Music. Movies. Comics. Media is kind of our thing.
Just caught this on Smoking Section... Remember Vince, with the Shamwow and the Slapchop and the hookers? Rember Eminem, with his terrible last album and the drugs? Well, what if you combined both of them, threw out the nasty shit and distilled it into a great Recovery promo? Well, this is what you'd get:
favorite line: 'Put it on your hose"
Recovery is available 6.21.2010!
I caught wind of this Sienna Swagger Wagon thing over the weekend, but I figured it could wait until today. Between commercials like this and BP's 'little' snafu in the Gulf, you'd never guess that Toyota was still recovering from a customer relations/quality nightmare.
Since this isn't a real music video, I'll reserve my usual negative comments. I'd just like to note the following: the dad squeezes the nipple on the baby bottle, he throws his daughter's tea service on the ground and spikes the mini piano - that cracked my shit up. He may be a balding actor and this may be a ridiculously shameless use of 'swagger' & autotune, but it's also funny. If I were Puff, I would be pissed -- not because these guys were jocing my video concepts from 15 years ago -- but because they'll have more success with it in 3 months than he has in the last 15 years.
(WHERE MY MOTHER FATHERS AT?)
Last Saturday I stayed in, drank a couple Bud Light tallboys and fell asleep around midnight. As such, I did not catch this terminal abomination of a live performance by Ke$ha. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of waking up and watching it. Nothing can undo what has been done here:
Really, where to begin? The American flag cape. Dancers + band in spacesuits. Overdone sing-songy vocals (plus autotune) that try to make her sound younger/ditzier than she really is. Did I mention the half-assed robot-arm swing in there too (these guys totally trumped Bieber's shitty road crew, which is impressive)? A total inability to sing/dance at the same time. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. Oh, and the lyrics are basically a string of urban dictionary entries. Why is this girl popular? Not mention, the single came out during the summer, what is she doing on SNL NOW?
The laser light thing -- that actually had the potential to be cool. But instead of using a theremin, which would have been 400% gangster, we got a lame party laser. That was the last straw. I mean really, how on earth is autotune more gangster than a theremin?!
I did a little wiki-research and it looks like this Ke$ha girl's initial 'breakout' was doing the hook on a Flo-Rida's even crappier cover of You Spin Me Round? There was a big long page of credits and history, but the main references that hit me were: Paris Hilton, Katy Perry, and Pitbull --- hardly musical relationships that I would consider worthwhile.
So, excuse me while I don my hater hat and pass judgement here: Ke$ha, this was a bad performance, a bad song, and bad in general. To quote a recent meme from b-school: you need to GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER!
After my fugue, where I exclusively listened to Sade for about 3 weeks, I wasn't sure if I could handle hearing this or another Sade song ever again.
Looks like I was wrong. Soldier of Love drops Feb 9, Act like you know.
So last week I hated on VEVO for it's launchday woes. And then later I noted some improvement, and maintained my other complaints. Well, today is more of the same. I'm glad that VEVO displays large videos on the main playback page, however I do not like that the embeds are 575 pixels wide by default. That is a bit too large for blog embedding in general, (especially this one). Oh, and the site makes you disable Adblock Plus in order to watch. YouTube doesn't do that, and either does MTV.
Anyway, today's video, courtesy of a functioning VEVO, is Calle 13's La Perla, featuring Rubén Blades. It's a great song, and the video is low impact - but scenic. If you can't enjoy this then... well i don't know, but something is clearly wrong with you. It's chill. And for what it's worth, it did win a Latin Grammy. Enjoy.
I want to like VEVO. Unfortunately, there are a number of issues standing in the way.
First and foremost, I can't get the site to work. I know it's in beta, and it just launched - but this is unacceptable. The launch was way too hyped for 2nd day performance to be this sluggish. I can't get any videos to play and the search functions are for shit. I can't even access a Beyonce video - apparently it's not authorized for my region. Pray tell, what region is licensed if not the U.S.? Also you have to access the site using the www prefix (which is redundant). That might all be minor nitpicking, but this whole thing is a joint venture with Google. Superstar uptime and IT are sort of their thing. Operational Fail.
And does this website even need to exist? I am totally comfortable watching ads on Hulu - and even on AOL or MTV when watching music videos, but where is the added value for me? All I see is value in aggregation, and maybe fewer broken video links in the future. But, reinventing the wheel, breaking everyone's current YouTube embeds, and promoting the site seems like a large outlay for small potential profits. Also, couldn't this have been defined as a new category of videos at Hulu (they have movies and tv right now) or even YouTube as opposed to a whole new site? Why not leverage Hulu's great brand image? I understand this involves a different set of parties, but I think this could have been done better. Oh wait - it totally has been:
MTV's implementation (which has an open API) of a music video streaming site is much better, and it launched last year. The design is infinitely less abrasive and offers all the same favorites, review, playlist, and social networking features that VEVO is promoting. And, they have a large (though not exhaustive) collection, including most current pop hits. The videos are easy to embed and most importantly, the site works. Booyah.
I imagine that Google / the labels will work the bugs out pretty quickly, but right now VEVO is a No-Go.
Our podcast crew is all yours as we talk about Jean-Claude Van Damme in Replicant, the Harry Potter movies as modern classics, the upcoming Tournament Movie Tournament (!!!), Jingle All the Way (overrated), Supernova (underrated), DOA: Dead or Alive, Grammy Award nominees including The Ting Tings and Booker T, Cudderisback by Kid Cudi, Nick's guitar spotlight spectacular featuring Dennis Coffey, Roger Troutman, and Rodrigo y Gabriela, Lady GaGa's The Fame Monster, and the Annie Award nominees including Cloudy and Mr. Fox.
I ust wanted to remind all of you that neither my alter ego RonnieB, nor UAL, is in any way affiliated with Andy Samberg's Shy Ronnie. That is all.
Actually, that isn't all - what the hell is RiRi wearing? Ha-HA!
I'm not sure how to process Beyonce's alter ego, Sasha Fierce, anymore. I can't even come up with a witty headline. The 'good' vs. 'edgy' single release strategy was cute back in 2008, but 4+ cycles later I am over it. In any case, B just dropped a new video for Video Phone featuring (no surprise here) Lady Gaga.
The Track: Garbage. So far everything I have heard from this 'era' sounds the same. I think the beat could have been better used for something else. Gaga's inclusion is pointless play for relevance and she fails to add anything to the track. Bey is capable enough on her own, why is she bringing another 'diva' in the mix. Isn't that why she left DC in the first place? I don't get this, the same way I don't get why she did that other track with Shakira. Finally, I know I've said it before, but why does B keep trying to appear gutter glam? That's like Bill Gates saying he really digs the open source model and that he uses Plan 9. More to the point, it's not like anyone other than the Jigga Man has the remote possibility of a chance. Such a ridiculous and unbelievable tease.
The Video: Hype Williams done lost his mind. White, black, epilepsy inducing editing, a multitude of hyper color toy guns, Abu Grahib esque hoods, dudes with camera lenses for heads. Hype was clearly tripping off some Terry Gilliam Brazil / Time Bandits nonsense.
I mean check it out for yourself, it oozes excess and hubris. The whole thing is visually jarring for the sake of being so. Then again, taken as a leading indicator, we could be finally pulling out of the recession.
The video and inclusion of Ms. Disco Stick reinforces my theory that Lady Gaga is the most disruptive force in pop music right now. (Important note: B rocks a plastic m16 while Lady GarBage rocks an anemic pistol) Ciara, Beyonce, Shakira, Rihanna, and even my dear Amerie are all falling prey to and imitating her crazy, lone ranger, weirdass B.S. Every new pop diva video I see is just trying to capture some of her wackass style.
The Bottom Line: Hot, soggy, smelly refuse
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