Keane got Timmy T.’d. Or Christopher Cross-ed, if you’d rather. It’s a weird Buggles tune of musical lookism. In the music industry, it’s all fun and chords until you have to make a video. Keane is the singer, and he’s in the video — sort of. Let’s say you get clearer shots of the Video Girl’s Chucks, than you do the actual artist.
I probably would never have seen the video if it weren’t for Italian MTV — they still do the “M” part here. And the only thing in this video that stands out, other than the Drew Barrymore in Mad Love plot, are the great lengths the go to hide the singer.
Judging from the concert-style sequences, they shot the band performing the whole song. But every time the camera gets near Keane’s face, it’s a quick pan, or a head turn, or cloaked in shadows.
Why? Why is this all shot like he’s in the Witness Protection Program? Is it because his jawline isn’t square enough? Or are his cheeks are too full and his face to soft to belong to a “rock star?”
I wonder if he was sad when they showed him the finished video — especially since the “plot” carried by the actors isn’t all that compelling. I wonder if it was the same feeling Carnie Wilson had when they stuck her in a blazer and full-length skirt on the BEACH.
Or the same way Nancy Wilson felt about how they “marketed” her image.
How do we enjoy music, anyway? Last I heard, it was just that — your ears. But consider this: in 1980 Christopher Cross was the first solo artist to sweep all four general field Grammy Awards. In 1981, MTV launched. Not necessarily causation, but they correlate enough to get each others’ mail.
There are two kinds of people: People who call radio stations, and people who don’t. I’m the former, I get it from my dad. Once he got the guy doing the local sports talk show to devote a whole hour to having listeners call in and give him tips on taking the Bro to his first baseball game.
I have never inspired a whole hour of content, but back in my more political [firebrand youth] days, I spent quite a bit of time on hold, waiting for my chance to be “Zoë from Salem is on the line..” with whatever my I’M SURE very reasonable point was.
Radio station callers also keep track of the Top 5 at 9 to have the right answer to try to win the next day, and they enter contests. I scored Blazers tickets and talked to…I’m sure he’s a very talented basketball player, I — Oh! It was “Buck’s Brain Busters,” so his name must have been Buck…something. I don’t know basketball, but I do know trivia, so I won. That was a very exciting car ride to school.
Opinions, prizes, all very valid reasons to call. Gratifying reasons. The request, is simpler. Someone who calls in a request, just wants to hear their song. I started my request career early — asking permission to call long distance, nervous when someone answered, sitting by the battery-powered radio for hours after to see if just maybe my song would get played. “Hi Q-105.” “Will you play Debbie Gibson?” Those were days of rock, those late ’80s.
Requests are even cooler now. Who has to rely on some DJ to play a song? You can find it any time, anywhere, usually for free.
So when I get them, I do them up. Especially if they come from kids. What’s cooler than hearing your NAME on the RADIO? Yesterday, I got one of those. And then another five minutes later from the brother who “Hey wait! I didn’t get to hear MY name on the radio! I want one!” Two requests, and thanks from a mom for “Making my kids feel like rock stars for .3 seconds. :D”
The radio has a way of doing that. Music career, not required.
Now of course in internet parlance, the lyrical phrase “going viral” is a stab at a cheeky and modern metaphor for something whose reach grows exponentially.
However.
Today’s viral video is yesterday’s Double Rainbow (eye-rolling old news and forgotten) PLUS that word applied to love and taken literally?
This can really only mean lots of The Scorpions and the Cranberries.
Look out, Elton, we are about to get to quad and make like a Hurricane. (I’m hanging out here if you want to celebrate St. Pappe’s Day with some Sinead…)
Where was I? Oh, yes. I cannot support Chris Brown’s music because I cannot support his behavior. Much like I can’t support factory farming by eating meat.
And much like the idea of both make me utterly disgusted.
Right. Though I can’t abide by how he’s conducted his personal life, a bunch of artists are in that boat — and I supposed it can’t preclude him from making his art if he insists.
Rhianna aside, throwing a chair through a window is quite enough argument that perhaps this is not an adult who is equipped with the maturity to harness his emotions, and perhaps not who we want in the position to influence children.
Which of course he does anyway. The “Chris Brown can beat me any day” tweets stirred up by the Grammys? Clearly the two weeks of domestic violence training as part of his plea deal did not permeate to his fans.
Maybe in sentencing, instead of probation, the real way abuse can be repaid to society is a revocation of celebrity. For the famed, that seems to be the only real punishment. No more soap box, no more pedestal.
Because you’re no one anyone should look up to anyway.
Last night I was half-watching Alcatraz — for LOST and San Francisco nostalgia, mostly — and you have to look no further than the casting for evidence that the gross Jonah Hill dichotomy is still in effect. That is to say, if the genders were reversed, the casting would not look the same.
I adore Jorge Garcia, super hard. His blog, his openness with fans (appearing on fan podcasts, the whole bit) he’s excellent (I mean, look at the tag.) But there is no way this scene would happen with the genders reversed.
