Things I Have an Opinion On #15

Originally posted on 14/3/10

The video for 'Telephone' by Lady Gaga and Beyonce

As I need something to occupy me until the Grand Prix is on iplayer, and my English dissertation is much less inviting, i'll share my thoughts on the latest abhorrant clip from the worlds must bland popstar.

Since the invention of MTV, music started to go down the pan. Very rarely has the music video actually been used for any purpose beneficial to the music on store, often the video serves only to show some flesh in a desperate attempt to shift some more records from whatever cookie-cutter shite is the heart-throb of all fat 12 year old girls everywhere. There have been classic videos. Foo Fighters have a knack for doing good videos, Thriller by Michael Jackson is always a classic, and Pulp always had good videos, even if some were a bit odd.

Unfortunately however, for every good story told through a video/song combinatin (Stan by Eminem and Dido just came into my head), there are at least 10 band and unimaginitve songs with even more bland and unimaginitive videos to go with them. One Shot by JLS springs to mind, where one of the band members comes to the fore, doesn't even sing a word, simply pulling down the collar of his ill-fitting t-shirt to expose his pecs (remiscent of the photo of Rafferty from the party before last incidently). Fantastically arty, i'm sure you'll agree.

The level of tastelessness possible in videos however was not only surpassed, but obliterated in 2009, when 'Just Dance' hit our every sense. A wonderfully bland song that when I first heard it screamed 'get Gwen Stefani back in No Doubt,' accompanied with a video where Stefani Germanotta (I can't keep typing Gaga, sorry,) had on a rather bland hairstyle and outfit by her standards. Even still, it was rather revealing, and what she did whilst wearing it was suitably revolting, much like her nose when you see a close-up of her in the video.

Next up was.... Poker Face? Oh look, it's Just Dance with different words. Seriously, there is no difference.

Then came Bad Romance, admittedly the catchier of her songs, but still as boring and similar to the others as the rest. Germanott's solution? Take off more clothes in the video! Writhing around this time with what looks like white tape and a weird wig, backed with the kind of dancers who hadn't seen work since Luke threw the Emperor into the middle of the Death Star.

Now however, even dear Steffani has surpassed herself. Evidently she has some form of ADD, as even with record sales through the roof and a live tour which draw the starry-eyed and mindless in their droves, she has produced a 9 and a half minute video which rather than, as the length would suggest, tell a story, simply serves to prove that had this bint been around 20 years ago, she would have been sectioned under the mental health act. From the start, you know it's not going to be the most meaningful thing when she is clinging on to the inside of a jail cell wearing only nipple tape, see through stocking-y things and some pixels to cover what modesty she has left. (The best thing is, she's completely still while doing this, probably to make it easier to pixelate her penis). Moving on from this, her usual ensemble of mental outfits are on show, including a pair of specs adorned with lit fags (which she wears whilst a woman from the prison she's in who looks like Bourne villain feels her up), police tape and only police tape, some weird American flag thing, a bra and pants whilst accompanied by 5 clones dancing in a prison corridor, and the thing at the end that looks like a huge mosquito net. Oh, and she uses diet coke cans as hair rollers right before she starts singing.

So, what purpose does this serve? There's some sort of turgid Themla and Louise story rip-off, were Germanotta helps Beyonce poison her wank boyfriend, and they run away. Quite why the requires the stupid outfits and 3 minutes at the start before any singing comes in, or indeed why it's been paired with this song, which is a suitably bland piece of garbage, even by her standards. In my opinion, that's why it's been garnished with this piece of filth called a video, in order to sell it to the vapid dregs of society who still suscribe to this bint, claiming that she's an icon. She is not an icon. She is an utter fruit, who I want off my telly.

In short, this video simply proves the point that the video as a supplement to the art form is music is a redundant argument, as this is nor a supplement to the song, nor is the video art. It is purile filth, something that would make even the staunchest anti-feminist woman raise an eyebrow, and the kind of thing that even sex offenders would find hard to watch. Get this woman locked up, before she puts the video of her last gynaecology appointment with her next single.