The Vids Are Alright

Snow - Informer.

Yesterday was Canada Day! On Canada Day in 1993 I was in Calgary on holiday with my parents and it was brilliant, apart from when I left my sister’s pair of black Nike hi-tops (with velcro straps) in the hotel room and only realised once we’d got to Vancouver. Sorry sis.

Seeing the Olympic ski-jumping hill and the zoo and standing on a glacier in the Rockies were all very awesome, but my main concern at the time was listening to two new tapes on my brand new walkman: Energy Rush: Phase 4 and Ragga Heat Reggae Beat. “Informer” was the first track on side 2 of the latter which made for easy rewinding, and so inevitably I ended up singing “I lick your bum-bum down” out loud in front of a group of 30 Japanese tourists (much tougher crowd than my chums at primary school). Thanks to repeated attempts at this track at karaoke I now know that Snow is saying ‘boom’ not ‘bum’. However there are plenty of bums in the video so you can see how the confusion might have arisen.

Jessy Matador - Allez Olla Ole.

I must confess I had to watch France’s entry twice before I understood what the eff was going on. I mean, France has never been massively enthused about Eurovision so I assumed they had skimped on the editing budget for this video and accidentally spliced in some of the footage twice. It’s easily done, especially if the majority of the video is taken up with generic booty jiggling.

But I think I get it now - Jessy and his friends want to borrow Lee Perry’s luxury speedboat, so they bang on his van and ask him by means of smiling and shrugging (my own favoured manner of communication in French). Off they go and have a lovely time. Except this isn’t what happens at all! Lee Perry’s generous offer is just a normal boat, and this is not good enough for Jessy. Dude, it’s still a boat! It’s not even a crappy old wooden rowboat, there’s an engine and everything! You can still drink cocktails in the back and pretend to be Duran Duran! Way better than no boat at all. Ungrateful sods.

Peter Andre - Behind Closed Doors.

Peter is indulging in a spot of amateur photography, and the results are as tasteful as you might expect (read BUMS and lots of ‘em). Unfortunately Peter is in a NEGATIVE frame of mind (sorry) and not even huffing developing fluid can cheer him up.

While this paranoia-fest isn’t exactly ‘Cry Me A River’ or ‘Careless Whisper’ it is a bit unnerving how all the ladies posing for him turn out looking vaguely like his ex-missus, albeit with slightly less satin and more shoulder pads. My favourite is the girl with the trident at 0.38.

Sean Paul - Get Busy.

It’s a glorious evening outside and I think we can safely say summer has commenced. Time to crack out the Sean Paul - even if these days I am the old dude from upstairs yelling at the kidz to put a sock in it.

Benny Benassi - Satisfaction.

I was originally intending to post the video to ‘In The Heat Of The Night’ by Star Pilots, which can only be described as a poor attempt at a Top Gun-themed Benassi: gratuitous bum shots, soapy girls washing a plane, superfluous slow motion volleyball playing, yadda yadda yadda.

The problems with the ‘In The Heat Of The Night’ video are manifold: 1) The dancers’ bums aren’t oily enough (surely engine oil = occupational hazard for airline mechanics?) 2) The soapy girls fail to reach their sleazy potential, somehow managing to be all-American clean-cut cheerleaders even in their skimpy bikinis 3) The volleyball bits don’t even have an arms-squishing-boobs-together action shot - in fact, the girls just jump around in the background, leaving the not-really-camp-enough blokes to do all the work 4) Enormous machines with vast innuendo potential are just left standing around as scenery.

So I decided to post the original (and best) instead. ‘Satisfaction’ maxxes out on the titilisation factor and has spawned thousands of imitators since its release in 2002* - if you’re going to exploit the female form then you might as well do it properly, with jiggling power tools and beads of sweat dripping down crevices that are normally off-limits even to gynaecologists. These women are so far removed from normal human females that it nicely shows up how over-the-top the whole ‘sex sells’ trope has become. You want sexy ladies? See how you like these ones! I absolutely love it - plus, you can’t beat a bit of sultry lip-biting, especially if it’s a Bank Holiday and no-one has to watch it on their work computer.

By trying too hard to emulate The Benassi, Star Pilots have got it painfully wrong. They should have played up the 80s spoof and had a girl pilot take off her helmet and shake her hair about with the sunlight streaming through behind her. They should have had a nerdy bespectacled companion for their Tom Cruise lookalike, giving him a high-five and a manly hug after a successful mission. For christ’s sake, they should have had a woman with large breasts straddling the nose of a fighter plane, holding on with one hand and waving her cowboy hat in the air with the other. SORT IT OUT, STAR PILOTS.

*Of course there were dance videos featuring sexy ladies before The Benassi, but since then it seems to have been mandatory for all chart bosh to feature at least 27% bum-wiggling.

Elena Gheorghe - The Balkan Girls.

Romania have gone down a more blinging route with an agreeable young lass and her backing duo of horse-riding skank-hos. One of them even does that thing where she bends her foot right up behind her head like Ashlee* out of the Pussycat Dolls. Easy on the eye but the chorus lacks whoomph.

*Kimberley? Jessica? Can’t be Carmit because Carmit left, erm…

Toddla T & Herve - Shake It.

A girl who appears to be Floella Benjamin’s little sister wards off the advances of a man with a ghetto blaster for a head. The poor dude doesn’t seem to be having much luck with the ladies, until he meets a lass who’s more his type…

I briefly saw Toddla T at a festival I attended this weekend, but alas all I can remember about him is that he was better than Alec Empire (who was playing in the other room). Sorry Toddla T but if you will start your set at quarter past three in the morning then you must expect less than total recall from your audience.

Shy FX ft UK Apache - Original Nuttah

I’ve been listening to a lot of mid-90s jungle of late (I am a h0 for compressed snare drum sounds, what can I say) and this is definitely one of my favourites (i.e. one I can find a video for).

Shy FX have solved the problem of deciding who should hold the camera by just leaving it on the floor and getting the UK Apache to crouch down while he is judging the Jungle Pageant. Thankfully the UK Apache is a dab hand at crouching down whilst speaking very quickly, and the pageant contestants considerately wiggle their bums at an even lower level than normal. In fact, Shy FX are so taken with this floor-bound camerawork that even when they acquire a budget eight years later they are still sticking to it (on the dancefloor shots, at least).