When I knew better.
Tried so hard
Just to be clever.
I know honest thieves
I call family.
I've seen America
With no clothes on."
Even when I have access to cable television, I never watch music video shows anymore. Music videos when they first emerged in the 80s were magical to me but they have ceased to have that same creativity and magic for many years now. One of my favorite videos which I have on my iphone is Janet Jackson's "Pleasure Principle." For me, the perfect music video must have every element in place just like the perfect movie. It can't just be a good song. It can't just be about location. It can't just be amazing choreography and photography and storytelling. It's got to have everything. For me, "Pleasure Principle" has all of that. I could watch it over and over and see so many different things. It's just so tight and top notch. I love Mark Romaneks videos for Madonna, Nine Inch Nails, Radiohead, Bjork and I also love Talib Kweli's videos because he still sees the importance of being able to see regular people in familiar local spaces very much like the videos Tribe Called Quest would do when they were together. And I'm not gonna front, I also have the video for Beyonce's "Single Ladies." That video is not just hot and sexy. It's well choreographed, fun, deceptively simple looking, takes you on a little journey and it just makes you wanna dance even if you're not a single lady!
I only know of St. Vincent because Fran brought her cd home one day last year. I thought nothing of it. Fran is always buying music from new artists I've never heard of. The album was okay. I also saw the lead singer of St Vincent, Annie Erin Clark, perform at Doveman Sessions at Le Poisson Rouge last year with a bunch of other great artists. The one memory of her that sticks with me is this weird funny video I saw while I was in the hotel at Montreal last year. It's always interesting watching television in hotels when you're on vacation. St. Vincent's quirky video for "Jesus Saves, I Spend" was very amusing. But this week I noticed watching Fran watching the video for "Cheerleader" on his laptop and I was completely arrested. I stopped what I was doing and just gaped at it. Then I bought it on iTunes and watched it again.
The video for "Cheerleader" resonates with me at a very visceral level but I can't imagine that anyone, even without knowing the intent of the direction, could not relate to what goes on in this video. It's about breaking down essentially. The lyrics of course are much more specific with references to admissions to various deceptions at the cost of dignity and virtue. But the video is something even more. Both the depiction of Clark at such an insanely large scale expressed as a kind of museum piece which attempts to animate herself and leave the premises as well as the reactions of all the on lookers and the sheer power of her very simple movements give me goosebumps. A shot of trembling water in a glass as she begins walking is enough to make you almost feel the vibration of her steps. The cracks in the facade of her skin before her forearm finally breaks and crashes to the floor strike me as the expertly depicted visual manifestation of emotions felt by humanity for decades. And the song's not too bad either.
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