Obsessively blogging about pop music, pop videos, pop stars, and pop culture from inside the MTV headquarters in Times Square. We also have a slight Jonas Brothers problem. And a little fixation with Tokio Hotel.
It's been a minute (a few minutes, really) since we had a Kid Sister video to enjoy. The Chicago MC broke out two years ago with the Kanye West-assisted "Pro Nails," with a video directed Zombieland auteur Rueben Fleischer.
Now, with her album Ultraviolet finally on shelves and in stores, Kid Sis is back on disc, wax, tape, and, for our purposes here, on screen.
"Right Hand Hi" is a fab piece of J.J. Fad electro-hop, with a half-dozen hooks crammed into a tight, burst of a jam. The video has some flashing lights, some flashy choreography, and a projected Kid Sister doing her thing on building walls.
Luckily pretty much everyone (save a few New Yorkers in super small apartments) has a bathtub. So get inside of yours to do your creative dress-up thinking. Next, girls, begin by looking no further than your own underwear drawer. Guys, look no further than the nearest girl's underwear drawer! Bras and undies are going to be the key to your look. Think blacks, whites, and red, and then pile on rhinestones and long strands of black beads. (Just don't tell your mom I told you.) Then get crack-a-lackin' on that mascara. The harsher the better.
Next, nails! Gaga's big into white nails. She's got white nails in her "Bad Romance" video, and she had snow-white nails when she was here at MTV last week. Gwen Stefani's been big into white nails for a minute now and sent her L.A.M.B. models down the runway in Dashing Diva's "Fleet Week" dress white shade. Cop it for eight bucks to cop Gaga's look.
Now there's one final element missing from your "Bad Romance" outfit. And that is...
We Were Once A Fairytale, a short film collaboration between Kanye West and Spike Jonze, only recently came out (you can cop it on iTunes), but we're already starting to get some bonus materials.
Below, in the viral video of some behind-the-scenes action, Spike Jonze gets increasingly peeved at a text-addicted Kanye West, who's spending more time on his smart phone than listening to his director. Kanye gets slapped, and a nation of Taylor Swift fans rejoice. (Note -- We can all agree that violence is not okay, right? And that this video's just a joke? And that Kanye himself is probably in on it?)
Anyway, here Leona Lewis just made a song (with the help of Ryan Tedder) about just WANTING TO BE HAPPY, and it's about how she can't even get the guy she's secretly in love with, and then she has to go watch him get married to some chick, and then SOMEONE HITS her? She's JUST TRYING TO BE HAPPY. GARRRH. I'M SO ANGRY I COULD BREAK MY MACBOOK AIR!
Welcome to Bummertown, population: Kanye West. How does the world not love him, let us count the ways.
Ever since the "Heartless" one interrupted teen queen Taylor Swift's moment of VMA glory he's really caught a bad one. First, his highly anticipated (if hard to imagine going off without a hitch) tour with Lady Gaga got canceled (we investigate like 60 Minuteshere).
Then, after some erratic behavior had been reported here and there (and on, um... TMZ), Kanye skipped out on the BET Awards. The show, which was taped this past weekend, would've seemed like a logical place to find West, who was nominated for nine awards, but he was a no-show.
Now, in the wake of rumors that Yeezy has jetted off to India to find himself, dude's clothing line has been discontinued. His Pastelle line will apparently never see the light of day. (Or, it'll just haunt some dusty TJ Maxx racks.) Here's hoping for happier days for the dude. Despite what you might think of his personality/public displays of speech-making, he's still a much-needed voice out there in pop.
Before she was a freaky fashion icon, fake-feuding with Madonna on Saturday Night Live, or launching ill-fated tours with Kanye West, Lady Gaga, like many cash-strapped New Yorkers, would do just about anything for $100. Including be on MTV's Boiling Points, which was an MTV hidden camera reality show that was kind of like Punk'd in that the point was to annoy people, except without the assistance of a perpetually-cracking-up Ashton Kutcher. If the unknowing subjects -- in this case, Lady Gaga -- didn't lose their s++t, they'd get $100.
See what happened when a Boiling Points waitress came between a virtually unrecognizable brunette Lady Gaga (she's far easier to recognize when covered in blood or walking with a Bedazzled cane) and her lunch in Gaga's unknowing MTV debut. (Spoiler: Gaga doesn't get the hundred bucks. Oh well. She ended up with "The Fame." Get it? See what I did there?)
Okay, first of all, I hope everyone feels better (and stops interrupting Taylor Swift or whatever). But all of these concert cancellations JUST SO HAPPENED to occur the same week as the International Olympic Committee decided which city would host the 2016 Summer Olympics. And if you read between the lines, you'll discover the REAL reason why Gaga and Kanye and Miley and Paramore and The All-American Rejects' shows were canceled! Don't believe the hype! It's all just a big conspiracy theory!
OBVIOUSLY Lady Gaga, Kanye, Miley Cyrus, Paramore, and The All-American Rejects are trying out for the Space Olympics... which have ALSO BEEN canceled. No idea what I'm talking about?
Nowadays, people seem to rush the stage to degrade their own star quality. In our post-"Kanye West/I'ma Let You Finish"-world, you'd have to say there's nothing to be gained by getting onstage when it ain't your turn.
But let us cast our minds back to a gentler time. Back when you didn't have to rush the stage; you were practically pulled on. And when your appearance was actually a star-making moment, not a career-derailing one.
Peep the legendary "Dancing In The Dark" video from Bruce Springsteen -- who happens to be playing a series of concerts this week, bidding farewell to New Jersey's Giants Stadium. The video dropped in 1984, it was directed by film director Brian De Palma, and it features a fresh-faced, then-unknown, pre-Cougar Town Courteney Cox, who was conveniently wearing a Bruce Springsteen shirt.
The "Dancing In The Dark" went on to become a staple of MTV's early-'80s rotation, and for Courteney Cox, it was stage invasion that launched her career. The main difference is, when Courteney Cox took the stage in "Dancing In The Dark," she was invited.
Drake, Kanye West (sorry!), Lil Wayne, and Eminem's new video, "Forever," was directed by the legendary Hype Williams and is featured in the new LeBron James film More Than a Game.
Watch "Forever" now, and celebrate the air horn, the club, LeBron, and the struggle.
Now who didn't enjoy Sean Kingston's, RedOne-ified, track "Fire Burning" (not that you, nor I, nor anyone else in America, had a choice in the matter)? But with remembered lyrics such as, "My pocket started tickling, the way she drop it low," and "She get it pop it lock it drop it, That birthday cake," I was completely refreshed when Kingston's second single off his new album, Tomorrow (out September 22) gave honest accounts of rejection and insecurity.
While it's still a moving and shaking track, Kingston shares the pain of a girl who said he'd "look better if he was thinner"; well, girl, "you should have loved him for his inner" ... no joke, 'cause Sean's "inner" is Lil' Sean, a wacky, CGI-dancing sprite who can walk on water.
In the "Face Drop" video, the same pretty much applies to all romantic rejects, who join Sean Kingston in a swirl of purple lights and rainbows to kick up an animated dance party on top of a pool. Don't believe me? Just watch the Ro Rao-directed video yourself. The featured style of animation, also on Kingston's Tomorrow album cover, is very Graduation-era Kanye West (sunglasses and everything), minus the interruptions.
