Because I suxxit, I’m going to offer up to you a compartively rare Gorjus offering: my e-mail comments to some friends regarding videos that were aired on “Music Television” on Tuesday, January 8th, 2002. I’ve left all my annoying ‘02 KRS spellings/lack of capitalization.
i decided today i was going to watch mtv, since aoltimewarnersouthern-livingcookinglight told me that there was a three-hour block of videos. of videos! i literally trembled with excitement. the following is what i got, starting at roughly 10:15 (when i managed to get from the bed into the living room).
kid rock “forever” more kid rock stuff. he got on the radio in detroit and sent out an open call to his fans to meet him at a certain point, since he was filming a video. very cool, but they note that it was 30 degrees, and so then chicks in bikinis suddenly stop being just degrading and become, well, medically dangerous. i mute after enough similes to choke a horse, or lord byron.
ozzy osbourne “dreamer” a complete and shocking john lennon “imagine” knockoff. i swear it’s a beatles b-side we’ve never heard before. zakk wylde is still alive? lots of little goth girls running around in snowy woods. rob zombie directed this, and there is no bikinis, so i guess i don’t feel so weird. still, between this and kid rock and you’d think “alternative” never happened. i hit the mute button after the fifth rhyme with the word “dream.”
no doubt “hey baby” the first time i saw this uber-sexy video—with only gwen stefani as the sex object—i loudly talked about how much i hated that song. by the end of the three-and-a-half-minutes, i was singing along. my pal hud can critique the true “rocksteadiness” of it, but it’s just pop to me. mute. she’s so vinyl-hot.
city high with eve “caramel.” the chick in city high is hott, and this song is to tell you that. over and over and over. pointless rap in the middle by eve, who hacks it up, and pointless computer/movie sub-schtick. would have been better as just straight r&b without the rapping, and i swear to god, if somebody else shouts out “REMIX!” in a song . . . mute. how many times can a chorus be used?
it’s 10:40.
dave matthews band “everyday.” a pointless fucking song from the king of all rockbands (so says billboard). i like their ballads, but could give a damn about this standard bore-rock from them, and the LOUSY video. a hugging guy who no one hugs—wait—now they hug him! a victory for love. i’m sure glen ballard had a hand in this banal piece of jam-pop. dave matthews looks like a FedEx tom hanks—the one before castaway, like all his features are slightly blurred due to cheesewhiz intake. obligatory post-9.11 FDNY hugging shot. the only thing more blatantly suckoff/patriotic is ryan adams’ ridiculous (and also boring) video for “new york,” the song of course slotted on an album featuring an upside-down American flag on the cover. of course, you could argue he was celebrating a place, not just being blindly patriotic. but that would mean i would have to be nice to ryan adams, who doesn’t look like FedEx tom hanks per se, but who is also getting a little chubby-cheeked. mute.
ads for the movie orange county—the same one i’ve seen a dozen times—and a walk to remember, a romantic teen movie which i’ve never heard of, secret deodorant, taco bell, roxio cd burner, and a “football is my anti-drug” commercial, which is something i’d love to see a dallas cowboy say . . . also an advertisement for a mtv-produced documentary on “little people,” apparently by way of apology to mtv’s kid rock/blink 182/mini-me fetishism, in the same way i secretly think they show “the making of thriller” over and over to somehow retrocatively prove that they had no bias against black artists. bah. and another damn mothman diaries ad . . . quit it! all ads on mute.
nerves already fraying.
subway ad, chocolate milk ad, women children and infants ad? WIC on MTV?? . . . well, probably a good ad buy for them . . . the source’s volume five of hip hop hits . . . i’m beginning to think that the only reason mtv exists is to make me want to fuck gwen stefani. which is not bad? maybe.
mtvnews. a young asian girl, “suchin pak,” with a “story” on the band “the calling.” i mute, as am not sure who they are, and i know i don’t care. fresh-faced major label touslehaired grunglings, apparently. shots of creed and vedder verify. they look, at most, eighteen. the “story” had to do with how their guitarist didn’t actually play on the record. which i’m sure is quite true in an artistic sense, if not literally.
back to the videos. fat joe with r. kelly “we thuggin’” more boys’ club rap bullshit, but with r. kelly’s whiny ass thrown in for good measure. more chicks in bikinis dancing on tables. they shout out big pun and i mute as the
chorus” and the obligatory grinning busta rhymes shot eek by.
jennifer lopez “ain’t it funny” OOOH i have a crush on her. never heard this song, starts out with her speaking in espanol, sepia-toned, and a very latin beat. she looks great. i’m not sure how her jeans are staying on, but they’re gravity-defyingly low. then . . . what? she stumbles on a . . . gypsy camp, maybe? and turns into . . . madonna? what? circa 1984 . . . weird. hair up, lots of bracelets and lace and neclaces . . . j.lo dances with a very low body fat boy, but i mute and turn away. they never kiss—just exhange smoldering looks—and her weird madonna look freaks me out. a misstep, but i’ll forgive her.
jay-z “hizzo (hova)” (unplugged) good god, do we really need this? lots of shout-outs right off the bat, and he’s wearing a t-shirt with an ENORMOUS airbrushed picture of che guevara on it. what? this total capitalist, this bragging millionaire, this industry-of-me captain, this clothing-line magnate?
fashion, like ideology and irony, must be dead in 2002.
i liked this song—six months ago. never liked the weird God connotations of the “hova” nickname, and i hate that he has two nicknames—i would tell him he’s diluting his brand too much (jay-z is also known as “roc-a-fella,” which is less stupid than “hova” anyway)(and is the name of his clothing line, and probably also his forthcoming air freshener line, and movie production house, or whatever). i mute as he goes on mumbling auto-pilot and the director does, too.
did i mention how big the che picture was? and that it was airbrushed?
more commercials . . . i’m losing interest, fast.
jimmy eat world “middle” i’ve seen this before, and didn’t care then. they had a very techno-covered album that languished in bebop’s $1 bin for months a few years ago. i reject most firmly all canonization of them as saviors of honest rock, especially because they are
1) derivative;
2) have girls in bikinis in their videos, even though that might be ironically message-laden (they are still girls in bikinis in videos) (plus note above well-known fact that irony is dead);
3) they are on a major label.
this song could be a cover of some classic rock song i’ve never heard before. it’s “punky.” BLAH ON YOU!! quiet-fast-quiet with burbling synth riffs. BITE ME!! ARGH! i mute before i began to hate more than i can stand. plus, when you abbreviate their name, it turns out to “JEW” and that troubles me, for some reason.*
all-star tribute “what’s going on” when i first heard of this, i wanted to puke. NO MARVIN GAYE DESECRATIONS!! but then i saw it, and was surprised by how not bad it was. the gimmick: huge stars, singing marvin’s song (with alterations), with blindfolds wrapped around their eyes, labeled “black” and “white” and “bisexual” and so on. they unwrap them and show more labels. it works. am surprised by how many of them i know—lord, i have no teevee, no cable, no radio! maybe music isn’t dead. still, recoginition does not equal musical talent or artistry.
bono as elder statesman of rock? well, okay. i discover that christina aguilera in a blindfold is very sexy. wish that gwen stefani were in the video. goddamn it, goofy fred durst! he sucks. then nelly and nelly, both very identifiable. also, mr. staind—aaron lewis? is that his name? or a country star’s? the blindfold conceit begins to fail when they have journalist” and “pop” written on them. i wish they had used racial or other epithets, but that would have probably been too edgy. also, there are inexplicable banners waved that say “drop the debt.” i think this video is about the world AIDS crisis. what the hell does “drop the debt” mean? there it is again!! fuck!! i’m a twenty-something liberal vegetarian boy with a degree in political science! fuck! i have no idea what it means. it can’t be about the national debt, can it? fuck.
fuck fred durst, that tubby whore.
orange county ad that’s actually funny. it’s really just a one-minute clip of the movie with in an “advanced american poetry class” where everyone is naming their favorite poets (“slim shady”, “jewel”) and the teacher is concurring. the protagonist says “eliot” and the teacher says, “yes! missy ‘misdemeanor’ elliott. great choice!” and the kid yells “NO!! T.S. ELIOT!!” and the teacher begins to quote her lyrics . . . very funny. then, inexplicably, another trailer for orange county. guess who produced it? oh yeah, mtv films.
h&r block (weird), always maxi-pads, wendy’s, and a sprite ad that borders on minstralism. okay, the old sprite guy quit, so let’s get ANOTHER funny black guy. sheez. at least get me gwen stefani.
it’s 11:15 a.m. i have to quit, or i’ll die.
remember, i did it all for you. and art.
xoxo
gorjus
*Post-script, 2005-style—I effing love this sawng. Also: sorry about the whole, vomiting-in-the wastebasketthing, circa ‘05.
wow, upon reading this second printing, i discovered new bits and pieces i’d never seen before!
Ha! So, how many more “missteps” did it take before it was finally over between you an J-Lo? And Suchin Pak remains on MTV, which must be some kind of non-Loder longetivity record.
what’s with the puking? and the “now i love this song that i soooo much hated before”? do you secretly hate j.e.w. s?
No, I heart them, actually. I caved in and began really, really liking Jimmy Eat World—especially that particular song—after Gclark sent me the record.
Speaking of things that are unplugged, and of re-assessing once hated music, I would direct everyone to John Darnielle’s recent post on Jackson Browne at LPTJ.
you are such a loveable loser for so many reason, right now the chief of which is, and I quote the 2002 you on this, “dave matthews band… i like their ballads.”
Heh. I can’t help it!! The 2005 me is the same way! I like “Satellite,” and, uh, the one about making out and tomorrow being okay . . . I can’t quite remember the name. But I like it!
And, loser? My brutha, I roll twenties.
Crash was pretty good.