All-American Rejects - Dirty Little Secret
**1/2 (of four)
There's only thing that distinguishes the "Dirty Little Secret" video from that of any of the other soundalike post-grunge, punk-pop TRL acts, one little concept, and they kind of blew it. See if you could have come up with this idea, too - the entire video consists of generic soundstage performance footage intercut with people standing alone and each holding up a decorated 5" by 7" index card bearing his/her "dirty little secret."
You could do some wicked, incisive satire with this concept, but as far as dirty secrets go, these are all kind of scaled down. At least half the blame goes toward MTV's stifling policies of content censorship, and I shouldn't hold that against the video itself. But, instead of admissions of crime or religious doubt or deviant sexuality, half the people in this video either are in love with their best friends or aren't sure they should marry their fiances.
Okay, one kid admits to having gay sex at church camp ("three times!"), but a lot of these admissions are just laughable goober shit. ("I can eat a dozen donuts in one sitting," "I waste office supplies because I hate my boss," and, my favorite, "I know it really stinks, but I really like the smell of my own poop.")
But, I'll admit, there are some good, juicy ones in here. ("I only love two of my children," "People think I've stopped lying but I've just gotten better at it," "I pee in the sink.") And veteran video director Marcos Siega knows well enough not to blow his wad at the beginning - the pacing is damn near perfect, and the song's short enough not to wear out its welcome.
"Dirty Little Secret" itself is a hell of a generic song, but the video held my attention. I'd just kind of like to see someone responsible hold up a decorated index card that reads "This shit could have been a whole lot better."
There's only thing that distinguishes the "Dirty Little Secret" video from that of any of the other soundalike post-grunge, punk-pop TRL acts, one little concept, and they kind of blew it. See if you could have come up with this idea, too - the entire video consists of generic soundstage performance footage intercut with people standing alone and each holding up a decorated 5" by 7" index card bearing his/her "dirty little secret."
You could do some wicked, incisive satire with this concept, but as far as dirty secrets go, these are all kind of scaled down. At least half the blame goes toward MTV's stifling policies of content censorship, and I shouldn't hold that against the video itself. But, instead of admissions of crime or religious doubt or deviant sexuality, half the people in this video either are in love with their best friends or aren't sure they should marry their fiances.
Okay, one kid admits to having gay sex at church camp ("three times!"), but a lot of these admissions are just laughable goober shit. ("I can eat a dozen donuts in one sitting," "I waste office supplies because I hate my boss," and, my favorite, "I know it really stinks, but I really like the smell of my own poop.")
But, I'll admit, there are some good, juicy ones in here. ("I only love two of my children," "People think I've stopped lying but I've just gotten better at it," "I pee in the sink.") And veteran video director Marcos Siega knows well enough not to blow his wad at the beginning - the pacing is damn near perfect, and the song's short enough not to wear out its welcome.
"Dirty Little Secret" itself is a hell of a generic song, but the video held my attention. I'd just kind of like to see someone responsible hold up a decorated index card that reads "This shit could have been a whole lot better."
posted by daytime at 11:10 PM
1 Comments:
I think roughly half the "secrets" were ripped almost word-for-word from Post Secret posts. (You know, not that most of the Post Secret secrets were all that unique.) Or is it connected, and did I miss something?
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