Sometimes Internet sensations take a while to get going. Like the above video, which had 9,000 views through yesterday, despite being loaded up last year. Well, that’s a crying shame. The clip for F.U.S.B.I.’s accidental indie rock gem “Come On Back” features three 40something bike gang refugees (one sporting an American flag doorag) and a bouncy high school kid on keyboards; it tells the stirring story of a dropped $20 bill, a beautiful lady, and, uh, something else. Yes, this video somehow manages to bungle its facile narrative, but, how about that awesome guy working the boards in the Slipknot shirt? Maura told me yesterday, “I would have just kept the $20.” Sounds like someone’s not a world-class romantic like these Federal United States Booty Inspectors!
If you press play on the above video and are confused by its lack of audio, don’t be confused: The clip has had its audio—which was originally a mish-mash of versions of “Walk” by Pantera, Avenged Sevenfold, and Disturbed—stripped by the video-sharing site YouTube. The muted clip is now captioned by the below advisory on the site:
Probably not, but that hasn’t stopped the viewers of MTV UK to crown it as such, ahead of promotional reels by the likes of Michael Jackson, Madonna, and OK Go. Sure, it’s all the result of an online poll, and one could argue that the clip is probably one of the most important videos of the (seemingly waning) music-video era, with its quick-for-its-time cuts and glossy preening, but the best ever? Really? This result is kind of making me wonder just how bloody an online battle royale between Durannies and fans of the Jonas Brothers would get. Anyway, for those of you who want to see what “Rio” beat out in the minds of MTV UK’s visitors, the full top 10 (with embeds! because I care!) after the jump.
Before we get into the news of the day, some notes on VH1 Classic’s weekend programming, which consisted of the channel showing a chunk of its vault’s videos from the ’80s in alphabetical order (by artist, then by song). Why the evil geniuses at Viacom wanted to encourage shut-in-ism among the part of its demographic that probably needs sunshine and air more than most is beyond me, but that’s probably because I was too busy getting sucked in to give it much thought.
1. Paul McCartney’s “Spies Like Us” was, perhaps surprisingly, not a terrible “movie tie-in track” like so many other songs I had the pleasure of catching over the course of the weekend. (Although the ending to the video, which has Macca, Dan Aykroyd, and Chevy Chase “humorously” crossing Abbey Road, is wrong on too many levels.) But I’m still a total sucker for “No More Lonely Nights.”
2. People–including someone in VH1 Classic’s graphics department–still have a problem with the whole “where to put the apostrophe when you’re abbreviating a decade” thing. Just think of it this way: The apostrophe goes where the numbers are missing. In this case, when you say “’80s,” that apostrophe is actually a teeny, tiny knife that lops off a “1” and a “9”!
Today’s completely dubious claim about why an arm of the music industry might be hurting comes from Wired‘s Scott Thill, who wrote in response to R.E.M.’s new, ad-agency-created video for “Man-Sized Wreath”: “Music videos aren’t dead, they’re just dying, and they’re dying because of bloated videos like ‘Everybody Hurts.’ When fans can use their favorite songs to make their amateur films without fear of losing their comparatively miniscule cookie jars, then the new age of promotional video will be here at last.” Say what?
“Let’s Get Really Meta About Everything Because It’s Hot Out Week” continues on Idolator, with the attention paid to music in the present day and the willingness of people to experience concerts without obsessively documenting every second giving way to the meaning of music videos in 2008 via a thinky piece by James at Shots Ring Out. He points out that the medium has effectively been exiled from most programming hours, garnered the dubious currency of “Internet-attention money” for YouTube hits, and become a “loss leader for a loss leader” in the minds of record executives–in other words, their previous status as a promotional tool for albums is hurting them, since physical product once made money on its own but is now seen by many people (at least, the people who think about music instead of bilssfully ignoring it) as promotional material for touring, merchandise, and other unpirateable things.
“Kanye West stopped the action at the EW party to give guests a sneak peek of the video for his single, ‘Flashing Lights.’ The clip, co-directed by West and Spike Jonze, has a lingerie-clad woman driving to the desert and opening the trunk of her car, revealing a bound and gagged Kanye. More »
Today is the official launch of GodTube, the hardcore Christian alternative to YouTube, and if you’ve got a strong stomach/high tolerance for amateur rap songs about the apostles, it’s an alternative universe worth checking out. More »
A shot-for-shot remake of Kelly Clarkson’s “Never Again” video that allegedly didn’t cost a cent to produce. We’re sure the accounting department at Sony BMG is forwarding this clip around the office right now. More »
The sing-along clip for “Icky Thump”–essentially a weird Michael Moore-Eli Roth fever dream–is over at Spinner. Amazingly, this has been up since midnight, and no one’s managed to make an easy-to-locate clip on YouTube. Oh, Internet! We’re so disappointed in you! More »
