Realizing that The A.V. Club needed to take a step
outside our music-snob bubble, two critics were dispatched to brave the wilds
of VH1's Top 20 Video Countdown, and return with a report on the state of
mainstream music and the art of video-making at the dawn of 2006. Here's their
report on the Friday, February 24th episode:
Noel Murray: First off,
I've got to say that as much as I like Aamer Haleem as a host, his little
bridging segments at Medieval Times are too PM Magazine, circa 1986.
Then again, a lot of this countdown seems like a trip through a time machine.
Start with Number 20 on the countdown, "Control Myself," by LL
Cool J, featuring J-Lo. Aside from the fact that there are too many "L"s
and "J"s in this act, it's a weird pairing because it yokes together two actor/musicians
who've been around for over a decade without forging any kind of recognizable
sound or style.
I bet this song sounds great at a
club, where the sexy grunts and "report to the dance floor" calls get the crowd
moving. As a video, though, it's pretty much a tease. It's all about
celebrities pretending they're getting ready to get it on, when they probably
won't even see each other again until next year's VMAs.
Keith Phipps: I really like
Aamer Haleem, too. I don't know when they tape the VH1 Top 20 Video
Countdown, but he always seems slightly hungover and yet able to muster up
enthusiasm for wherever they're taping the show this week. Medieval Times might
be his biggest challenge yet.
I think you're too hard on LL Cool J.
If he'd retired or just started acting full time after Mama Said Knock You
Out, he'd still be a legend. Radio is one of my
all-time favorite albums, but he's entered the Van Morrison phase of his
career, where the most respectful thing to do is just ignore whatever he's
doing now and remember the past. I don't think he's sounded energized since
Canibus prompted him to release "The Ripper Strikes Back" back in the late
'90s. He needs another good feud, but really, who would bother?
Let's move on to Bon Jovi's "Who Says You Can't
Go Home Again,"
in which the venerable rockers cavort with Jennifer Neetles of Sugarland while
building Habitat For Humanity homes with professional athletes, policemen, and
firefighters.
NM: That's Bon Jovi for you. Always giving back.
Although I do wonder about the scene toward the end where the medicine cabinet
falls off the wall. It makes it seem like if Bon Jovi helps build your house,
your house will turn out kind of shitty.
By the way, here we have another artist who
could've been on a video countdown 20 years ago, though not with this song,
which doesn't sound very Bon Jovi-ish. It's got a melody, for one thing, and
it's kind of a country song. It'll probably sound great on American Idol next year, belted out by
whichever blond hayseed wanders into the wrong audition room.
Meanwhile, the Number 18 video, Prince's "Black Sweat," sounds exactly like an
old Prince song. Specifically, it sounds like "Kiss." The video's even in
black-and-white, à la "Kiss." It's not a bad song, but whenever I hear Prince
reviving his loverman persona, I can't help but think about Spy magazine's parody of the
Tina Brown-edited New Yorker, which featured a poem by Prince called "U R 6
E."
[pagebreak]
KP: I love Prince and I really want him to be relevant
again. And I know I'm not alone: Enough fans wanted him to have a comeback that
they pretended his 2004 album Musicology wasn't just another in a long line of
mediocrities. (See also, from the same year, Morrissey's You Are The Quarry.) This doesn't quite do
it for me, but it's the best thing I've heard from him for a while. It sounds
like "Kiss," but with a little G-funk keyboard line to give it a 1993 feel. I'm
afraid time has passed Prince by. But he can still vamp like nobody's business.
In the number 17 slot, it's KT Tunstall with the puzzlingly titled
"Black Horse And The Cherry Tree." I'd heard good things about Tunstall, who's
huge in England, but I don't get it. This song–and I know this sounds
contradictory–sounds simultaneously fussed-over and stripped-down. Her smoky
Melissa Etheridge-inspired vocals don't do a thing for me either. But then
neither does Melissa Etheridge.
NM: I'm hearing more the folk-pop class of the late
'80s: Michelle Shocked and Sinéad O'Connor, specifically. The video even
reminds me of one of those cheapie early O'Connor videos, like the one for
"Jump In The River" that always gave me a headache when it played on 120
Minutes.
This song's not so bad, really, but I can do without the way she's being
packaged. See, she's playing all the instruments. See, she's a real musician.
Meanwhile, Madonna makes no pretense of
being a real anything on the 16th song on the countdown, "Sorry." This song's like
"Music" redux and the video is too, with lots of '70s signifiers to go with
Madonna's Farrah-hair. She may be the only Farrah-haired diva today who
actually wore her hair that way the first time it was popular.
This video is really hard to take your eyes off
of, probably because throughout, Madonna keeps moving her hands closer and
closer to her soft bits, high and low. Will she ever reach paydirt? Does she
have to fight in a cage match first? And where can I flag down one of those
traveling lap-dance vans?
KP: I'm guessing they're all over London, ferrying the
cool kids to back alleys where aging pop stars engage in yoga-based martial
arts in cages. I like this better than "Music." It's appealing in the same way
as "Hung Up," the first single from Confessions On A Dance Floor: She's pretty much given
up pretense of art and social commentary and turned out some high-end
Euro-disco. But is that Elvish she's speaking at the beginning and end?
I can barely bring myself to type this, but I kind
of like the next song too, Jack Johnson's "Upside Down" from the Curious
George soundtrack.
Johnson has never stood out for me from the current pack of wuss-rockers, but
this isn't bad. Maybe it's that it sounds not-at-all-overproduced, just a nice
little gently strummed song for the kids. Or maybe it's just that Johnson seems
genuinely sweet when he interacts with the cartoon monkey. I wouldn't seek this
out, but if I had kids, I wouldn't feel bad about buying it for them.
NM: This video would be banned in China by the way,
under the new rules that prohibit animated characters from interacting with
live actors. I'm not kidding.
This song's fine for what it is, though it reminds
me a little of Josh Rouse's "Sad Eyes," and seeing Johnson on VH1 makes me wish
that Rouse could catch this kind of break. Maybe if he gets the gig scoring the
Sammy The Seal movie…
Next up is Goo Goo Dolls' "Better Days," occupying
one of several "we're sick of showing this video, so we're just going to show a
20-second clip" spots on the show. Which gives a chance to talk about the
videos that Haleem assures us are hovering "just below the countdown," using
whatever arcane procedures VH1 uses to figure these things out. This week the
standouts are O.A.R., doing their level best not to sound like O.A.R., and
Kanye West, pretending to be Evel Knievel. The less said about Sia, the better.
KP: That Kanye West video looks beyond awesome. Why
must it hover below while Goo Goo Dolls video still hovers above? I have
nothing to say about the Goo Goo Dolls, so I won't even try. That Santana video just hurts, though.
Everyone accuses of Santana of coasting on the same riffs for 35 years… and
they're right. There are worse things, but the addition of Steven Tyler just
makes this toxic. Clearly they brought in whoever conceives Aerosmith's videos
to do this one, because it's got a bunch of trademarks: A girl goes wild and attempts to put a
troubled past behind her. Her dad leaves, her teacher sexually harasses her,
her boyfriend dies in a car accident, but in the end, her mom gives her some
attention and she returns to her studies. Maybe the message is, "Kids, stay in
school or you might end up like the other woman in this video: Pouring drinks
and making out with Steven Tyler."
NM: This song and video remind me of one of those
Natalie Cole-style posthumous duets. It's like Santana took an old Aerosmith
track and noodled all over it, then had himself digitally inserted into the
video. Or maybe Santana is supposed to be the Greek Chorus, stoically insisting
that whether touching is appropriate or inappropriate, we should all keep rocking
on.
Not much to say about the next "also receiving
votes" entry, Pussycat Dolls' "Stickwitu," except that video Number 11, Pink's "Stupid Girls," could be a comment on
its list-mate. This is the best video of the countdown so far, even if the
song's not all that exciting in and of itself. It's not just that Pink is
sending out a positive message–that young girls should strive to be smart and
athletic instead of pre-cancerous, artificially busty, and anorexic. It's that
Pink calls out Paris Hilton specifically, parodying Hilton's Carl's Jr. ad,
recreating Hilton's sex tape, and shopping for one of those little yappy dogs.
I know Hilton's an easy target, but maybe if people hit her enough, she'll
finally skulk away.
[pagebreak]
KP: I like Pink too, and I appreciated the directness
of her attack, although I can't help but feel she has it both ways here: She
gets to make fun of the "stupid girls" who rely on their sex appeal by skanking
it up in her own video. I always feel like she's as daring and edgy as her label
feels will be profitable. But whatever, it's still a cut above a lot of stuff.
Which is more than you can say for Jamie Foxx's "Unpredictable." Foxx is a great actor,
but he still has a lot to prove as a singer. This is just, ugh, terrible,
except when Ludacris shows up and it turns into a totally different song. When
Foxx's album came out, Slate compared it to The Onion's Smoove B. I think this
is too cheesy for Smoove. Also, assuming that the Beyoncé track didn't drop
like a brick, there are three Hype Williams-directed videos on this countdown
that all use the same trick, putting a widescreen image sandwiched between a
split image where the letterboxing black bars would normally be. It's pretty
lame.
NM: What's funny is that I didn't even note that it
was Hype Williams the first time I saw that effect, way back at Number 20. But
you better believe I noticed it the next two times. And not in a "hey, that's
neat!" way.
"Unpredictable" is in a close race with Staind's "Right Here" for my least-favorite
video in the countdown. Weren't we done with Staind? Didn't the "rock is back"
bands at the start of the '00s knock nü-metal off the charts for good? As a
song, "Right Here" features pretty much everything I hated about that movement
in the first place, from the sober self-obsession of the lyrics to the dully
virtuosic guitar-playing. As a video, it's even more excruciating. A band as
homely as Staind should not be shot in close-up. And aren't they performing
in the same stately old house that was in Train's "Drops Of Jupiter" video?
KP: I second everything you just said. And to skip
ahead two slots, weren't we done with Train, too? The song's bad, but
the video's the just about the most dully literal interpretation of a song I've
ever seen. It's called "Cab," and the lead singer spends most of the video
riding around in a cab. He's lonely and everything's grey. Gak. How do these
bands stick around? Does mediocrity have its own kind of weird momentum that
allows acts like Train to just keep pooping albums onto the charts? Is it
simply brand recognition? Do people listen to Train because they've been
listening to Train for a few years and don't want to switch? That's why I buy
the same paper towels every time, but those principles shouldn't apply to
music. I guess we should back up and talk about All-American Rejects, but let's
just not, okay?
Also, I think Aamer's had some coffee. He's perked
up quite a bit now that we're in the Top 10.
NM: I do like the thought that this is how the guy
from Train spends his days now, stalking women at two bucks a mile.
But here's the thing about the persistence of
Train, Staind, and for that matter Rob Thomas, whose "Ever The Same" ducks in at number six:
I'm almost willing to believe that VH1 would rather keep programming their videos
than admit they were wrong to hype them up in the first place. I guess you
could call it loyalty to a bunch of acts that helped VH1 make the transition
from boomers to maturing Gen-X-ers, but it's a weird kind of revisionist
history they're writing, where Matchbox 20 really was the most important band
of their era.
KP: So it's all VH1's fault? Somehow I always
suspected… You're right, though: This chart makes it seem like the years
between, say, 1987 and 1995 never happened. On the one hand, we've got '80s
giants like Bon Jovi, Prince, Madonna, power-ballad-mode Steven Tyler, and LL
Cool J (and I've come to think of Jamie Foxx's singing career as just one long
echo of Eddie Murphy's "Party All The Time" single.) On the other, we've got
late-'90s/early-'00s headaches that are still around, like Staind, Train, Goo
Goo Dolls, and Rob Thomas. There's plenty of stuff that doesn't fall into
either category, but those two elements dominate, at least this week.
Some decent stuff slips through, though. I'm not
nuts about the Mary J. Blige song at number five, "Be Without You," but she's got a great
voice. Also, I kind of like the Mary J.
Blige-uses-new-technology-to-express-her-heartbreak theme in this video. In one
shot, she's tapping out the lyric on a laptop. In another, she's discovering
that she hasn't missed any calls on her cell phone.
NM: Got to love the idea of a wired-up Blige. Do you
think she's "logging on" to the "Internet?" I hope she has a "firewall" or
someone might "hack in" and steal her "identity."
This video also features Terrence Howard, our
second Academy Award-nominated actor of the countdown. And it's one of the few
videos with any ambition, telling a mini-story fraught with drama. It's nothing
that dozens of other slow-jam hip-hop videos haven't done before, but it's nice
to know that somebody's still trying to do something with the form beyond
renting an old house and telling the band to look away from the camera.
The Number Four video is Natasha Bettingfield's "Unwritten," which doesn't have much
of a story. Natasha gets in a dingy elevator with some dude, then she dodges
lens-flares in a field for a few minutes, and then she gets back in the
elevator just in time for the gospel choir to arrive. It's not much, but the
color's nice, and the video made more of an impression than the song.
Bettingfield looks like the kind of gal who'd be
really fun to hang out with, but if you tried to kiss her, I bet she'd freeze
up like Flavor-Ice.
[pagebreak]
KP: Well, she seems pretty untouchable in this video.
Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but I was thinking she was kind of like one
of the angels in Wings Of Desire. No one seems to notice her until that guy at the
end. Well, I guess the gospel choir notices her.
I just wish no one would notice the Black Eyed
Peas, the
act that proved, yes, you can still sell out these days. I honestly can't
believe I used to look forward to albums from these guys. "Pump It" doesn't do anything to
win back my affection. If anything, the video, in which the Peas do battle with
various martial-arts types, seems to suggest that if you don't like the Black
Eyed Peas, they will beat you up. I kept rooting for the other guys. At least
Dick Dale is getting some money from the extremely unimaginatively employed
sample.
NM: There's a real corporate-think aspect to "Pump
It": What if Black Eyed Peas, kings of the "jock jam," recorded a song that
sampled another "jock jam?" Would arenas across the country explode with pep?
And speaking of corporate-think, here's Beyoncé
Knowles
in at number two with the Pink Panther-related "Check On It," another Hype
Williams-directed widescreen/fullscreen mash-up. It's hard to see what's going
on beneath the credits, which mention the name of the song, the album, the
movie, the director, the singer, the label, and her two guest rappers, Slim
Thug and Bun B. It used to be that if you wanted to package together this much
talent, you had to go through Mike Ovitz.
KP: I'm pro-Beyoncé, but this is bad, bad, bad. To me,
Slim Thug's urbaned-up Pink Panther T-shirt says it all: No matter how street
you try to make it, it's still the Pink Panther, just like this is still an
extended commercial for the movie and the Beyoncé brand. The music's an
afterthought, if that.
And so we reach the end of the road, numero uno, James
Blunt's "You're
Beautiful."
I don't know exactly why, but I detest this. It's music to lose your virginity
in a freshman dorm room to. (See also Dave Matthews Band's "Crash" and John
Mayer's "Your Body Is A Wonderland.") It sounds sincere, but I suspect once
he's had his way with me, he's going to start hitting on my roommate.
NM: This is embarrassing to admit, but I'd never
heard of this guy, let alone heard this song, until I watched the VH1 Top 20
Countdown. I'm not wholly opposed to the tune, though the video strikes me as a
calculated attempt at indelibility, swiping from Sinéad O'Connor's "Nothing
Compares 2 U," The Verve's "Bittersweet Symphony," Coldplay's "Yellow," etc.
It's one of those "smoldering dude looks into the camera" videos. Again though,
compared to the indistinct soup of forgettable faces and meaningless images
that marked the last two hours, "You're Beautiful" is more likely to stick with
me.
So, what have we learned, Charlie Brown? Mainly
that it's time for Aamer Haleem to say goodbye to the Society For Creative
Anachronism and get back to finding out whatever happened to The Blow Monkeys.
Beyond that, I hesitate to use one week's worth of VH1 favorites as a gauge of
anything. I don't expect the best of modern music to get a fair airing on VH1,
or MTV for that matter. But I do wish the videos were better. I guess the more
interesting filmmakers are working with the more interesting musicians, who,
like I said, are not popping up on VH1.
Also, if current patterns pertain, we can expect
to keep seeing James Blunt in the countdown a decade from now, long after
people stop buying his records.
KP: I learned that sometimes it's okay to be a rock
snob, and that maybe it's things like Top 40 radio and the VH1 countdown that build rock snobs. There's just
enough taste of the good stuff to hook young listeners but not so much that
they don't have to look elsewhere to get the real thing. I also learned that
Bon Jovi is now a country band, Madonna and the Black Eyed Peas could
kick my ass, Jamie Foxx and James Blunt want to have sex with me, Mary J. Blige
wishes I'd come home, Beyoncé has a movie out, Staind and Train still
inexplicably exist, and you can fit a British singer and an entire gospel choir
in an elevator, as long as the British singer looks like she hasn't been fed in
a week. Also, I remembered why I love my iPod.