DMC featuring Sarah McLachlan - Just Like Me (2005)

** (of four)

There’s something innately hilarious about this pairing - Daryl “DMC” McDaniels of Run DMC crash lands in VH1ville with a rap song featuring Sarah McLachlan singing the chorus to “Cats in the Cradle,” the Harry Chapin wimp radio classic famously covered in my high school days by Ugly Kid Joe. Some pedigree.

And it’s impossible to make fun of, too, because “Just Like Me” is an ode to the trials and joys and identity crises of adoption. I guess it makes sense, though. This DMC song sprung from the loins of two white parents - Chapin and McLachlan. Adoption is the only explanation.

Add in some generic Rick Rubin-esque hard rock guitar chords and DMC’s “whoo!” cries during the chorus, and this never stands a chance of cracking even B-level. A lot of DMC’s prose and delivery is clunky, too, but you can’t deny the sheer amount of emotion behind the project. DMC didn’t find out he was adopted until right after the Jam Master Jay shooting, so this is a relatively fresh compound wound.

The video is nothing special - we see the 1964 flashback scene of DMC being born in the hospital, present self watching his newborn self get snatched from the arms of a teenage mother. There’s a sparse, heaven-looking white set, an empty performance theater set and a long orphanage bedroom with a stained-glass backdrop.

McLachlan wanders the entire thing looking like a drugged-up earth mother. Eventually, there’s a lineup of kids singing along, and the closing shot has DMC singing with his own son - who’s dressed like the 1986 incarnation of his dad. Cheeseball, but worth a glance.

Madonna - Sorry (2006)

** (of four)



Madonna and a trio of racially diverse friends 26 years her junior - one of them carrying a giant boombox over her shoulder - meet up with a big mama who's driving a big white panel van. Climb in, party amongst the purple neon and spend the next few minutes removing clothing*, driving around town and tossing unsuspecting (but, I'm sure, incredibly grateful) guys into the van with them.

There's room for all, because Madonna's big white panel van has the Snoopy's Doghouse option package. The thought of discriminating on looks is apparently irrelevant - before too long a Napoleon Dynamite clone gets hauled aboard to do his spazz dance and a giant slob in a cabbie hat gets his bare belly tickled by Maddy's girls. Madonna doesn't care about age, either. There's a little kid in the van and a couple guys who were actually born within ten years of her.

Beware the wank-happy subplot involving a trio of male models with shirts pulled back around their necks who want a piece of Madonna and her posse of Gulf War babies. Not in a sexual way, either (trust me); the guys just want to kick the girls' asses in a gender-war dance contest. Which occurs in a steel cage toward the end of the video. Masturbators everywhere will be ecstatic to learn that Madonna can still put her legs behind her head, although this move instantly turns her bones to dust and causes the on-set paramedics to scamble to the scene.


* = Most of the dancers show off midriff and maybe a little more, but Madonna has pooped out enough kids that she's finally crossed over into one-piece territory. Lots of leotards and corsets and silver suit jackets.

HiM - Wings of a Butterfly (2005)

*** (of four)

The band HiM comes across a lot better in a spooky music video than it does onstage, where the antics of the guitarist (whose dreadlocks swallow his upper body whole) and the heavily tattooed frontman (who resembles an unholy genetic trinity of John Mellencamp, Adam Ant and Billie Joe Armstrong) are not to be taken seriously for a second. His Infernal Majesty is all gothed out and Satan-friendly, but how badass can you be when your breakthrough song is about butterfly wings? Even if it is about ripping off those wings.

No, "Wings" is more pop than anything, and it's a wildly catchy pop song at that. The uncredited sixth member of the band? The omnipresent HiM logo, which is projected from the top of a skyscraper, Batsignal-style, and on the back wall of the big empty building the band is lip synching in. It's even embedded in someone's retina during an extreme closeup and hangs like a Public Enemy wall clock around the neck of one of the band members.

Now you're wondering what this logo looks like. Try a pentagram with Mickey Mouse ears on top - it's hard to imagine which party this association would offend more, Michael Eisner and the Disney Corp. or the Devil himself. (SATAN: I know I've dealt humanity some low blows, but come on - Bambi 2?! Who gets shot this time, Bambi's baby brother? Do they roast Thumper on a rotating spit? Christ, how derivative.)

The outdoor sequences in this Meiert Avis video - mostly of grainy, dark-blue-tinted swirling shots of the band logo being projected out into the night sky - are more convincing than the indoor scenes, which have the guys in the band performing into odd apparati that look like press conference microphones merged with unusual dentist chair accessories. There are also a lot of giant perpendicular magnifying lenses. You'll have to see the video to know what I'm talking about.

Just set your DVR for the "T-Minus Hits" show on MTV2 - "Wings of a Butterfly" is currently perched at a robust #6 on the countdown, between Kanye West and Busta Rhymes. And, sorry Infernal Majesty guys, I know you sacrificed a lot of virgin goats to the Dark Lord to get this sound, but I swear this song is the '00 decade's "Counting Blue Cars." Which was a soft-ass pop song about telling all your thoughts to a female God. The whole thing's come full circle, and Bambi's little bro just got shot in the head.

Black Eyed Peas featuring Q-Tip, Talib Kweli, Cee-Lo and John Legend - It's Like That (2006)

**1/2 (of four)

The Black Eyed Peas have gone blander than the actual peas in a Weight Watchers TV dinner, thanks to their TRL-happy frontwoman Fergie. But it's hard not to support the hip-hop collective in "It's Like That" - the BEP guys have procured three of the thinking man's greats (Tip, Kweli and Cee-Lo) and returned, here at least, to their pre-Ferg routine of just spitting flows off each other to an appealing beat. "It's Like That" comes closer to resembling the spirit of the Peas' first two albums than any of the act's recent singles.

Only problem is, this whole affair seems like an all-star Sprite commercial. The clip-art computer animation backdrops swirl, slide, pan and flip with the rapper's bodies stashed throughout the frames. Lots of animated, pulsing speakers, reprinted lyrics and, at least three times, a huge Black Eyed Peas logo. Just so we don't forget whose video this is. Also, if you have the super-expanded-basic cable package, you might be thrown off by the video's abstractly painted city buildings in reds and browns look like the between-videos promos you see on the MTV Jams and VH1 Soul channels.

Q-Tip's verse basically advertises the Peas and hip-hop in general, and Cee-Lo never gets to do more than sing along with one chorus (Legend gets the other) and clutch his toy-breed dog while wearing a pink suit coat and matching tie. But every BEP member's verse is a good one, and Talib's tops them all. Unnecessary after all this self-promotion, though - the closing "X is in the house, Y's in the house, my man Z is in the house," name checking of everyone involved in the project and several others who aren't there. Come on, guys, save that shit for the liner notes. We don't need a roll call of all your friends.

Santana featuring Steven Tyler - Just Feel Better (2005)

*1/2 (of four)

It's sad when a gimmick wears thin. Santana's big formulaic comeback has jumped the shark. It's not fun anymore, it's a plodding listen that requires effort and rewards little - like the season of "Growing Pains" where they added Leonardo Dicaprio as the homeless adopted kid and every episode suddenly became a Very Special "Growing Pains." Santana has blown through the lighthearted antics of Rob Thomas, Lauryn Hill and Michelle Branch (twice!) and come to a screeching halt with this faux-emotional Steven Tyler ballad.

"Just Feel Better" takes all the old cliches of the Santana comeback video - where Carlos mainly stands in the corner and plays guitar while the storyline centers around actors 35 years younger than him - and crosses it with the cliches of the Aerosmith comeback video. Where Tyler hangs out in high school hallways and jams his tongue down the windpipe of a model who's 35 years younger than him.*

Storyline - younger model's old-lech schoolteacher pats her on the ass after a student-teacher conference and stirs up some long-buried anger issues. She promptly decks the teacher as we flash back to the model as a young girl, hiding behind the staircase while her abusive father runs out on her mom.

Let's see, the model also falls in love with one of her classmates, who's her own age and who wonders why they have to make out to the soundtrack of two musicians whose combined age is 113. And he dies a minute and a half later in a car accident. Like I said, it's a Very Special Santana Video, and Santana is sporting a Very Special Moustache And Stocking Cap throughout.


* = Their makeout scene is downright hot, Tyler and the decades-younger model - they have on the same shade of Revlon Foundation and everything, and Tyler's Peach Passion lip gloss blends just perfectly with the younger model's Wild Watermelon.

Natasha Bedingfield - Unwritten (2005)

**1/2 (of four)



Natasha Bedingfield has been popular in England for months or years or since they took prayer out of schools, some undetermined period of time. But Bedingfield had a hard time smashing through stateside. Until her fluffy white-girl hip-pop song "These Words" crossed over (an uber-guilty pleasure of mine, believe it or not, the kind of track I skip over other songs to get to) last fall. Twice as successful was the follow-up, "Unwritten," even fluffier and white-girl and this time features a big, glowing gospel choir.

So be forewarned - this video will, in a way not seen since "The Wonderful World of Disney" was canceled, attempt to pull a terrorist hijacking on your smile muscles. It's like a four-minute fucking toothpaste commercial, with Bedingfield riding an elevator up and down the same building and observing Real People from the corner. Smilers, laughers, cryers, lovers, families, more smilers, more smilers, more laughers.

Rest assured there's also a sequence with little smiling kids outdoors, playing in the spray of a popped fire hydrant. Eventually, the gospel choir comes marching down the hallway, gunning down innocent bystanders with their contagious happiness, and it's just a goddamned joyous bloodbath. It's all just so cheesy, but between the lines of the obviousness and calculation of the cheer, there's something intangibly appealing about this shit. To me, anyway. And I hardly ever smile.

L.L. Cool J featuring J.Lo - Control Myself (2006)

** (of four)



Hype Williams has used his double-letterbox gimmick - one video in the traditional middle widescreen portion of your TV box and another concurrent one on the top and bottom - for probably twenty videos in a row. Which makes me wonder two things, a) How far is he going to run this format into the ground? and, b) How far behind are the imitators?

So far I haven't seen any double-letterbox clones, aside from Hype's nineteen clones of his own original. Can you copyright or patent a video technique like this? Or did Hype just film and edit a shitload of these all at the same time and no one else has caught up yet? Either way, it's not bad unless you see it over and over and over. Which is starting to happen more frequently, with no relief in sight.

Hype's most recent double-letterbox is "Control Myself." L.L. Cool J is all over "Total Request Live" and VH1, promoting this perfectly bland effort with J. Lo. The Jermaine Dupri track has a Missy-demo feel to it, while L.L.'s rap flow about the girl he wants to jump on ("The afterparty is on my body?" Come on...) is delivered in a decades-old, "It's Tricky" cadence. And, Jenny From the Block, I know you got there first, but now it seems like you're imitating Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas. Which makes your singing career that much sadder.*

The video's some B-minus fluff, too, consisting entirely of fashion-shoot soundstage stuff with L.L., J.Lo, J.D. and a half-dozen other sets of initials mugging and dancing on an underfurnished soundstage. There's the gray-tinted backdrop, the green-tinted backdrop, the blue-tinted backdrop, the white-tinted backdrop, the black spiral-pattern backdrop. Nothing too exciting.

But I do feel L.L.'s pain when he's surrounded by J.Lo and the other hot-ass dancers and laments, over and over, "It's hard to control myself, it's hard to control myself." I've got the same libidinal dilemma when my hand plunges into a full-pound bag of Sour Cream and Cheddar Lay's. Got a hearty lust for grease, I do.


* = Take solace in this, though - Fergie will no doubt imitate you by starting her own movie career, beginning with the Hollywood romantic comedy House-Cleaner in Honolulu.

Madonna - Die Another Day (2002)

*** (of four)



This James Bond soundtrack video likely pleased fans and detractors of Madonna, considering she spends most of the music video being tortured by Kim Jong Il and his Army-uniform-clad band of minions. Yeah, Madonna's some kind of renegade spy here - once she married Guy Ritchie and made that "What It Feels Like For a Girl" video, she switched her image to badass mode for a little bit. Peaking here, naturally.

Hauled into a grimy, green-gray interrogation room, a tank-topped Madonna is left alone to writhe and grimace atop various torture devices. Then Il and the boys return to shove her head into ice water, strap her down to an electric chair and slice up her torso. Meanwhile, in a concurrent death match in a bright-white armory/museum, two Madonnas battle each other. One is dressed in white, the other in black. I'll let you guess which one the viewer is made to root for.

And, while the camp value is high here, for sure, Madonna more or less pulls it off. Except for the sequence in which Evil Madonna breaks into a glass case housing the actor who played Odd Job, grabs his razor-sharp bowler off his head and frisbees it across the room, where it decapitates a fluffy cat puppet and whizzes by Good Madonna's cheek. Oh well, she gets points for creating a song I like (with her French techno-blip producer Mirwais) and for never being referred to as Agent M. Mariah Carey already laid claim to that title in her goofy spy video, 1997's "Honey."

Sheryl Crow - Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)

** (of four)

I haven't seen the James Bond flick Tomorrow Never Dies since opening weekend, but I'm pretty sure this entire video is pretty much the opening credits sequence with the credits removed and a black-turtlenecked Sheryl Crow inserted. Crow spends the video waving her arms around half-conscious and staring into the camera in closeup.

Not to worry, there are probably a dozen other, sexier dancers writhing along at various points on the soundstage. After all, James Bond is never satisfied with just one woman per movie. It's usually like three or four, and he never wears a rubber. Bond's illegitimate children number in the high dozens.

FIVE MOST BORING IMAGES:

5. Sheryl standing on an outstretched, giant human palm.
4. Sheryl standing on a pursed, giant pair of human lips.
3. Sheryl standing on an upturned, giant human foot.
2. Sheryl standing on James Bond's turgid, surprisingly average-sized member
1. Sheryl standing. Period.

Outkast - Land of a Million Drums (2002)

*** (of four)

Now, there's no way in hell I'd pay to watch either of the new-breed, live-action Scooby Doo movies - a computer-animated Scooby? WTF?! - but for four minutes, this cheeky Outkast video makes the franchise seem almost halfway tolerable. Not to mention, the track is bouncy and lovable in a spooky yet perky way, and half the song's lyrics are about getting high in the Mystery Machine with Shaggy.

Andre 3000 rolls around in a vintage convertible while Shaggy rides bitch in the Mystery Machine with Big Boi driving. It's not that Big Boi is worried about Shaggy's judgment abilities or reaction time, he's just sick of the red-eyed bastard consistently driving ten miles under the speed limit. There's also a party in a haunted, cobwebby mansion while Dre plays pot-and-pan drums with wooden spoons.

Matthew "Shaggy" Lillard hams it up here, to decent effect, while Freddie "Fred" Prinze Jr. is nowhere to be seen. He was probably deep into a reading of the script for She's All That 2 when this video was being filmed.

Outkast even builds their closing refrain out of an age-old "Scooby Doo" catchphrase, spouted by every deposed real-estate scammer villain on the show: "I woulda got away with it if it wasn't for them meddlin' kids." Proving even throwaway, phoned-in songs from prime-era Outkast put most of the rest of these clowns to shame.

Kanye West - Jesus Walks (2004)

*** (of four)

I'm trying to fucking figure out what it is - I don't have a lot of respect for Kanye West in interviews and ego and overall rap ability and relevance, but every time the bastard makes a serious song and/or video, I lap it right up. "Jesus Walks" is probably my favorite example. Even though I know enough theology to know Kanye's interpretation of the New Testament is muddled and oddly self-centered at best. All through the song, West acts like he's talking about/to Jesus, but he's really talking about/to himself. A lot.

It's foolish shit, and to be taken with a grain of salt, but it kind of pulls on my emotion nontheless. Emotion can create the illusion of meaning. And "Jesus Walks," which cops a haunting, classic gospel hook, is still my favorite Kanye, and the video is up to par. Provided you fall, like I did, for the clip's grainy black-and-white mood. "Jesus Walks" has a timeless, culture-crossing monochrome beauty, in a way. Hard to turn off, if I'm the one with the remote.

That's not to say you might not chuckle as you see Kanye leave the front door of his project tenement building while Jesus, who's patiently sitting out in the hall waiting to personally guard Kanye, scrambles to his feet and hustles to get the rapper's back. This Christ seriously acts like a high-maintenance star's handler on serious speed, a true music video Messiah.

J.C. follows Kanye all through the video as he wanders the hood and, just so he doesn't get rusty on the whole miracle-working thing and get bored, Christ even makes food appear like magic in Kanye's refrigerator. I'm not joking. Name-brand and everything. No Jennie-O at this turkey feast!

The "Footsteps" poem gets referenced at one point, and there are choreographed kid dancers who break their steps when they see Herr Kanye walk out of the house. They seriously drop everything to run over and greet him with admiration. Jesus wisely stays out of that shot. He's inside, divinically refilling the toilet paper and unclogging the bathtub drain, like a good friend.

Kanye even delivers a frantic verse from the pulpit. It's the ego element that really drives this piece, you're reminded when the video closes on a two-shot of Kanye and Christ, with Kanye out front and Christ over his shoulder, looking off-camera in a Bergman-esque three-quarters shot. Kanye's staring into the lens while a white, cursive-script Thank You is imposed on the bottom of the screen.

Is that Thank You... from Kanye? To Jesus? No way. Thank you is what Kanye - who looms large in the shot, remember - hears the people gratefully projecting back at him for his brilliant, ghetto-redeeming opus. Of course, Kanye couldn't have done it without the divine protection of, shoot, what's that guy's name again? That olive-skinned white boy with the crown of thorns who's perched just over Kanye's shoulder. Pedro Something.

Sean Paul - Temperature (2006)

**** (of four)



I've always been a fan of the Dancehall genre, and the thumping beat of "Temperature" hasn't been able to escape my head since I've heard it. Sean Paul always manages to find a group of leggy beauties to perform physically impossible dance moves (it's always funny to see overweight girls attempting to imitate them), and this video is no exception.

The "Temperature" video has Sean Paul and an army of dancers dancing through the four seasons in front of obviously fake but colorful backgrounds. In the autumn, dancers shake it in front of trees with falling leaves, and in winter, the dancers don winter coats in the fake snow. On to spring, as rain starts to fall down, and finally summer - introduced with a squirting bottle of lotion - where the dancers strip down to bikinis and Sean Paul throws beach balls at them.

This is a great video to watch while we freeze our asses off in the winter. Yes, it's a frigid 50 degrees here in Tampa Bay. Stop laughing, that's cold! I’m going to try and review "Unpredictable" for you really soon.

-Guest Reviewer Leon Bracey

Amerie - 1 Thing (2005)

**** (of four)


This sexy Afro-Asian beauty channels her inner Beyoncé and sashays her way through the "1 Thing" video, which perfectly captures the song's energetic, percussion-heavy feeling. Amerie dances in front of a band - with lots of drums, of course - and background dancers wearing some of the shortest shorts I’ve ever seen.

Some versions of this video have clips from the movie Hitch because the song was originally released from that movie’s soundtrack. But Amerie smartly rips down a canvas playing shots of Will Smith and Eva Mendes and dances some more. There are also some parts in which various versions of Amerie in silhouette dance behind a red background, while the real Amerie dances in the foreground. Sex-ay…

"1 Thing" draws heavy inspiration from the Go-Go sound of Amerie’s and producer Rich Harrison’s native Washington, D.C. Too bad the rest of her album, Touch was slept on, because it's great. Of course, the question is - what is that "1 Thing" that Amerie is looking for? I pray to God it's me.

-Guest Reviewer Leon Bracey

Saul Williams - Black Stacey (2004)

*** (of four)


Does anyone remember? Was it Fear of a Black Hat or CB4 or "In Living Color" or "Saturday Night Live" that had a parody rap act performing a song whose repeated hook and entire lyrical focus was, "I'm black y'all, black y'all / Blickity-blickity-black y'all"?

It was overstated humor of the absurd, and like a decade and a half later, here's Saul Williams with damn near the same hook, except more prolonged and pronounced. And meant to be taken seriously.

The Williams style is half-spoken word, half-jazz, half-hip-hop, half-reggae and half-industrial. That's four halves, and as Saul constantly reminds you, each half is non-Caucasian: "They say you're too black / Man I think I'm too black / Do you think I'm too black? / I think I'm too black / I think I'm too black / I think I'm too blacka-blacka-blacka-black."*

Yeah, the lyrics here are all about confessional time, and Saul pulls it off. This street poet who has played Lollapalooza is still insecure about being chided in school for the color of his skin. Apparently, someone kidded around and called him "Chuck D" in sixth grade, and he hasn't forgotten it. (Though, when you think about it, wouldn't calling someone "Flavor Flav" be the bigger insult?)

And, as the song title reveals, he apparently was called "Black Stacey" by his adolescent peers. Which to me sounds like a name the Mattel corporation would give to one of Barbie's friends. Kind of a C-minus on the junior high insult scale but, I suppose, something you wouldn't forget when, say, you were trying to write your breakthrough single.

But I'm here to talk about the video, right? Ostensibly. Well, Black Stacey is indeed black - about four Hershey bars out of five on the complexion scale. In case you forgot that, he paints tribesman dots all over his face and refuses to wear any clothing over his beltline.

"Black Stacey" is low-medium budget but looks fucking rich and classy, lighting and color-wise. Half the time, Williams is seen in a three-quarters shot, medium close-up, with half of his face plunged into, er, darkness. Saul also stands outdoors in an old-school red leather jacket, holding a vintage boombox while performing in front of a dingy blue-steel-ribbed warehouse.

If this doesn't grab you at all the first time - if you're thinking, whiny fucker, too repetitious, get over it, kind of laughable at heart, watch it again. If you still think that, watch it a third time. Then get high, get drunk and sentimental, get in confessional mode. Watch it four times with a good buzz on, and you'll feel what this guy's saying. Hypothetically, of course.


* = Saul, you should be glad political correctness hasn't completely taken over - imagine the syllable crunch as a lyricist if you were forced to call yourself African American: "They say you're too African American / Man I think I'm too African American / Do you think I'm too African American? / I think I'm too African American / I think I'm too African American / I think I'm too Afri-Afri-Afri-African American."

Howard Jones - Everlasting Love (1989)

* (of four)

If you don't remember Howard Jones, he had one good song - it was called "Things Can Only Get Better." You might not know it by its title, though, but by its hook, which went WOAH woah woah-oh-oh whoa-WHOA-whoa-oh-oh.* Anyway, this is not that song, this is "Everlasting Love," which is also not the perennially remade "Everlasting Love" you're thinking of. No, this is a midtempo, third-of-the-way-catchy '80s new wave/pop/British art fag track with a classically cheesy video.

A mummy pops out of an Egyptian sarcophagus on a white soundstage while Jones is wearing an über-loud red/green/yellow/blue/purple suit with bigger-than-average shoulder pads. He tells a love story starring a mummy and his femummy as props placed around Jones shift, one per shot, and we see second-unit shots of the mummy couple walking in the park, sticking Pop Tarts in the toaster, trying on boxer shorts in a mall changing room. The mummy couple even plays racquetball. All the things people do. That's why it's supposed to be fucking funny.

Oh, and if you've never seen a mummy who's holding a briefcase step into the backseat of a cab being driven on the left side of the road, well, watch the VH1 Classic channel a little more in the middle of the night. You're in for a treat, my friend. -AH


* = Not to be confused with the "Life in a Northern Town" hook Hey-oh Ma-ma-ma / Hey-eee-doo-bee-die-yah / Hey-oh-ma-ma-mee / Hey-ay-ay-ie-yo or the Enigma "Return to Innocence" hook Hyiiii-yiii-HIIIII OHHHH-hi-HI-hi / Ohh-oh-oh hiiigh / OH-hi-yo-hi-hi yo-hi-hieee. Different hook.

Cher - If I Could Turn Back Time (1989)

** (of four)

This video has burned out more heterosexual retinas than could ever be measured empirically. Here, Cher's ultimate fantasy is realized - to perform on an aircraft carrier at night, while she's surrounded by dozens of guys fresh out of high school. Cher lip synchs while crouching astride a series of cylindrical heavy-artillery props. All while sporting a fright wig sowed together from the carcasses of seventeen ebony poodles. And while wearing a gauzy black leotard that is completely transparant save a Band-Aid-wide black line running across her nipples and muffin. Which - the muffin - is shaved into the cartoonish shape of Sonny Bono in a drop-top flying into a robust sycamore. I'm telling you, Cher's a sick fucking bitch. Every time she thinks about Sonny's death, she gets off. Hard.

2006 Grammy Awards - Hours 2 Through 4

Being as the eMpTyV blog focuses on the flashy visual side of pop music past and present, it's only natural that I squeeze in a post about the 2006 Grammy Awards. However, my TiVo box had a conflict with the first hour - it seems "American Idol" is a hell of a lot more important on the priorities list, and priorities are priorities. So I missed that first sixty minutes, when apparently Madonna crashed a Gorillaz performance by popping out of a cartoon version of herself and humping on a guy and a girl. Here are the highlights from the rest of the bisexual humping at this year's Grammies...


HOUR TWO

-U2 wins the Best Rock Album award, and frontman/AIDS-eradicator Bono gives a convoluted acceptance speech comparing the record industry to the circus - even if you're the bearded lady or the guy shoveling up the elephant dung, it's good just to be there. The mental image of all five members of U2 plummeting from a tightrope and being eaten by lions gives me an odd feeling of comfort.

-Paul McCartney performs with his band while playing a psychedelic blue-screen piano. His massive drummer, Abe Somebody, makes his (i.e. the drummer's) job look impossibly easy by playing the drums and a pair of percussion shakers at the same time. McCartney somehow performs a version of "Helter Skelter" that sounds stripped of its hippiedom and safe for the off-key finger snaps of The Man.

-Jennifer Love Hewitt presents with the Black Eyed Peas, who immediately mention that they won a Grammy award earlier that was not televised ("Just so y'know, U2 and John Legend didn't get ALL these muhfuckas this year"). Sure enough, Legend wins for Best R+B Vocal, and his speech, like the rest of his album, is accompanied only by solo piano and induces sleep. Meanwhile, one of the Peas is spotted in the background asking Hewitt if she wants to be their new girl singer, because the old one looks too damn much like a mulatto Kirstie Alley.

-Mariah Carey, in a pre-performance taped segment, declares, "I'd like to thank the penises of the following artists, without whom I would not be here today - Tommy Motolla, Walter Afanassief, Jermaine Dupri, Ol' Dirty Bastard, Method Man, Jay-Z, Bizzy Bone, Krayzie Bone, Mother Love Bone, some sculptor I met on the subway once..." Fifteen minutes later, she's performing "We Belong Together," working her absolute windpipiest to blow the shit out of the song. Her efforts earn her a single "spontaneous" round of applause as she runs through more scales than Weight Watchers. During her second song, she manages to out-shout an entire gospel choir, simply because her microphone is turned up louder than theirs.

-Michael Buble presents with Teri Hatcher. I can't decide which is the more desperate housewife, and I spend the duration of their appearance trying to figure out whether I can see through the boob part of Hatcher's dress or not. I never reach a conclusion. Best Pop Vocal goes to Kelly Clarkson, who garnered the necessary number of votes from viewers calling 1-888-GRAMMY-01. Clarkson thanks Jesus and God but not Simon Cowell, the third member of the Holy Trinity. Clarkson does give a shout-out to Bonnie Raitt, who is then seen in reaction shot sporting a shit-eating grin on her face like, "Yeah, thanks, I'm here because I have songwriting and musicianship skills. You owe your career to a reality TV show on the fucking Fox network."

-A barely recognizable Jenna Elfman pays tribute to country great Owen Bradley, who was instrumental in the careers of Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn and the mammy from the "Tom and Jerry" cartoons. Cut to a performance from diminutive singer Keith Urban, who plays from atop a see-through Rubik's Cube.

-Santana talks? That's the big surprise of the night. I'm surprised he doesn't let Rob Thomas or Michelle Branch make his presentation speech for him. On the other hand, when Linkin Park and Jay-Z win for Best Rapped/Sung Collaboration, an obviously stoned Jay-Z declines his turn at the microphone and in fact appears to be questioning his decision to work with Mike Shinoda and the boys.


HOUR THREE

-Dave Chappelle is set to present and, ever since seeing him on Oprah last week, everyone's wondering if he's really gonna come out and talk because you know that's a lot of stress and a lot of people are watching and oh shit what if the teleprompter fucks up and goddamn he can't get tongue-tied in front of Bonnie Raitt and Dave Grohl that could ruin his career and fifty million bucks isn't enough to allay any of those fears. It turns out Chappelle has nothing to worry about - he cracks a joke and Tom Hanks spits a mouthful of grape Kool-Aid across four rows of academy members.

-Mega-tribute to funk recluse Sly Stone begins with Joss Stone/John Legend/Some Other Guy collective trying to out-adlib each other with oooh's, ohh's, uuuh's and uhhh's. Then Fantasia Barrino and a mulleted Keith Richards/Seth Meyers lookalike guy singer butcher "If You Want Me To Stay," and Ciara and Maroon 5 sing the, "There is an orange one who can't accept the tangerine one who doesn't like the fuschia one who hates the burnt sienna one," verse from "Everyday People." Then BEP's Will.I.Am raps over "Dance to the Music" while claiming that he's "dancin' onstage like a black Fred Astaire." Cowboy Troy does "You Can Make It If You Try." Steven Tyler and Joe Perry butcher "I Wanna Take You Higher," and Sly Stone has his last chance to get out of the entire proceedings unscathed. Chappelle tries to give him pointers on how to vanish when the industry is throwing money at you, but Stone comes out anyway in a big bleached mohawk, a Doctor Emmett Brown silver coat, expansive sunglasses and... are we even sure that's him under there? The Grammy people could have just hired any old homeless guy with Parkinson's in his fifties. The whole thing just degenerates into one huge, choreographed jam session featuring several dozen mediocre artists.

-LL Cool J claims that blues legend Robert Johnson "paved the way for Cream, Led Zeppelin and my 1991 cover of 'Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf' on the Simply Mad About the Mouse Disney compilation album." Linkin Park and Jay-Z perform with Paul McCartney, who hasn't had someone to sing the "Yo yuhyuhyuh yo, uh uh yeah uh huh" harmony part to "Yesterday" since Linda died.

-Tom Hanks, sporting a Jon Lovitz exposed-forehead hairdo that makes it look like there's a football coming out of his head, presents a Lifetime Achievement Award to folk band The Weavers. ("Forrest Gump owns all their old 78s.") Segue to Bruce Springsteen, who's trying way too fucking hard to be Bob Dylan. He's got the hair, the shadow-across-the-face lighting, even the dental-work, headgear-harmonica rig springing up from his neck. Somewhere out in the parking lot, among the valet attendants, Jakob Dylan is shouting at a tiny TV set, "Fuck you, Springsteen, that's my hustle!"

-U2 beats out Rascal Flatts, Springsteen, John Legend and Mariah for Song of the Year, only because D4L's "Laffy Taffy" was released too late for consideration.

-The Kanye West/Jamie Foxx performance is presented as a KW State vs. JFU halftime marching band battle, which at first reminds me of the Speakerboxx vs. Love Below rumble in the Outkast video for "Roses." It turns out to be one of the night's better spectacles, as it degenerates into a drumline step show and I spot six cameltoes in a row. Immediately as the performance ends, the show cuts straight to a reaction shot from James Taylor, who pronounces, "It was sublime in its ghettocity."

-Sting offes to sell Kanye the backing track of his old Police song "Spirits in the Material World" for a hundred bucks, and Kanye says he'll consider. Meantime, Green Day wins Record of the Year for successfully transcribing the chords to "Wonderwall" by Oasis and writing whinier words on top.


HOUR FOUR

-Terrence Howard snickers while introducing Christina Aguilera. He's probably thinking about the time he came in her right eye in a men's room stall at the Moulin Rouge premiere. Aguilera, who's officially entered the Breathless Mahoney stage in her Madonna Career Emulation Program™, performs a torch song with Herbie Hancock, who came in Christina's left nostril during the "Dirrty" video shoot.

-Time for the Best New Artist grammy, presented by Common, Chuck D and Fiona Apple, which is an odd trio since two of them eat soul food and one eats no food.

CHUCK: One of these artists is about to win an award that's gone to such greats as Bobby Darin, The Beatles...
COMMON: Milli Vanilli, Arrested Development...
FIONA: A Taste of Honey, Men at Work, the Captain and Tennille...

John Legend now joins those ranks, and I think he just thanked Devo.

-Album of the Year also goes to U2, while Bono declares in his speech that Kanye and Gwen Stefani should have gotten the award instead. He quips, I believe in an attempt at humor, "Gwat about Gwen?" His award is immediately revoked and given to Milli Vanilli.

-A speech from the Grammy president is followed by a show-closing tribute to New Orleans, while Dr. John, Bonnie Raitt and others perform an original song. ("What rhymes with 'overflowing Superdome men's room feces?'") This concludes another 210-minute Grammy Awards show. Stay tuned for the fucking Oscars.

Armor For Sleep - The Truth About Heaven (2005)

**1/2 (of four)

The leadoff single from the album What To Do When You Are Dead isn't playing around about the great beyond. It seems the frontman - in hopes of being the white Biggie or Pac or Pun or Left Eye or Aaliyah or Malcolm X or Martin Luther King Jr. or Otis Redding or Marvin Gaye - is hoping to become a bigger legend as a corpse than a living, breathing emo rock star.

So he spends the entire video in a state of limbo, haunting (or comforting, depending on your perspective) the girlfriend he left behind. His bandmates are dead with him, and I imagine they want to be loyal friends and all, but they're probably pissed they have to spend their afterlife watching their buddy stare at his fucking high school sweetheart. Though occasionally she probably does take a shower or have a ticklefight with her girlfriends during a sleepover. There are minor perks.

He and the other Armor For Sleep guys first perform in the street in front of her house, where they're surprised to see cars driving right through them. Then, my favorite, they're seen perched on the front porch and upper eaves of the house. Then on top of the car she rides to the beach in with some friends.

At the beach, in the video's clear dramatic climax (uh huh), the dead frontman watches his girlfriend talk to a new guy and then abruptly get up and leave him. Cut to triumphant look on the dead frontman's face, as he realizes his girlfriend will carry on a miserable celibate existence in his absence. It's the minor details that count in these pop-crossover, indie-rock videos.

From Satellite - A Hundred Days (2005)

** (of four)

From Satellite is some low-budget, generic pop-punk-grunge stuff brought to you by a conglomerate of American brewing companies, who believe if they show enough people crammed into a room, waving around half-consumed beer bottles while watching a band whose sound equipment is lined with haphazardly placed empties, each viewer will want to consume a twelve-pack within a half-hour.

Too bad most music video viewers are not the raging alcoholics I am. Too bad I'm also watching and writing this at six in the morning, which is hardly the most productive time to start drinking when you have to work in five hours. Though it's not certainly not unheard of. I'm gonna make like Nancy Reagan and Just Say No to this entire mess.

White Zombie - More Human Than Human (1995)

*** (of four)


I couldn't stand this fucker when he was popular. Even more so than Kiss and Alice Cooper, it was patently obvious White Zombie's image was theatrical, cartoonish and phony, meant to bilk the dollars of the Evil Equals Cool teen market. Besides, my little brother was in love with the band and couldn't resist playing La Sexorcisto and Astro Creep 2000 at top volume over and over and over and over. And over and over and over and over.

But it slowly became obvious over the years that, if Rob Zombie had cultivated a phony image, at least he had fun with it and filled his videos with images on the camp side of horror. The man was an entertainer. I haven't seen Zombie's two recent slasher flicks, but this is the most thorough viewing I've ever given his "More Human Than Human" video. Which seems to turn the medium of 1960s home movies into a sinister collection of robots, clowns, jack-o-lanterns and giant albino rats.

The whole letterboxed video has phony film scratches applied to it and lots of manically cut stock footage, but the centerpiece is performance footage of Rob and his band. Who seem to be bouncing around someone's basement or garage in a universe of hyper-color. The cumulative effect borders on sensory overload, but it's completely accessible. I mean, how underground and demonic could it possibly be when its frontman is wearing a fucking jean jacket?

The Lemonheads - It's a Shame About Ray (1992)

**1/2 (of four)


Apparently, Lemonheads frontman Evan Dando was a teen heartthrob in his time, a dapper, dorkier version of Black Crowes singer Chris Robinson. I don't know much about all that, but I've always had a passive kind of fondness for the band's 1992 hit "It's a Shame About Ray." Catchy, mid-tempo, jangly acoustic guitars, plaintive vocals and lyrics that you can stare at for five minutes and still not really figure out if they're about suicide or what. Help me out here, English majors.

The video takes place outside and around a house in the desert, where the band plays outside on the porch and Dando mopes around inside with heavy-lidded eyes. The camera just kind of meanders back and forth, and we keep seeing glimpses of a blonde girl who I believe is in the process of leaving Dando. Yeah, she is gone, because he just pulled her picture out of the frame and dropped it in a plastic garbage bag. And dropped the frame to the dusty hardwood floor in slow motion.

You could say this video is dated and too poppy and didn't even make sense to analytic stoners when it was released. I prefer to call it atmospheric and halfway decent.