Guilty Pleasure Video Favorites
When I'm bored at work, I like to peruse the video selections over at Launch, Yahoo!'s music Web site. Ever been? It's a fabulous place to kill time. I don't have the cable, see, so when I want to watch music videos, this is where I go. What I like about Launch is its back catalogue. Whoa Nelly, are there some gems in there! You want to see the video for Robert Plant's "Heaven Knows" where he does this kind of tai chi dance in the sand? Got it. Want to relive the gruesome shotgun accident where Bushwick Bill of the Geto Boys loses his eye because he's all messed up on the Joy Juice and wants to die? "Mind Playing Tricks on Me" is on there. Yo, it's graduation season all across this great land and maybe you're worried that you're never gonna get to see your boys again after you get that diploma. Watching the video for Vitamin C's "Graduation (Friends Forever)" may just be the salve you need. Done.
Now, Launch doesn't have everything. I don't know this for sure, but if I did a little research, I bet I'd discover that most of what they have in their archives is there because it's on a label that is somehow part of the media empire that owns Yahoo!. But they have enough to keep you entertained for many an hour. So I present to you a few of my Guilty Pleasure Video Favorites, all of which are available for your viewing enjoyment on Launch. Go get you some.
Winger, "Headed for a Heartbreak"
Premise: Tortured Musician is reeling from the pain of losing Skanky Girlfriend. SG has an unhealthy love for satin gloves and spandex dresses. TM's grief is expressed metaphorically though such devices as an exploding piano, a near-drowning, scattered sheet music, and lots and lots of pained facial expressions.
Winger, no thanks to "Beavis and Butt-Head," is probably the most maligned of all the hair metal bands of the era. No matter that Warrant, the Bulletboys, Great White, and Enuff Z'Nuff were arguably less talented and more absurd, once Steven, whipping boy of Beavis and Butt-Head, appeared on the cartoon wearing a Winger t-shirt, their credibility as a band was shot. That, coupled with the Grunge juggernaut, effectively ended the reign of the hair-metal band for good.
Of course, it's Kip Winger who gets you to the video—he is, without question, one of the hottest male musicians ever—but it's the smiley drummer that keeps you there. For whatever reason, every time they cut to him, he's drumming in slow motion. Around 1:51 in the video, he sort of breaks it down and looks positively giddy. He's like, "Crap, I can hear Kurt Cobain behind me shaking the death rattle of metal. This may be the last time I ever get any screen time so I better look at least half as good as Kip's hair." Kip's hair was impressive, but collectively, it's unbelievable how much hair they had. Locks of Love would have been flush for decades if they'd donated it.
Other things that make this video great: The video appears to be in black and white, but if you watch closely, there are certain elements that are in color. It's like those black-and-white greeting cards of the little kids dressed like hoboes where only their cheeks are pink and there's also like, a bunch of pink roses or a pink heart-shaped box of candy in there, too. Perhaps that was where the director got the idea, given that those cards evoke such a deep emotional response in the people who buy them, i.e., corny single women who wear high-waisted jeans and still have stuffed animals on their beds, AKA, Winger's (unintended) target audience.
Boomkat, "What U Do 2 Me"
Premise: Gang of hipster LA-types, many of whom are wearing roller skates, lounge around austere room in party mode, pretending not to hate that Taryn and Kellin Manning got a break, obsessively checking their messages to see if their agents called to say yes, they got that toothpaste or coffee commercial that will be just the thing to launch their career, only it won't because there are countless other beautiful people out there who are more talented and better looking, and in reality, they are destined to a life of shitty service-industry jobs or prostitution, Hollywood dreams effectively shattered, all over a backdrop of catchy Casio-created beats and ProTools-massaged melodies. Oh, and something about Taryn thinking some guy is "beautiful" and "[hoping] it's mutual."
Taryn Manning is no dilettante, I assure you, and this video proves it. We get to experience not only her masterful skills as a singer, but also as a dancer, roller skater, AND, I can only assume, based on what she's rocking in the video, her own stylist and makeup artist.
The end of the video is a shameless rip-off of the climatic scene in "Xanadu" where Sonny Malone busts through the wall where the mural of the nine sisters is painted and somehow skates into…the…heavens? I don't know. But there he is, begging Zeus to let Kira come back with him to Venice beach where she can continue to be his muse and wear diaphanous prairie-whore dresses and ribbon barrettes all the live long day while he pursues a career as a painter. The dude in this video, however, doesn't look like he knows what the fuck is going on. He's all, "Oh shit, am I in a k-hole?" But then Taryn/Kira rolls up and he seems to be somewhat comforted, hoping that she'll nurse him through it, except that she's in the k-hole, too, only she's totally into it, like, "Ride it out bra. Ride it out." The end.
Sunshine Anderson, "Heard It All Before"
Premise: Sunshine lets her no-good man know that she has, in fact, heard it all before, and she's done. With the support of her girls and the help of a trusty "Women's Remote Control," she rewinds and fast-forwards through all her man's bullshit, no longer pervious to any of it. They laugh at him. She eats "Single Girl" ice cream and drinks a Slurpee and wears a t-shit with the Black Cat brand firecracker logo that I want to get my hands on, like, today.
This should have been 2001's summer jam, but it wasn't. I think that honor went to Destiny's Child's "Survivor." I'm not sure—if you can remember, mail me. But anyway, this song is so good! It's got this kind of 1970s soul thing going on and her voice is world-weary and slightly slurred, but not in a crack-head kind of way. The lyrics are of the classic "my man done me wrong" variety, but with a little more creativity:
What were you thinking bringing her into our home/
In our bed, you must have fell and bumped your head/
Messing up my sheets and violating me/
Have me bout to call my peeps and take it to the streets…
There isn't much in the way of substance to the video; I get the impression that there was more they could have done, or maybe wanted to do, but didn't have the budget. And if memory serves, this song didn't get nearly as much play as it should have. It's possible that this was the only good track on her album. I haven't heard it, so I can't say. Hence, she's doing her video in what looks like one of those generic apartment complexes that you usually find just off the highway near a Meijer and not in a slick, Richard Neutra-looking house in the Hollywood Hills.
Dishonorable Mention
Willa Ford, featuring May, "A Toast to Men"
Premise: You're a guest at the most fictional sorority party ever, because, for real, I fear that the closest any of these women has ever been to college is as the roofie-filled jailbait guest at a Tappa Tappa Keg mixer. There's also seriously tacky lingerie, the most orbicular breasts in existence, stripper cops, and hella bad dancing. It's a disaster.
I came across this by accident (no, really). It is quite possibly the worst song and video ever. No, I mean EVER. Wow. Seriously, it's really bad. The video is offensive in its own low-rent porn-lite way, but the song is utterly abysmal. This is the chorus:
Here's to the men we love to love/
Here's to the men in love with us/
Here's to the men who passed on us/
Fuck the men, let's drink to us, y'all!
And when Willa sings this, she and her dancers make some kind of bizarre "va fongool!" gesture and grab their crotches. Class-ay. They make Vanity 6 look downright respectable. Lady May is on here to, I guess, provide Willa with some kind of streed cred. May, I liked your rap better when it was called "How Many Licks" and you should be slapped with a copyright infringement suit for shamelessly biting Lil Kim's style on that track. Then Willa sings us the bridge—a reggae bridge. No, I'm not making it up. You CAN'T make stuff like that up. It's a terribly misguided female empowerment anthem; all it does is make Willa sound bitter and ignorant. I put it on here because it's shocking to see this kind of lame sexist behavior in the 2000s. Did anyone seriously buy this record? And if you did, will you please write me and tell me why? Thanks.
Now, Launch doesn't have everything. I don't know this for sure, but if I did a little research, I bet I'd discover that most of what they have in their archives is there because it's on a label that is somehow part of the media empire that owns Yahoo!. But they have enough to keep you entertained for many an hour. So I present to you a few of my Guilty Pleasure Video Favorites, all of which are available for your viewing enjoyment on Launch. Go get you some.
Winger, "Headed for a Heartbreak"
Premise: Tortured Musician is reeling from the pain of losing Skanky Girlfriend. SG has an unhealthy love for satin gloves and spandex dresses. TM's grief is expressed metaphorically though such devices as an exploding piano, a near-drowning, scattered sheet music, and lots and lots of pained facial expressions.
Winger, no thanks to "Beavis and Butt-Head," is probably the most maligned of all the hair metal bands of the era. No matter that Warrant, the Bulletboys, Great White, and Enuff Z'Nuff were arguably less talented and more absurd, once Steven, whipping boy of Beavis and Butt-Head, appeared on the cartoon wearing a Winger t-shirt, their credibility as a band was shot. That, coupled with the Grunge juggernaut, effectively ended the reign of the hair-metal band for good.
Of course, it's Kip Winger who gets you to the video—he is, without question, one of the hottest male musicians ever—but it's the smiley drummer that keeps you there. For whatever reason, every time they cut to him, he's drumming in slow motion. Around 1:51 in the video, he sort of breaks it down and looks positively giddy. He's like, "Crap, I can hear Kurt Cobain behind me shaking the death rattle of metal. This may be the last time I ever get any screen time so I better look at least half as good as Kip's hair." Kip's hair was impressive, but collectively, it's unbelievable how much hair they had. Locks of Love would have been flush for decades if they'd donated it.
Other things that make this video great: The video appears to be in black and white, but if you watch closely, there are certain elements that are in color. It's like those black-and-white greeting cards of the little kids dressed like hoboes where only their cheeks are pink and there's also like, a bunch of pink roses or a pink heart-shaped box of candy in there, too. Perhaps that was where the director got the idea, given that those cards evoke such a deep emotional response in the people who buy them, i.e., corny single women who wear high-waisted jeans and still have stuffed animals on their beds, AKA, Winger's (unintended) target audience.
Boomkat, "What U Do 2 Me"
Premise: Gang of hipster LA-types, many of whom are wearing roller skates, lounge around austere room in party mode, pretending not to hate that Taryn and Kellin Manning got a break, obsessively checking their messages to see if their agents called to say yes, they got that toothpaste or coffee commercial that will be just the thing to launch their career, only it won't because there are countless other beautiful people out there who are more talented and better looking, and in reality, they are destined to a life of shitty service-industry jobs or prostitution, Hollywood dreams effectively shattered, all over a backdrop of catchy Casio-created beats and ProTools-massaged melodies. Oh, and something about Taryn thinking some guy is "beautiful" and "[hoping] it's mutual."
Taryn Manning is no dilettante, I assure you, and this video proves it. We get to experience not only her masterful skills as a singer, but also as a dancer, roller skater, AND, I can only assume, based on what she's rocking in the video, her own stylist and makeup artist.
The end of the video is a shameless rip-off of the climatic scene in "Xanadu" where Sonny Malone busts through the wall where the mural of the nine sisters is painted and somehow skates into…the…heavens? I don't know. But there he is, begging Zeus to let Kira come back with him to Venice beach where she can continue to be his muse and wear diaphanous prairie-whore dresses and ribbon barrettes all the live long day while he pursues a career as a painter. The dude in this video, however, doesn't look like he knows what the fuck is going on. He's all, "Oh shit, am I in a k-hole?" But then Taryn/Kira rolls up and he seems to be somewhat comforted, hoping that she'll nurse him through it, except that she's in the k-hole, too, only she's totally into it, like, "Ride it out bra. Ride it out." The end.
Sunshine Anderson, "Heard It All Before"
Premise: Sunshine lets her no-good man know that she has, in fact, heard it all before, and she's done. With the support of her girls and the help of a trusty "Women's Remote Control," she rewinds and fast-forwards through all her man's bullshit, no longer pervious to any of it. They laugh at him. She eats "Single Girl" ice cream and drinks a Slurpee and wears a t-shit with the Black Cat brand firecracker logo that I want to get my hands on, like, today.
This should have been 2001's summer jam, but it wasn't. I think that honor went to Destiny's Child's "Survivor." I'm not sure—if you can remember, mail me. But anyway, this song is so good! It's got this kind of 1970s soul thing going on and her voice is world-weary and slightly slurred, but not in a crack-head kind of way. The lyrics are of the classic "my man done me wrong" variety, but with a little more creativity:
What were you thinking bringing her into our home/
In our bed, you must have fell and bumped your head/
Messing up my sheets and violating me/
Have me bout to call my peeps and take it to the streets…
There isn't much in the way of substance to the video; I get the impression that there was more they could have done, or maybe wanted to do, but didn't have the budget. And if memory serves, this song didn't get nearly as much play as it should have. It's possible that this was the only good track on her album. I haven't heard it, so I can't say. Hence, she's doing her video in what looks like one of those generic apartment complexes that you usually find just off the highway near a Meijer and not in a slick, Richard Neutra-looking house in the Hollywood Hills.
Dishonorable Mention
Willa Ford, featuring May, "A Toast to Men"
Premise: You're a guest at the most fictional sorority party ever, because, for real, I fear that the closest any of these women has ever been to college is as the roofie-filled jailbait guest at a Tappa Tappa Keg mixer. There's also seriously tacky lingerie, the most orbicular breasts in existence, stripper cops, and hella bad dancing. It's a disaster.
I came across this by accident (no, really). It is quite possibly the worst song and video ever. No, I mean EVER. Wow. Seriously, it's really bad. The video is offensive in its own low-rent porn-lite way, but the song is utterly abysmal. This is the chorus:
Here's to the men we love to love/
Here's to the men in love with us/
Here's to the men who passed on us/
Fuck the men, let's drink to us, y'all!
And when Willa sings this, she and her dancers make some kind of bizarre "va fongool!" gesture and grab their crotches. Class-ay. They make Vanity 6 look downright respectable. Lady May is on here to, I guess, provide Willa with some kind of streed cred. May, I liked your rap better when it was called "How Many Licks" and you should be slapped with a copyright infringement suit for shamelessly biting Lil Kim's style on that track. Then Willa sings us the bridge—a reggae bridge. No, I'm not making it up. You CAN'T make stuff like that up. It's a terribly misguided female empowerment anthem; all it does is make Willa sound bitter and ignorant. I put it on here because it's shocking to see this kind of lame sexist behavior in the 2000s. Did anyone seriously buy this record? And if you did, will you please write me and tell me why? Thanks.
posted by Iseult at 3:12 PM
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