One of the runners-up for our Top 12 Songs About The Internet list was Mistah F.A.B.’s “Hit Me On Twitter,” an ode to the microblogging service. The video is pretty cute; it’s a brightly colored romp through Mistah F.A.B.’s hometown of Oakland that turns each character’s Twitter into a series of supershort thought bubbles, where people can think about the attractiveness of people they run into, the annoyances presented by others, and, of course, the old blogger standby of what they’re having for lunch. Video after the jump. More »
The video for Lily Allen’s musing on whether women of her generation have been stamped with an expiration date, “22,” chronicles those moments that members of the fairer sex spend in the bathroom during late nights at clubs—scrutinizing themselves in the mirror, intoxicated on both the offerings served up by the establishments’ bartenders and the peacocking they’ll have to go through once they escape through the doors marked WOMEN. Clip after the jump. More »
What with her flashy clothes and ability to dance under any circumstances, it’s no surprise that the M.I.A.-directed video for Rye Rye’s “Bang” (which one could be describe as a “banger” if one weren’t worried about the obviousness of said description) has lots of people shaking their booties like crazy, as well as people outfitted in finery that’s so glow-in-the-dark, it makes you wish she’d just gone all-out and cast Tron Guy. Clip after the jump. More »
A brief list of utterly unnecessary pop-culture references in Seether’s C64-inspired clusterfuck of a video for its still-unkillable cover of “Careless Whisper,” a clip that is half-’80s nostalgia trip and half-boneheaded “commentary” on issues of the present day like Kim Jong Il’s grip on power. You may recognize him up top, where he’s talking to Tony “Scarface” Montana and Vicki while presiding over a scaffold not unlike the one Donkey Kong commands. Oh, haha, I guess I just inadvertently started that list! But there is so much more. More »
Beth Ditto’s performance in the Gossip’s video for “Still Standing In The Way Of Control” “Heavy Cross,” from the band’s forthcoming major-label debut Music For Men, is weirdly reminiscent of American Idol–namely, all those moments when singers are trying to prove to you that they really feel a song, only the smile playing across their lips directly contradicts the seriousness / bummer quotient of the lyrics. I get that Ditto here is trying to play to the type of the all-seeing disco oracle here, but “Cross” is something of an odd contrast with both the glitter-and-gold motif of the clip and her almost-too-knowing grin. Particularly when she’s really trying to belt out that bit at the end–I don’t even think Whitney keeps a smile on her face while she’s really giving her songs their all. [YouTube] More »
I’ve spent some time with Mandy Moore’s latest attempt to break free of her teenpop bonds Amanda Leigh since it came out, and one word keeps coming to mind: Disarming. The songs are quite good, but there’s an odd feeling of placelessness about it; it doesn’t have much of a sense of time, or even locale, despite references to rivers and summers and dells. The video for the album’s first single, the snappy “I Could Break Your Heart Every Day Of The Week,” is kind of a perfect showcase for how the record sounds OK on the surface, yet has a queasy unease lurking within! More »
Curtis Jackson: Lover, fighter, actor, rescuer of the worst Sesame Street character in history. Oh well, at least he’s trying to get attention for doing something sort of nice, right? [YouTube via broken cool] More »
Beyoncé closed out her UK tour last night, and as a surprise, she brought George Michael onstage for a performance of her male-privilege-examining ballad “If I Were A Boy.” Michael’s vocals in this clip are for the most part drowned out by B’s instrument and the shrieks of the overexcited fans at London’s O2 Arena, but the bits where he busts through sound great, and it just makes me want more from him, like, now. (Especially if that “more” means “more collaborations with Beyoncé”–could you imagine?) [YouTube via Vicki] More »
Amerie’s video for “Why R U,” which is the first single off what I guess is going to try and be her comeback album In Love & War, is a pretty standard affair: Amerie stands and lounges in front of various walls while miming the track, flaunting her legs to maximum effect. I’m hoping that Def Jam’s attempt to remarket Amerie after the fizzling of Because I Love It works on both a commercial level and an appealing-to-me level. And it’s probably a good sign that “Why R U” has grown on me a lot since its release last month–although I’d be remiss if I didn’t say that feeling was in large part to it being included on the better-with-every-spin ziptape The Future Of R & B: Volume 26, which you should definitely snag if you haven’t already. [via Vicki] More »
The video for Jordin Sparks’ “Battlefield” made its way to the Internet over the weekend, and on the day that newly minted American Idol winner Kris Allen made his inevitable record deal with 19 Recordings official, it’s somewhat instructive to see what happens to people who stay in the 19 fold for their second albums. Sparks’ Ryan Tedder-produced track, which has co-written by ex-Color Me Badd dude Sam Watters on its four-man songwriters’ roster, is OK enough and it’s getting raves from people whose opinions I respect. But it still sounds somewhat odd to these ears, like her voice has been dosed with a double shot of Splenda because that was the only way it could match up to the bombast surrounding her. The video, on the other hand, is a simple affair that allows her to get into maximum drama mode. [YouTube] More »
