a bunch of (searching for the word to preface devoted that includes idiotic, misguided, likely racially motivated, and to the wrong altar for R&B, which in this case stands for Rap & Beyonce because in reality, Beyonce is one of the first singing rap artists, as much of DC’s catalogue sound more like rap songs in structure than they do R&B, they just fooled people by having Beyonce record a 2nd through 15th vocal track and lay it over around the ¾ mark. Compare the affirmed style of delivery of a Survivor or Say My Name to a Toni Braxton (older) Ne-Yo (new) or The Supremes track (their forerunners, in every way down to the lead singers career and personality). Now compare them to a rap song. Which group does it belong in?)) fans who want a second video shot as this one seems to destroy the legacy of Beyonce’s dancing style, calling it herky-jerky and erratic.

First-off, Beyonce was NEVER a good dancer. People overlooked this because of four reasons, two of which look exactly the same, and are measured in both numbers and letters, one was her ass, and the last was the end sum of these three, which is that she’s totally fucking hot. Even if she’s not doing it for you in one area, you’d be hard pressed to find a man who wouldn’t want a girl with a bod like hers.

You want proof?

Here you go.

the dumbest impetus for a song in their career, Survivor. Really, when a person compares your group to a TV show because the lead singer’s father keeps kicking people out of the band, don’t make a song about it.

Crazy in Love Here’s some proof, all she does in terms of dancing is wiggle her ass and walk back and forth.

Baby Boy I was strongly in favor of adding all Beyonce videos to the FMBT* canon, but this one, even with B in a silver dress with tons of stomach cleavage, is one of those boggling moments which should be so hawt, but is not because of the distraction factor.

Sure, white people can’t dance, and those who are dorky enough to laugh at this sterotype and also name their band after a Simpsons character (who NOBODY LIKES) even make crappy videos about it, tiled Dance, Dance.

The flip of this is like an SAT test question:

White people cannot dance. Many black people can. Does this mean that all black people are great dancers.

A. Absolutely
B. Without a doubt.
C. Are you joking, sure they can’t swim, but they can dance, about that I am totally sure.
D. Racial stereotypes, which are always harmful but often derived from fact, are almost always not true, with the exception that all Irish Catholics are mean, fighting drunks.

Sure, she’s got some rhythm and bounce in her step, but I wouldn’t call her a great dancer. Or even a good dancer. Or even a competent one. It’s like watching a kid on DDR, sure they have all the steps to get a great score, but in the end, it doesn’t mean that they can dance in real life.

Beyonce’s body is like a DDR console for that skinny kid at your local arcade; it’s enough of a cover to convince people she can dance, even though all we want to see is her twins jiggle.

Here’s the video. And props to Jay for dropping Juan Pierre, the CF for the Cubbies who keeps breaking my heart and underperforming. Side note, hey, Jim Hendry and the Tribune tards running the Cubbies, couldn’t you have gotten this guy in the trade which gave the Cubs Alfono Alfonseca and the Marlins Dontrelle Wills (hold on, my word auto spell checker is about to have a meltdown), it didn’t cost us a world series appearance or anything. Oh, wait it did. *%*^#&#@@ 2003 all over again.

Anyway, here’s the vid.



Sucks don’t it. As an avid drinker, I’d like to note that changing up your drink can lead to seriously catastrophic results. This may be your fault Jigga.

++++

So, is there a single Houston rapper that can say “no” to a song appearance? (Scarface excluded).

Paul Wall: Hey, Mike Jones, it’s me Paul Wall, baby, what he do… you there? Did I get the wrong number? Maybe my igloo watch caused my hands to dial a wrong number… who
Mike Jones: MIKE JONES!!!
Paul Wall: Who!
Mike Jones: MIKE JONES!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Paul Wall: Thought I dialed the wrong number.
Mike Jones: I got people calling my number all day long man. Got a lot of haters and a lot of phonies.
Paul Wall: Anyway, I got a song coming up, you in?
Mike Jones: Got a lot of haters and a lot of phonies. MIKE JONES!!!!
Paul Wall: So we recording tomorrow, you want a verse, the song is called, get this, I’m George Foreman with grillz, but grills is spelled with a Z, so you know it’s hot. Hotter than this city, but the Ice Age could cool it down.
Mike Jones: MIKE JONES is in. I’ll see you at three.
Paul Wall: This track’ll be shining like a disco ball. Yo, remember that guy from two years ago who didn’t want to rap with us because H-town wadn’t big?
Mike Jones: Back then, they didn’t want me, now I’m hot they all on me.
Paul Wall: He’s in. See you at three.
Mike Jones: I said, Back then they didn’t want me, now I’m hot, they all on me. MIKE JONES out.

(I had more fun writing that than anything I have had that doesn't inolve porn or Badmition playing T-Rex's in a while)

So Houston is the city of the moment, even passing Atlanta for the number of acts coming out in mass play. But you get the feeling this is going to be short lived as they keep selling the same product instead of getting into the actual artists, pushing the culture before the product, which by all means for longevity, should happen in reverse. I can forgive them for trying to make it big and putting H-town on the map, but at least give us something. I’m waiting for the first Houston act to make the great rap song of 2006, but all we are getting is the appetizer sampler, a lot of everything, no specialties. And sure it’s a good thing for happy hours and introductions, but the main course is twhat makes people come back after the initial buzz dies down.

Well in the case of this post, we get another instance of a up and comer riding the red hot coattails of established (not successful, as only the Geto Boys and Scarface are there, and well, with UGK, they set their own fate) artist to come in. What do we get to lead off the track, Paul Wall reciting a bunch of lines about how his Jewelry is not to be confused with frozen water, and the most hilariously idiotic idiomatic phrase of the (or any) city thus far.

Chunk up the deuce.



Decent setting for a video, an interrogation room which allows the underplay of needless cop profiling with rappers, who “claim” to be not with the bad side. It’s something that actually I agree with for a good setup.

But then there’s the chopped and screwed chorus, which is slang for throwing a peace sign to show love.

One couldn’t find two better similes for “Peace sign” and “Raise up” than deuce and chunk, respectively.

I think I just chunked in my pants. I chunked up a deuce, to be accurate.

When all that comes to mind is:



You got a big problem if you are Lil’ Keke.

++++

When thinking about how low Britney has fallen, to the point where this morning I could think of nothing more than how I am going to avoid dating a woman named Britney because it’s going to mean she is white trash, I…have lost track of where I was going.



Umm, even if this is a major hit, I still think Mrs. Federline wins. We’re still taking about her, and you look way too caked (not coked, but it’s a possibility) up miss X-tina.

Three cheers for Britney.

Only because of this, this, golden, golden oldie.



Sure it’s the school girl, but it’s the little details that made it FMBT* (not Man’ha’ann Beach) fodder, such as the pink ribbons and the fluffy scrunchies in her pigtails. By the way, I truly can claim to be the first of my friends to see this, as it was leased to Best Buy and Circuit City in video form to play on the TV’s about a month before Britney was even on the cultural radar. In those days, I was working in High School, which meant I had an unreal amount of spendable income and liked to buy CD’s. I went into buy a CD and saw the video on one of the big TV’s. For biological reasons, I couldn’t move after eyeful one, and I told everyone about how this was the hottest thing ever. 7 years on, it just may be the best porn/not-porn media ever made. And that’s why I’m linking this again below.

Hachi, machi, Side note, turn down the volume.



+++++

With the last bit with TI into the camera aside, this is a great video, and I admit it, I think it’s a pretty good song.

The song has a great down beat and slow pacing which makes the slow(ish) draw of TI all the more potent, (which may be the best way to bring out the better of the Dipset crew, whose beats I like because of the old school heaviness, but they do not correspond with the slow paced 5 words and staccato end to a sentence delivery of a Cam’ron or Juelz Santana, I just don’t think it meshes with the beat style as it should.) and even though it’s aggressive, one has to roll with the nuances of the mode sometimes.

So what if this is video is redoing Pleasantville’s B&W into color thing, this does it well. And the Chris Robinson shots of the Steam Clouds over the water are absolutely great. Or at least National Geographic program where I am stoned and watching the beauty of the Earth, man kind of great, Luxurious, full framed shots of the volcanic islands… for a video without much bling, that’s the money shot. I wish more were like this.



++++

Robin Thicke wrote a couple of Usher songs and a couple of other hits for R&B songs is getting needlessly heavy airplay at MTV. This means that he is either signed by a Viacom company, or he has pictures of Usher with Lance Bass. Either scenario is equally likely.

In the world of music now, couldn’t he of come up with a moniker that didn’t remind us of “Growing Pains?” I tried on Youtube to find this clip before I substituted Robin for Alan. My bad, but it’s his fault.



But this video with Lil Wayne is pretty damn good. It’s a duet, something I usually can’t stand, but this one gets the essential dual play of a duet right, it gets the most out of those involved, and it plays them off one another, and the video puts them in that frame of mind.

I like the video, I like the song.

Well done. (I may change my mind on this later, and reserve the right to do so.)

++++

So, I have done a lot of R&B and Rap videos for today, but the close is something different.

Thinking about the “In the Air Tonight” remix for the Miami Vice commercials, I got a warm feeling thinking about the 80’s. If I was 10 years older in the 80’s, I’m sure I would have listened to the Clash, The Mats, the Smiths, and that’s about it. It was a bad time for music for teenagers with a bunch of fire or sense of loneliness, well at least compared to the 90’s with grunge, and today, with (shudder) emo.

But being a kid, it was kind of nice, because outside of Hair Metal and the early days of hip-hop, the airwaves were filled with Adult artists, like Phil Collins, Billy Joel, Paul Simon, etc. With the exception of Boy and War, U2 were aged when they hit it really big with the Joshua Tree. Maybe it’s a sweeping statement, but most of the stuff on the radio and on MTV were songs that were marketed to the mass audience, compared to the completely splintered genres now where Myspace will help bands based on the music tastes section find you, the lowest common denominator was the marketing strategy. Getting a crossover hit these days is uncommon, but it’s not like getting a mainstream hit, which is becoming ever rarer. This is why Oldies channels continue to draw big ratings in the era of niche marketing, people can share their enjoyment with others in a communal history.

Hey Ya, Feel Good Inc, Crazy. All three share two things in common, they were beaten to death in radio play, and they were played on multiple radio genre stations.

In an era when the bands get younger and younger, and it’s not just your aging that makes it feel more so, it’s a shame, because in one way or another, we’re all starting to sound like Indie music snobs, but without the pretension, when one asks “You haven’t heard it!” It’s just how it’s going to be from now on. This is the evolution of the internet and 400 cable channels.

I think it’s sad, because when Thriller hit, people remember seeing the video for the first time. People remember where they were when Smells Like Teen Spirit first came on in late 1991. People Remember how eerie it was that Hypnotize came out on the album Life after Death just days after Biggie was killed. Britney’s Baby, one more time may have been the last song to do so, I am struggling to think of one after, but I can’t.

Songs can always tie someone to a time and a place, but when you can share that moment with others who weren’t there, it’s a smaller world, and in a good way, because it makes life a little bit more universal. This is why we love movies and, until everyone had cable, TV shows.

But in the last 3 months we have had a few songs that while not genuine smashes, are pretty big hits. Other than Crazy, which is right there with The Gorillaz “feel good inc.” camp of hits by an artist’s side project that I can’t stand anymore because it’s being played to death and it wasn’t that good in the first place.

The other two, Beautiful by James Blunt and Bad Day by Daniel Powter. Both are lame, but they are lame in the, god these are actually good songs and I find myself singing them when I’m at work at I haven’t heard them in 3 days kind of way. We need more of this non-threatening middle ground stuff because it serves as a palette cleanser for personal tastes, as it is inviting enough to listen to, but it’s not thrilling enough to make you go out and buy the album (unless you are an average girl, who will go out and buy this stuff to play before putting on J-Tim’s new CD for your slumber party dance off). We can make fun of this stuff at work, singing it in silly voices to make coworkers annoyed but not angry, because we’re not assailing their personal tastes, we’re making fun of the fact we all kind of like this dumb song.

And when we are really down, and too depressed to listen to albums and tracks that make us happy, we’ll find ourselves groveling to songs like “Iris” by the Goo Goo Dolls or “Picture” by Filter, we want to let ourselves feel worse for empathizing with this guy who is hitting the basest level. Instead of make you crawl up in fetal position songs like Sinatra’s “In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning” we’ll cry longingly for a girl while chanting “All By Myself” by Eric Carmen or Everything I do (I do it for you) by Bryan Adams. Or the entire catalogue of Journey.

We need base songs like this, it makes the world a little bit smaller and a little bit easier to deal with.

And then there are those times when a song is able to hit a person on this raw, dumb emotional level and also be a classic song that is great in it’s own right, meaning you can love it outside of the pangs of heartbreak, and the crème-de-la-crème of this is the Beach Boys “God Only Knows” which I can cry just thinking about.

So here is the video for Bad Day, which pretty much does everything it needs to do and more, and features the lovely Samaire Armstrong formerly of the OC, which almost makes it guaranteed to show up on INLY anyway.

Enjoy. And sing it in your best bad voice over the weekend when it comes on in the pubs when you are out on Saturday. Below this post is another in Dave's top 25 music videos ever made. Enojy that as well.



+++++

*Furious Masturbation Theater.