Pop Rewind: the MTV Video Music Awards

With the VMAs taking place this coming Sunday, it’s time to contemplate the videos up for the title of “Video of the Year”. They are:

• Adele, “Rolling in the Deep”
• Beastie Boys, “Make Some Noise”
• Bruno Mars, “Grenade”
• Katy Perry, "Firework"
• Tyler, the Creator, “Yonkers”

Each of these is noteworthy and represents creative breakthroughs for some nominees (Tyler, the Creator), commercial breakthroughs for others (Adele) and a long-running history of making great clips (Beastie Boys). I hope that MTV chooses well, as they have in the past.

Here are ten notable past winners for Video of the Year, each of which has blown out the solar plexus at one point of another, and some of the worthy  clips they beat in the year of their victories. Whoever wins has a lot to live up to ... 

1987: Peter Gabriel, "Sledgehammer"

Beat Out: U2, “With or Without You”

1993: Pearl Jam, "Jeremy"

 Beat Out: Nirvana, “In Bloom”; Peter Gabriel, “Digging in the Dirt”, R.E.M., “Man on the Moon”

1995: TLC, "Waterfalls"

Beat Out: Michael & Janet Jackson, “Scream”; Weezer, “Buddy Holly”

1996: Smashing Pumpkins, "Tonight, Tonight" - 

Beat Out: Alanis Morissette, “Ironic”; Foo Fighters, “Big Me”

1997: Jamiroquai, “Virtual Insanity”

Beat Out: Nine Inch Nails, “The Perfect Drug”; No Doubt, “Don’t Speak”

The Caged Bird Sings: Alicia Keys’s Songs in A Minor

As I had said before in my piece on Adele, sometimes all you need is a piano and a voice.

Alicia Keys remains one of the greatest musical artists of the last decade, and it has indeed been ten years since June 5, 2001, when her landmark debut album Songs in A Minor was released to substantive critical acclaim and massive commercial success. 

The musical landscape in 2001 marked the zenith of the bubblegum pop movement, where artists like Britney Spears, the Backstreet Boys and N’Sync regularly dropped albums that shifted a million copies in a week and sold out arenas. Since then, BSB have formed with their forerunner band NKOTB to form a nostalgic supergroup tour but have had limited success. Justin Timberlake is rapidly distancing himself from his musical past to pursue acting. And Spears is like a sad blow-up doll, mouthing words passionlessly. All sold well but so did Keys, who was one of the biggest-selling artists of that era and has since released three more albums, each one a multi-platinum best-seller. She writes for other established artists and has street cred despite her classical breeding. Sometimes, good taste and good sense truly prevails, in spectacular style.

Everyone recalls the first time they heard Alicia Keys on the radio. It was that pure, clear, soulful voice that pierced through the silence as she sung the opening lines to her first smash, “Fallin’”, a cappella. The reaction was absolutely immediate as everyone asked, “Who was that???” It was the simple clarity of her voice that first grabbed our attention. No one has forgotten that voice ever since.

My Re-Education, with Lauryn Hill

“I wrote these words for everyone who struggles in their youth.”

Some days, the radio can sound so empty. The current vogue on American radio is overproduced dance beats layered over a hook to mask a thinly veiled voice trilling about hypersexual activity. This post on The Village Voice puts it most succinctly: it’s not that the records are terrible, it’s just that they’ve become a bit run-of-the-mill. By characterizing certain voices as “robotic” and “plasticized”, what we’re left with is a lack of distinct voices. That an artist as imaginative and original as Janelle Monae, who rivals Lady Gaga for producing some of the greatest hooks and visual trickery out there today, isn’t a bigger star is criminal. (Ironic that Monae’s album is based on the robotic character in Fritz Lang’s silent movie Metropolis but is more animated than the photocopied, soulless beats of, say, Britney Spears or Ke$ha.) This unfortunately speaks to the current appetite for naughty-but-safe product lacking strong artistic vision. In times like these, I return to Ms. Lauryn Hill, who is currently on tour and is coming to the Blogger’s home town of Vancouver on May 24 and May 25 for a pair of shows.

Born from the frustrations of her time with the Fugees and in particular the fallout from her professional and intense personal relationship with Wyclef Jean, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill spoke of romantic betrayal, the empty pursuit of commercial gain, low self-esteem, the falsity and fragility of public image and set it all to an irresistible groove that has not and will not age. Miseducation is perhaps the ultimate R&B/hip-hop concept album, with its thesis that the definition of joy is misbegotten and distorted due to the barrage of imagery and ideas that are actually empty shells. Ten years before Gaga came out with The Fame, Ms. Hill already explored the topic of fame and committed it to sound. The difference is that whereas Gaga aspired to fame, Ms. Hill saw fame from her direct experience with it, and found it lacking.