Leela James - Music

***1/2 (out of four)

"Can we just put the thongs away / And fall back in love with music?" sings Leela James in the first verse of "Music." I'd never heard of Leela until the VH1 Soul channel started promoting the hell out of her. And, for once, I'm grateful to have a new artist shoved down my throat.

Leela has soul by the truckload and fondly defends her love for "back porch, down home music." I'm totally with her when she says, "Where did all the soul go? / It's all about the video." And come on, I love my superficial videos with hot women shaking their asses, but we need more genuine music, more actual singing in our songs.

And now Leela James, who name checks Aretha, Gladys, Tina, Chaka Marvin and Donny, carries on the tradition, with a rich, husky voice you'd expect to be coming from the mouth of a 300-pound sister at a black church.

Leela, who appears to be in her mid-twenties, looks kind of like Jill Scott, with big, crazy hair pulled into two clown-wig afro puffs. Hair aside, Leela carries the dignity and conviction of a veteran star. She keeps all her clothes on, and she still looks good.

As for the video, it's none too flashy, but I love the mingling of color shots of Leela walking down the street of a desolate neighborhood with black-and-white shots of her as a child, exploring the same spots. There's a great sequence where little Leela and a friend climb atop milk crates to peek into a club where a band is playing thong-free music. The singer of the band? A very elegant-looking adult Leela.

"Music" is a song I instantly fell in love with, and I'm going to go out and actually buy a physical copy of the album. No downloading. Because I respect and enjoy Leela's sentiment and, just like she does, I have a deep affection for genuine music that comes from the soul. I just wish I still had a turntable.


VERY SIMPLE IRONY: When Leela complains, "Can’t even turn on my radio / Somebody hollerin’ bout a bitch or a hoe," the entire last five words are cut out. The music track even goes silent.

Black Eyed Peas - Don't Lie

*** (of four)



It's been fascinating to watch the Black Eyed Peas complete every step of the selling-out process, from three guys who spit out clever rhymes and put together truly original beats to three guys and a girl singer who used to be a child star now releasing singles that pander to the TRL set. I still like them, but less and less as they evolve and turn over half the vocal duties to the former child star. 1997's Behind the Front - now that was a hip-hop album.

"Don't Lie" is the second straight single to have the former child star singing "No no no no" the exact same way. But it's kinda catchy, and the first two rappers manage to save the song with frequently funny rap verses about lying to your girlfriend. ("Fucked with your heart like I was the Predator / In my book of lies, I was the editor / And the author / I forged my signature.") For the record, the Black Eyed Peas do not advise the practice of lying, but they've definitely pulled a few over on their women in the past.

The former child star - Fergie is her name, I think - walks through the video in various stages of undress. There's a tropical beach setting, a mountain top at nighttime, a street scene that looks to take place in Mexico and a concert from an old, pillar-saturated stone building backlit in green. The editing plays with a three-dimensional feeling layout, with incongruent images frequently overlapping. It creates a trippy but still definitely sanitized feel-good pop kind of mood. Not bad, but definitely a guilty type of pleasure.

Me'Shell Ndege'Ocello - Pocketbook

**1/2 (out of four)

My assessment of Me'Shell Ndege'Ocello in 1994 - "butch-looking bisexual soul-singer who, besides having a name no one can pronounce, sings a duet with Madonna on her new Bedtime Stories album entitled 'I'd Rather Be Your Lover.' The thought of that is worse than that Elton John-RuPaul number 'Don't Go Breaking My Heart.'"

My assessment of Me'Shell Ndege'Ocello now - butch-looking bisexual soul singer who I really wouldn't mind watching get it on with Madonna. Me'Shell exudes mellow confidence in "Pocketbook," a video from the 2001 album Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape. The entire album oozes with funk, occasionally of the aggressive and political-statement forms, and it's worth a few listens.

For my money, though, Ndege'Ocello's delivery - which relies heavily on spoken word over actual singing - makes a lot of her songs seem monotonous and interchangeable. "Pocketbook," between its talk-singing verses, does actually feature a memorable chorus. The lyrics, which are basically a lesbian seduction attempt, are playful and kinda clever. ("Your mama gotta be fine / You probably breast-fed / Cause you look real healthy.")

The video itself is a kind of cross between the laid-back, coffeeshop and hip-hop cultures. Ndege'Ocello brandishes a white bass guitar while being surrounded by more than a half-dozen identically dressed dancing hotties. (Hey, the lesbians know how to party. It's all good in the girls' locker room.)

Veteran director Liz Friedlander quick cuts shots of the party people with shots of Ndege'Ocello singing from behind a DJ rig. There's plenty of eye candy, but the video loses points for hammering us with dozens of subliminal "Buy My Record" signs. The dancing hotties are even wearing half shirts that say "Buy My" and short shorts with "Record" smeared across the ass. That's shameful, almost. All that unsubtle effort and the Cookie album still only sold 102,564 copies.

50 Cent - Candy Shop

*1/2 (out of four)

"Candy Shop" has one of the most godawful nursery-rhyme chorus refrains of any hip-hop single I can think of, with 50 Cent - monotone Mase-delivery in full effect - chanting, "I'll take you to the candy shop / I'll let you lick the lollipop." See that subtlety? 50 is going to let you lick the lollipop. You have permission to give him head. What a nice fucking guy.

I find it a little hard to swallow (pun intended - sorry) that, since I took my hiatus from writing video reviews 50 Cent has somehow become the world's most bankable pop star. Okay, the Dr. Dre endorsement doesn't hurt, but consider the flow - unimaginative, wooden and interchangable from song to song. Tell me "Candy Shop" doesn't sound just like "Magic Stick" or that one he's got at the top of the charts right now.

50, in his videos, also has none of the casual poise of Snoop Dogg or the playful humor of Eminem. He wanders through these clips like a zombie, mouth flat and barely moving. The most expression you get out of 50 in "Candy Shop" is when he raises an eyebrow at a dominatrix who rips his shirt off with a cat of nine tails that appears to be made out of braided hair weave.

The candy shop spoken of in the title and chorus of the song is an enormous brothel 50 (that's pronounced "fiddy," don't forget) stumbles into. It's a mansion in the middle of nowhere, populated with lingerie-wearing dream girls who embody fantasy archetypes - dominatrix, naughty nurse, woman pouring chocolate syrup on each other. All the shit Shakespeare used to write about.


ALTERNATE CHORUS LYRICS:

a) "I'll take you to the cancer ward / I'll let you lick the shiny sword"
b) "I'll take you to the ice cream parlor / Let you be my penis mauler"
c) "I'll take you to the hardware store / I'll let you chomp my drill bit girl"
d) "I'll take you to the monastery / Break the vow of celibacy"

You can vote on your favorite at http://www.asinine-entendres.com

Hilary Duff - Wake Up

*1/2 (of four)



Hilary Duff, star of Disney Channel tween favorite "Lizzie McGuire," is tired of not being taken seriously. In the opening lines of "Wake Up," she sings something like, "There's people talking about me / Talking about me like they know everything / But they don't know anything."

So enlighten us, Hillary, what's lurking in that big brain of yours? Well, the next line, after she opines to prove her worth, is: "Give me a dance floor / Give me a DJ." Yes, the big message is, the paparazzi and tabloids are bad. Going to clubs and dancing are good.

As we also learn from Duff's doctoral dissertation, she likes to put on makeup on a Saturday night. Be sure and take notes - the educational experience of life doesn't end when school gets out, people.

"Wake Up," the video, shows us exactly how Duff gets down on a Saturday - she sits around the house, wearing headphones and lip synching; she puts on her makeup and rides around the back of a limo.

Somehow in the same night Hillary Duff manages to visit clubs in New York, Hollywood, London, Paris, Tokyo and, for the length of time it takes to slam a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon, a bar called the Nook 'N Cranny just west of Topeka, Kan. Home of the world's smallest large-screen TV.

It's TRL nonsense, to be sure, but "Wake Up" is worth watching once, and I'll tell you why. Amid the shots of Duff alternating between her squeaky-clean blonde pop tart and faux-Avril Lavigne pop-punk images is a sequence that has her walking through a sterile-blue room with hanging plastic sheets. This is the Tokyo motif, and accordingly, Duff has a short, berette-filled black wig and eyeliner that extends her lids out horizontally.

I'm aware this somewhat stereotypical portrayal may be offensive to those of the Asian persuasion, but it makes Hillary Duff look hot as hell. Blond Hilary has always seemed kind of generic to me - and the red beret she dons to complete the Parisian motif in the video further cements it - but Brunette Hilary can be my jailbait geisha girl any day of the week.

Snoop Dogg and Pharrell - Drop It Like It's Hot

*** (of four)


The Neptunes are sooooo 2002, but even after recycling their own beats and being ripped off by a host of other producers, they occasionally still come with it big time. "Drop It Like It's Hot" was one of last fall's most winning hip-hop singles, thanks to the psychedelic tongue-clucking beat and typically laid back flow from Snoop Dogg.

The video is spare but somehow elegant - tightly letterboxed black-and-white footage of Snoop, Pharrell and co-Neptune Chad Hugo (playing the song's keyboard line with Casio in hand) clowning on a plain white soundstage.

Rounding out the ensemble are a few expensive cars, gum-chewing hotties and a little kid beating a giant bass drum. Also, blurred out, a Crip bandana swinging from the back left pocket of Snoop's jeans.

"Drop It" eventually got old, just like Snoop's much-aped "-izzle" lingo, but in its prime it was surefire party and club gold. Check these lyrics, Snoop's tongue-(I-hope)-in-cheek equivalent of a fireworks show's grand finale: "Don't change the dizzle / Turn it up a little / I got a living room fulla fine dime brizzells / Waitin' on the pizzel / The dizzel and the shizzle / G's to the bizzack / Now ladies here we gizzo."

You know, sometimes I feel sorry for the person assigned to closed-captioning transcription duty on these hip-hop videos. People volunteer their time to put language and typing skills to good use so the hearing impaired can receive artistic enlightment otherwise impossible.

And they're hoping maybe they can caption a classic work of cinema or news documentary and instead are handed something like "Candy Shop" or "Drop It Like It's Hot." It's hard work - as I just discovered, there's no computer program in the world that'll give you the correct spelling for words like "brizzells," "pizzel," "shizzle" or "bizzack."

Fat Joe - So Much More

** (out of four)

I don't know why exactly, but Fat Joe always reminds me of a Grade A jumbo farm-fresh egg. He definitely has that Humpty Dumpty thing going on, and it's too bad his mentor and pal Big Punisher died so prematurely - when standing next to Pun in their videos, Fat Joe actually looked kinda skinny.

Surrounded by music video rental hotties and, in "So Much More," an inexplicable Flavor Flav cameo, Fat Joe looms large. Director R. Malcolm Jones even has him rapping while holding what appears to be a foot-and-a-half -long hot dog while in front of a food stand. So much for subtlety.

There's not much to the "So Much More" video. Fat Joe wanders the streets of the city, walks through a party, gets the hot dog, drives around town. The best shots are closeups of Joe rapping under a flourescent black-light effect with shock-white contacts making his eyes look evil as hell. And of course there's the trademark introduction of a second, unrelated song for the last minute of the video.

Strangest is the interlude sequence that takes place in a subway car. Joe's making out with a very lucky blonde (he met her - no joke - in front of the hot dog stand) when a gender-mixed trio of thugs tries to steal his lady's purse. Joe pulls his tongue out of the blonde's mouth, asks them what the problem is, and they give back the purse when they recognize who they're robbing. Then Fat Joe reaches into his pocket, pulls out an enormous rubber-banded roll of hundreds, tosses it to the would-be thieves, and offers them all jobs.

As for the song itself, "So Much More" doesn't have many of the qualities that made "Lean Back" such a smash hit. The beat's not bad, but the chorus sucks - it's an off-key interpolation of the bridge from 2Pac's "Temptations" (which was, I'm sure, stolen from a third source), and there are way, way too many words cut out. An entire line is missing from the video, and the closed-captioning has nothing but "- - - - - - - - -" mystery hyphens.

Also, I didn't know this, but apparently Fat Joe's nickname is Crack. Maybe he's named after the drug, maybe after his crack skills on the microphone, or just maybe it's for the solid 22 inches of ass crack he sports. Who the hell knows.

Britney Spears - Do Somethin'

*1/2 (out of four)





Yes, I confess that since my last birthday I'm officially in my late 20s now, but one thing that makes me feel downright old is that Britney Spears already has a greatest hits album. Why, it seems like just yesterday that I turned on MTV and first saw the video for "Baby One More Time."

I remember fondly how I watched the still-kinda-innocent teen pop singer dance around a high school hallway in a pleated Catholic school girl skirt and stroked myself to orgasm before the end of the second chorus had even rolled around. And now she's got a greatest hits - Christ, how the time flies. It flies kinda like spunk when you're stroking yourself in time to the image of a certain Southern TRL superstar.





For you pervs out there, "Do Somethin'" does feature its share of Britney writhing and working her body in belly shirts and, subtlety be damned, sleek black undergarments. It's got the stuff Stuff magazine photospreads are made of, and Britney spends the video hanging with an equally hot quartet of blonde hotties. But the whole thing is ludicrous, inside and out, disposable and not at all meant to be taken seriously.

For starters, the opening sequence features Britney in the girls riding around the clouds in a pink Hummer, while singing "Somebody pass my guitar / So I can look like a star." The chick in the passenger seat hands Britney a guitar, which she poses with for a half-second before pushing it away. Sucks - I was all primed to hear her rip out the opening chords of "Smoke on the Water." Those beginner lessons have to pay off sometime.





The pink Hummer in the clouds shit soon gives way to a hole in the wall that's actually called Hole in the Wall. Where Britney and the girls dance on stage for an appreciative crowd of Abercrombie boys and later set up their instruments (!) to perform the song in question.

The whole thing reeks of the sparse throwaway material that's usually tacked onto a greatest hits album to entice fans who already own the artists' other albums to purchase this one too. First came Britney's remake of "My Prerogative," now this Avril Lavigne/Pink-sounding glam pop shit. I remain thoroughly unenticed, though my eyes can't help but be glued to the screen anyway.

Green Day - Holiday

*** (out of four)



I've got a pair of friends, both in their early 30s, who swear Green Day's American Idiot is "the best rock opera since Tommy." They also both went to a Green Day show a few months back and each declared it one of the three best concerts of their lives. Each favors bands like Weezer, Oasis, Pearl Jam and surprisingly better than you'd think Nada Surf, so I trust their recommendations in general.

But I haven't brought myself to purchase (or even significantly download) American Idiot - I'm still the kind of Green Day listener who's perfectly happy to pop Dookie in the CD player every six months or so and leave it at that. I like "Holiday," though, the song and video - and, you'd never guess it, but it turns out Billie Joe Armstrong and the boys are left-leaners, politically. I would have pegged them for Bush supporters myself, but we're here on this planet to learn, and learn I did.

Don't worry too much about the protest elements of the song. With the exception of a raspy, distorted bridge ("Pulverize the Eiffel Towers who criticize your government"), "Holiday" is pure catchy rock and roll, suitable for the AOR radio format. It could play in between Sheryl Crow and Hootie, and I know the members of Green Day would hold me down and beat me if they read that.

The video opens, none too subtlely, with fighter planes dropping a bomb bearing the band's name on some city, then Billie Joe & Co. spend the next two minutes or so riding around town in a manically moving convertible while the blue screen background flashes incongruent images.

All this is intercut with the band getting drunk in a bar and hitting on what appears to be a transvestite. (The transvestite represents that corporate whore Dick Cheney. Or Rumsfeld perhaps.) Eventually Billie Joe is flanked by four super-trashy dancers while images of more fighter planes grace yet another blue screen. A fun video, overall, and it's under three minutes long so it doesn't even have a chance to wear out its welcome.

The Specials - Ghost Town

*** (out of four)

I first heard this British ska classic on the soundtrack of Guy Ritchie's film Snatch (really, a musical hodgepodge of all kinds of shit and a soundtrack I highly recommend). Not long after I picked up The Special's Singles Collection, which includes a six-minute 12" version of "Ghost Town." And, yeah, it's a great song - lazy, spooky-sounding reggae with a true atmosphere of its own - but when you sit through six minutes of it, you realize there's not much to it. Two verses, a chorus and a memorable synth and horn line. Four minutes is plenty.

"Ghost Town," the song, came out in 1981 - the birth year of MTV. I honestly can't tell if the video was made that year too or a few years later. (My instinct is telling me 1984, for some reason.) In either event, it's primitive but effective, which the racially mixed band crammed into a moving vehicle at dusk and eventually night. They're rolling through said ghost town, which consists of low-angle shots of big, empty buildings, a long tunnel and lots of lights reflected off the car's windshielf.

The band mugs to the camera more and more as the video rolls on, which keeps the song's protest bent (where are all the jobs? why are there fights at their concerts? etc.) from becoming too heavy-handed. The whole package has held up pretty well after two and a half decades - I'll take this over the "Bette Davis Eyes" or "Maneater" videos any day.

Foo Fighters - Best of You

**1/2 (of four)

The entire first minute of "Best of You" consists of a profile closeup of the lower half of Dave Grohl's face (and eventually the whole face) singing into a big electric shaver-looking silver microphone. He's also got about ten days of stubble on his face, and his teeth are nice and white. Except for the left front tooth, which is yellow. These are things you notice when you have to stare at the same shot of a face, stubble, teeth and a microphone for a minute straight.

"Best of You" eventually launches into a collection of outdoor performance footage of the Foo Fighters guys, camera occasionally shaking and calling to mind U2's "Beautiful Day" video. There are no airplanes flying over their heads, though, just a decent sunset and plenty of stock footage clips of images both comforting and disturbing. Little kids, cars crashing, a snake attacking a rodent teeth-first, a sign that says "Pain feels good," a flower in reverse bloom, and so on.

This is one of the band's better singles of the last few years, sing-along power pop/rock with throat-shredding vocals and a thundering finale. Will it be remembered in a year? Five? Ten? Not by many, is my guess. Does the video feature any of the comic antics that made "Big Me" and "Learn to Fly" such fun videos to watch (and re-watch, most importantly)? Absolutely not. It's merely passable and ultimately forgettable but pleasant enough while it lasts.

Missy Elliott featuring Ciara and Fat Man Scoop - Lose Control

*** (out of four)



Of the entire hip-hop world, only a handful of artists qualify for the MTV Video Vanguard award. Outkast, Busta Rhymes, Eminem and certainly Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott. While pretty much everyone else falls back on the requisite shots of expensive cars, bling, lavish club settings and booty dancers, you never know quite what to expect from one of Missy's videos. Though I admit "Lose Control" does have expensive cars, bling and booty dancers.

The video divides its time among a plain black soundstage with a choreographed line of men and women dancing robotically in blue sweat suits and white gloves, the same group in white shirts and khakis dancing in the desert while the camera rumbles earthquake-style and a flickering, silent-movie set that allows its participants to defy gravity at a couple points. And the a capella interlude from sexy-ass Ciara, who's positioned with the blue sweat suit crew in the middle of an empty street, certainly doesn't hurt.

"Lose Control" is one of the great party jams of the summer, its beat built around an old techno sample from Cybotron, and even though Fat Man Scoop doesn't do much more than stand around and yell "Hit the floor" over and over, his presence is welcome. This is fun stuff, and it marks the first time since I've been back reviewing videos that I've written about one I truly like and is not just plain passable or fucking horrible. I'm definitely keeping my eye out for more, but as we all know the crap-to-quality ratio these days is higher than ever. Thank God for Missy Elliott.

David Banner - Play

**1/2 (of four)



Speaking of goofy-assed rapper names, here's a guy named after the Incredible Hulk's nice alter-ego. Yep, David Banner's posse includes other rhyme-smiths like Bruce Wayne, Clark Kent and rapid-fire spider-bitten rapper Peter Parker.

I'm kind of on the fence about "Play," which steals the "Whisper"-style beat of the Yin Yang Twins and the premise of Kanye West's "The New Workout Plan." Despite its unoriginal pedigree, though, the hook "Work them hips / Run girl" is far catchier than you'd imagine, and the percussion track sounds like it was put together from samples of the guy in Weird Al's band who makes the hand-fart noises.

"Play" is also the first video I can think of since the early '80s antics of Olivia Newton-John's "Physical" and "Muscles" from Diana Ross (written by Michael Jackson - now there's a disturbing trivia tidbit) to feature nonstop workout footage. Instead of steroid-buff Reagan-era beefcakes, though, we get a cabal of hot-ass hip-hop honeys who are far better to look at than the saggy-breast grannies I see at my local health club. As the critic on the Talkin' Videos website points out, it's the first video to feature a hottie in sunglasses doing situps.

Aside from the eye candy factor, some of the images are damn funny. There's Banner spar-boxing with one of the models, there's the trio of ladies on '80s step machines, there's Banner sitting and reading a newspaper for some reason, and it all takes place on a bright, multi-colored soundstage. Novelty through and through, but it's kinda fun.

R. Kelly featuring The Game - Playa's Only

**1/2 (out of four)

The MTV Jams channel is on a pimps-and-playas binge right now. Back to back to back, they gave me Ray Cash's "Pimp in My Own Mind," Czar-Nok* rapping "Pimp Tight" and now R. Kelly and The Game with "Playa's Only." It's kind of a throwaway song, but I'm glad to see R. Kelly isn't still trapped in the closet. After part seven, the whole "Trapped in the Closet" saga got kind of overdone.

This is just a straight summer party video, hip-hop's answer to the country trash of "Redneck Yacht Club." R. Kelly and The Game**, flanked by a half-dozen hotties, navigate their boat through tropical waters to find five or six yachts tied together. If you guessed a large number of scantily clad women would be dancing on top of these boats, well, congratulations, you've seen a rap video before.

R. Kelly, for his part, does his best to play the part of a yuppie boat owner. At one point in the video, he's wearing a white Polo with a red ascot sweater tied around his neck. It's around the point he's singing, "When the doors close, handle your business," directly into a woman's writhing torso. Me personally, I can't stand it when a sexy woman's innie belly button can't handle its business.


* = I know I'm gonna sound like a whiny old fart, and I'm aware that most of the best artist names are already taken, but what the fuck kind of rapper name is Czar-Nok?!

** = I know I'm gonna sound like a whiny old fart, and I'm aware that most of the best artist names are already taken, but what the fuck kind of rapper name is The Game?! Last I checked, that was a 1997 David Fincher thriller starring Michael Douglas.

The System - Don't Disturb This Groove

*1/2 (out of four)

I work as a waiter, and the Muzak in my restaurant is constantly tuned to the Adult Contemporary station. And despite the "contemporary" designation, I end up hearing the 1987 R+B ballad "Don't Disturb This Groove" every time I'm clocked in. I think I even spilled a large Pasta con Broccoli on someone during the chorus once.

This is the first time I've ever seen the video, though, and if I wasn't sitting here reviewing it, I'd be fast forwarding the fuck out of it. So I can only imagine how boring it must be for you, Gentle Reader, to have to read secondhand my observations of an 18-year-old forgettable pop hit. I'll keep this brief, then.

The band, half-white and half-black, checks into a hotel suite, carrying cases of instruments equipped for what the desk clerk must assume will be a night of kinky homosexual fun. (If you've never had sex with three men, a couple electric guitars and a bright red keyboard bass, let me tell you, you're fucking missing out.) In the next room, a woman of mysterious descent - could be Asian, perhaps Filipino - listens as they play a certain song I have to hear at work every night.

Other memories I'll no doubt carry with me - the lead singer's giant, upward-swept boxcar bouffant, the nauseating stutter-motion camera shots, the insistent foward-motion head bob of the keyboard player as he works his magic and an odd interlude in the desert that has the Asian/Filipino stretching across a big rock while wearing a skin-tight black dress.

A little poking around on the Internet, and I discovered Don't Disturb This Groove: The Album! also features the classics "Soul Boy," "Modern Girl," "Nighttime Lover" and another track simply titled "Groove." Which is also, I'm sure, not to be disturbed.

Phil Collins - Another Day in Paradise

** (out of four)

This 1990 pop ballad about destitute street-dwellers made Phil Collins a shitload of money. Like Bill Hicks says, it's irony on its basest level, but I fuckin' like it. Yes, "Another Day in Paradise" is a oddly perky #1 hit about homelessness, co-sung by David Crosby, who knows a thing or two about scraping together quarters and dimes to buy plastic bottles of Aristocrat Rum.

The funniest thing is - and no one believes this - I went to a baseball game about six or seven years ago and, while I was walking to the entrance turnstyles, passed the outdoor gated area where all the rich folks were drinking beer and eating their fill of brisket and burgers. And outside the gate, three or four homeless people were slouched together, hats and hands out for whatever money passersby could spare. As accompaniment to the whole thing, the Muzack speaker-rocks spread around the entire area were playing "Another Day in Paradise." More base-level irony.

Phil spends the duration of this sepia-toned video singing in profile from one side of the screen to the other, brow furrowed with concern and hands wrought with sympathy. Intercut are still photos of immigrant children crammed onto boats, a starving black man with a "Don't Worry, Be Happy" stocking cap*, a bone-skinny man sleeping on a street grate, and my personal favorite, a billboard reading "Don't Give to Beggars - They Cause Traffic Problems."

This is a world where newspapers are used for blankets, cardboard for pillows, and for the first time in his life, Phil Collins is the most attractive person on the scene.

That's the video - silhouette Phil, still photos of the homeless, opening and closing shots of the planet Earth and, just when you think it couldn't get cheesier, close-ups of fingers pounding synthesizer keys and strumming an acoustic guitar. Cheese aside, this was some heavy-handed shit for the VH1 crowd at the time, especially considering it was released in the days of Wilson Phillips and Paula Abdul.


* = Yes, Bobby McFerrin, you are responsible for the homeless epidemic! Think of all the out-of-work musicians you could have fed while you were selfishly recording your a capella music tracks to save a couple production bucks.

Rihanna - Pon de Replay

RATING: **1/2 (of four)



As I mentioned three posts below, I've got the best technological setup of my life to date in terms of finding and acquiring new music as well as music videos. I started an account with the iTunes Music Store a couple weeks back and racked up more than a hundred bucks in download fees within the first 36 hours. I poked around the current charts and the celebrity playlists of a couple dozen A-, B- and C-list public figures and introduced myself to music new and old from across the spectrum.

And somehow the first song I purchased was "Pon de Replay" by Rihanna. I never deliberately listen to Top 40 radio anymore, so I'd never heard the song before. Now it seems like I'm hearing it like two times a day. I'll probably burn out quick - and, yeah, this is the kind of disposable novelty dance pop that'll leave Rihanna lumped in with Snap! and Ace of Base and Next in the annals of pop music history.

Right now, though, I like the song. The beat, vocals and constantly repeated, second-grade-reading-level hook ("Please Mr. DJ / Tell me if ya hear me / Turn the music up" - I mean, that doesn't even fucking rhyme!) all just kind of align into a perfect summer dance single.

You can tell Def Jam didn't want to waste a whole lot of money on the video. You know, just in case it wasn't an immediate surefire hit. Or maybe the song became an unexpected hit and they had to rush a video out. I should do my homework in this kind of situation, but come on - it's my second night back.

In any event, there's not much to the video. On a fairly constricted black soundstage, director X* creates a makeshift dance party, complete with Rihannon (wearing next to nothing and looking pretty goddamn hot) singing from a platform in the midst of it all, a DJ up in his booth, spinning light machines and some kind of weird white cubbyhole alcove no one ever decides to go into.

Shelf life will be short on this one, guaranteed. But while it lasts, this is just the kind of brainless July/August fun we can use when partying, working out, driving, etc. Catchy, catchy, catchy.

BEST SEQUENCE: Walking into the club with her friends, Rihannon is informed that the party has no energy because "the music is low." Rihannon looks into the camera and declares, showing off a sexy Caribbean accent, "I'll make him turn it up." Ten seconds later, Rihannon is twirling in the center of the dance floor, all by herself, and catching the DJ's eye, she jerks her finger up twice in the universal language for "turn up the fucking volume." The DJ, who looks stoned as all hell, nods and reaches down to his soundboard. The music in the video, however, remains at the same volume. Which might be why she spends the rest of the video singing the line, "turn the music up."


* = When reviewing videos where I don't have the director's name handy, I always just write down "X" and plug in the information later. But in this case, the director of the video's name actually is X. Kinda funny, in a dry, inside-joke sort of way.

Bloodhound Gang - Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo

**1/2 (of four)

We all remember the Bloodhound Gang from their hornball new wave-sounding novelty hit "The Bad Touch," which featured the memorable refrain, "You and me baby ain't nothing but mammals / So let's do it like they do on the Discovery Channel." Back then I had a friend who was an obsessive fan of the group and claimed "The Bad Touch" was a sellout song not representative of their work as a whole, and that within a few years the band would be huge based on the strength of their musical canon. I wonder what she thinks of the video for "Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo," which makes "The Bad Touch" look quite subtle by comparison.

Again, we're subjected to watered-down new wave, but this time it's a little closer to the uptempo pop side of Blur. The topic, however, remains the same. If you hadn't noticed the song's title forms the acronym F-U-C-K, which about says it all. The four words, "Foxtrot," "Uniform," "Charlie" and "Kilo," as I just learned from poking around the Internet, come from the International Radio Operators' Alphabet. Let no one say the Bloodhound Gang aren't well-versed in other aspects of the media besides synthesizers and lyrics like "Pressure wash the quiver bone in the bitch wrinkle." All the lines in the verses are variations of the same, some oddball form of "stick your penis in her vagina." And a few of them are pretty damn funny.

This isn't high quality entertainment by any means, but the video and song have an appeal that's difficult to resist. While the band plays from inside a highway tunnel, "Jackass" alum Bam Margera drives a giant banana car around. (The banana is half-peeled, which is symbolic for arousal, circumcision or both - I'll leave the ultimate interpretation up to you.) It doesn't take Encyclopedia Brown to realize the banana car will eventually penetrate the tunnel, but along the way we're treated to a series of amusing and just plain gutter-trash shots, including the sexiest woman I've ever seen wield a jackhammer (if you're curious, I've seen a few) and lead singer Jimmy Pop sticking his tongue up his right nostril.

I'm not as up on videos as I used to be, but according to a debate thread on the videos.antville.org link site, the video for "Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo" is rife with plagiarism. The victim? A Benny Benassi video called "Satisfaction," directed by Dougal Wilson. Poster Benroll claims the "F-U-C-K" ripoff is identical "right down to styling, art direction, slo-mo, choice of power tools... the lot." While similarities between videos are unavoidable, there's coincidence and there's thievery, and knowing the Bloodhound Gang stole a lot of what I just watched only seems more fitting for this kind of material.

Toto - Hold the Line

*1/2 (out of four)

VH1 Classic never disappoints, man, I'll tell you what. If camera-in-camera shots of guys in leisure suits playing double-necked guitars with rainbox straps is what you're after, you won't be going home empty-handed if you watch for more than fifteen minutes.

This soundstage lip-synch effort is full of bright-color stage lights, closeups of hands playing guitars, closeups of hands playing pianos and primitive color-wash visual effects. And a very sexy moustache on the lead singer - you'll strain yor eyes trying to alternately stare at the 'stache and the medallion under the unbuttoned shirt on his hairy chest.

A horrible video, to be sure, but I must confess a guilty fondness for this 1978 Toto classic. Last spring I proudly sang it with three piano bar entertainers while walking the downtown streets of St. Louis on our way to an afternoon game at Busch Stadium, and I'm sure I'll sing it on the way to some sporting event in the future.

NOTE: This review written March 8, 2005.

Juvenile - Slow Motion

** (out of four)

As previously stated, I'm rusty on the Top 40 music scene and have been for some time, but there's no way I could have missed last summer's biggest jam that didn't involve Usher or Lil' Jon. And, really, no way I could have predicted that monstrous a comeback single for the Dirty South genius who gave us the booty-flapping classic "Back That Azz Up." For you ignorant honkies over the age of 29 - the word "Azz" means "Ass." As in posterior. Butt. Flank steak. Don't let the slang fool you; I'm here to help.

There are three stars in this video - the first, of course, is Juvenile, who steps off a bus in an unknown ghetto with his posse and attracts his own Pied Piper-like crowd of neighborhood residents of all ages. The second is Soulja Slim, who is currently resting in peace and has his name on dozens of t-shirts in the video. (I don't know how Soulja Slim met his premature demise. Perhaps he was subjected to that Good Charlotte video and "just wanted to end the pain.") And the third? Asses shaking. Anonymous cheeks, and lots of them.

You've got to wonder what kind of fame these professional hip-hop booty shakers aspire to. Most of the time all you get is a close-up of their asses and never even see the face. ("No, Tyshawn, that's me in the video! Don't you recognize that signature reverse camel-toe in those gold lame floral print stretch pants? I'm goin' places, Tyshawn!")

It honestly makes me wonder if their agents even bother sending music video casting directors the standard head shot. They, the casting directors, probably just rifle through a stack of ass pictures and think, Nope, too flat; nope, too pear-shaped; nope, too much crack; ooh, that one's just right. Get that azz on the phone! That means "ass," honkies.

NOTE: This review written March 8, 2005.

Ludacris - Number One Spot/The Potion

**1/2 (out of four)

If Gwen Stefani can get away with sampling from a four-hour Orthodox-Jew musical from fifty years ago, why can't Ludacris lift the opening theme from the Austin Powers movies? There are geekier choices, most notably the dramatic "I'm Awfully Glad It's Raining (Because Now No One Can See The Tears In My Eyes)" Jim Varney number at the lowest point in Ernest Goes to Camp.

Besides, the Austin Powers theme was composed and conducted by legendary R+B producer Quincy Jones. Who I'm sure is ecstatic to appear in the video for a rap track that reduces his work to a five-note burst of horns and someone endlessly pushing the whistle-flute button on the keyboard.

Also endorsing the video - Verne "Mini-Me" Troyer, who cavorts around the video's bright-colored sets in matching Luda Afro wig while he's not strapped to the rapper's chest in a baby carrier. Other images - giant disco ball, giant plate of pancakes, giant golden replacement Afro wig, giant-breasted Beyonce stand-in, giant glass of rum on the rocks, giant blue-screen behind Luda's Cadillac.

And don't forget the giant fat suit Ludacris wears in bed with a hot mama and a bucket of chicken in his own twisted homage to Fat Bastard. (Yes, the soundbite "Get in mah belly!" gets trotted out.) What Mike Myers must think about all this no one can say, but rest assured Ludacris looks no more ludicrous in this video than Myers did in The Cat in the Hat.

NOTE: This review written March 8, 2005.

Gwen Stefani featuring Eve - Rich Girl

**1/2 (out of four)





Practically a decade of music stardom and Gwen Stefani is looking hotter than ever. Still sporting one of the hottest sets of abs and juiciest petite booties in the MTV lineup. And there's Eve, who spends half the video wearing some kind of strapless T-shaped piece of upper body lingerie I swear I can see her nipples through. It makes it almost possible to forgive Gwen's building of her first solo single around a signature song from Fiddler on the Roof. Oy fucking vey indeed, Miss Stefani.



The video takes place on a number of stages, spanning time and culture - there's the harem set, the English ale house set, and let's not forget the enormous pirate ship set. Where Gwen lip synchs from a giant swinging anchor and frolics with a bunch of shirtless seamen. (Remember these words of advice from Waylon Smithers, Gwen: "Women and seamen don't mix.") Eve is spotted at one point with a pirate patch over her eye, no doubt manufactured at great cost by Gucci. Or Prada. Or Versace, whose 2005 winter line of eye patches is simply to die for.



Then there's the video's intro and outro, which both feature giggling little girls playing in a bedroom with Gwen and Eve dolls in a plastic pirate ship. "No Cindy, I get to take off my clothes and give myself sexually to a dozen randy pirates!" "No way, Samantha, it's my turn to snog the pirates! Don't cross Eve, bitch!"

NOTE: This review written March 8, 2005.

Good Charlotte - Hold On

** (out of four)

God, there's always that moment when every novelty band with their novelty power-pop hits tries to go serious. Add to that list Good Charlotte, who has entered both the lexicons of Top 40 radio and the background music of countless VH1 and E! Network fashion/sex scandals/celebrity gossip specials with their song "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous."

The pop-punk boys have decided they have to slow things down to adult album-rock midtempo turf and put together a statement song about suicide. And, at the risk of, ahem, killing the suspense, I will go ahead and reveal that Good Charlotte is categorically against suicide. Unlike that bat-head eater Ozzy Osbourne. So parents, you can breathe easier.

The video is four minutes of very serious-looking band members - even their turquoise eye shadow and wallet chains appear to be in mourning - lip- and play-synching to the song from inside a hollowed-out, roofless building. That's all filmed through the blue filter. Then, filmed with the green filter, we get the Soul Asylum "Runaway Train" parade of cameo shots of actual suicide-attempt survivors and people who have lost sons, fathers, sisters and girlfriends to self-termination.

I'm a cynical fuck, that's patently obvious, but even I have to wear the kid gloves when dealing with a topic like suicide. Abortion, cancer, mental retardation - I'll gladly poke merciless fun at those three. Suicide, however, is a completely different demon. One that hits particularly close to home for me because I had a second cousin fatally slit his wrists midway through a 2003 Good Charlotte concert because he "just wanted to end the pain."

NOTE: This review written March 8, 2005.

Will Smith - Switch

*** (out of four)

I was absorbed by the beat of "Switch" way before I figured out it was a Will Smith song. That kind of takes all the credibility out of any venture - and, yes, I am aware that seven years ago I gave three stars to the "Men in Black" music video, and that six years ago I gave three stars to the "Gettin' Jiggy Wit' It" video. And, yes, I am aware that as a rapper Will "Fresh Prince" Smith is at least competent. It's just, when his songs come on, you always picture your old, uncoordinated relatives dancing to them at a wedding reception.

Good beat, though, yes - who is the mystery producer they keep showing in the video? It looks like Xhibit, but as a writer who refuses to do his homework, I can only speculate. Mostly, though, in the "Switch" video we're treated to shots of Will in an underground studio, rapping into the microphone; Will in a graffiti-covered subway station, dancing with a camouflage-pants-wearing honey while wearing a refrigerator repairman shirt with his name on it; Will dancing with a dozen or so other honies in a tent-looking white room.

There are a couple other sets veteran director Paul Hunter keeps returning to, but it would be a more than repetitious trying to describe all that. Rest assured it looks like a lot of other hip-hop videos, just a little more tasteful. Since your uncoordinated relatives will have to dance to it and all. I can picture my own 63-year-old Aunt Ruth shouting out the song's "Hey-ey-ey" refrain after a couple zinfandel spritzers when my Cousin Chester gets married for the third time.

NOTE: This review written March 8, 2005.

Brie Larson - She Said

*1/2 (out of four)

This teen pop stuff is way worse since I quit writing these reviews. I mean, yes, we've always had to deal with these here-today, gone-yesterday mini-diva artists with their synthesized pop, but I wasn't always in my late twenties when I had to deal with it. It's derivative, it's interchangeable, and it will go away. I can't help but wonder at which point this song was played during the two hours of Radio Disney my TiVo decided to record for my consideration sometime overnight last night.

Brie Larson is one such mini-diva of the moment, easy to look at in a generic way with a voice that doesn't really stand out. She spends the duration of the video trapped behind the counter of a no-name fast food restaurant, helping a succession of Abercrombie-model customers from the pair of snooty bitches who each insist on having sweet-and-sour AND honey mustard sauces with their chicken nuggets (one or the other, you filthy whores!) to the, like, totally cute guy with the '70s perm, thick sunglasses and Napoleon Dynamite "Vote For Pedro" novelty t-shirt on. He must piss old Brie off in some way, because seconds after giving him his order, she leaps over the counter, jumps on his back and causes him to crash to the floor, landing novelty t-shirt down in his supersized #3 meal.

After five viewings of the video, I'm not sure which part I like better - the slo-mo shots of Brie running through the stock room and knocking over an entire three-metal-shelf stash of red and white food baskets or the sequence that has Brie strumming a red guitar that matches her paper fast food uniform hat. Then the director just gets lazy and includes two straight minutes of neon-lit soundstage performance footage. The cumulative effect is neither obnoxious or memorable, but Brie - however old she is - is one smoking hot little mama.

So here's the problem with this shit - not that they've sexualized these teenage girls who used to at least be seventeen when they came up. I don't mind the sexualization; some of these videos are great with the volume turned off. It's the fact that a lot of them aren't even seventeen anymore. They can make a thirteen-year-old pop star look completely delectable and downright edible these days - look at that JoJo girl. I had no idea she was in seventh grade the first time I saw her video. All I saw was a TRL superstar who would not get kicked out of my bed for the consumption of crackers.

NOTE: This review written March 8, 2005

Mike Jones featuring Slim Thug and Paul Wall - Still Tippin' Chopped and Screwed Version

** (out of four)

I've seen "Still' Tippin'" by Mike Jones pop up twice in an hour. I'm not entirely sure why. The beat is spare and fairly tight, but the rapping itself is voice-processed in that deep, evil-voice way that makes it sound slowed down, slurred and monotone. What is intended to be bad-ass instead comes out sounding semi-retarded. And it makes the song - even when it switches to rappers Slim Thug and Paul Wall - sound even more repititious than its four-bar beat already renders it.

But, and this may be more to the credit of the trace amounts of marijuana I just smoked, the whole thing is almost mesmerizing for a minute or two. Before it all just sounds like some kind of outtake from Prince's "Bob George," the talked-out, deep-evil-voice-processed track off the Black Album.

The video? Maybe it's been, you know, chopped and screwed out of its original glory, but it's just your standard collection of clips of dancing girls; shots of the DJ, face screwed up in conversation; pimped-out cars rolling down the street, some of them featuring neon-light writing on the interior of the trunk - not part of your standard factory options package but well worth the additional cost. And don't forget the posse of G-thugs standing in the street with t-shirts that read "Property of Mike Jones."

And, I mean, I know it's great to get your name out there and all, but do you really want a video full of black men with shirts that say they're owned by somebody named Mike Jones? It's been 140 years, yeah, but take it from me and my existing police record - slavery's still kind of a touchy issue amongst the urban community.

One more question - who starts out in the hip-hop industry looking to pick a unique MC name that sounds badass and that everyone will remember and then settles on Mike Jones? I don't care if it's his real name or not, he really should have sat down and done a little brainstorming.

NOTE: This review written March 8, 2005