Going down a more country house music route, Calvin Harris' "My Way" is being reviewed as this week's Chart Mondays. He is throwing quite the spanner in my Halloween Special unless you supposed the love interest in this music video is a ghost, a pixelated one at best... Let's run with that, although, she is a robot. The song has been in the UK top 10 for a while, but the video has only just been released. With Little Mix's "Shout Out To My Ex" happily sitting on top, I'm reviewing this music video instead. Calvin Harris has stated that this song isn't about Taylor Swift, the song is about an ex-girlfriend being in his way. The accompanying music video for "My Way" shows her appearing and disappearing in a set of pixels, is she even real?
Calvin Harris, real name Adam Wiles, is the Scottish DJ who has won numerous awards and has worked with some of the biggest stars. He has a string of hits that just don't stop coming. He's definitely the one to watch around the world, because he is one of the hottest DJ's going at the moment, and I don't just mean his looks, even though he is pretty damn fine (especially considering what he used to look like when he released his debut single "Acceptable In The 80s"). This song was written by Calvin Harris.
The music video was directed by Emil Nava, who has directed a lot of Calvin Harris' music videos. The love interest is played by actress Emanuela Postacchini.
There is a kind of massive narrative behind this which is hard to follow. At first, I didn't get this video one bit, but I'm slowly understanding it, from my own perspective. This concept of the video may not be the intentional theory behind the narrative from the director or Calvin Harris.
We start off in a futuristic world, where there is a tall building standing in a desolate destroyed Earth. The camera pans into a window where we see a person with a Virtual Reality helmet on.
In an extremely clever cut, we see Calvin Harris on the steps of a country home. Into the past we go. We watch as Calvin Harris sings about the one thing being in his way, it's clearly his robotic love interest, but is she even there? The one complete stable throughout is Calvin Harris himself, everything else becomes a pixelated mess.
As the story continues, we watch her appear everywhere, taking control, destroying things. Almost as if it's a virus amongst his computer system; definitely an atrocity for any producer in the world.
The video ends with no one in the futuristic building; instead, there's a stand-alone computer from the 90s, maybe earlier, and there's one in each window-room of the building. Has this futuristic person become a pixelated specimen to run away with this person who isn't even real? Or does this video just not make sense?
What I do know, is that there is an awesome dance break during the barn house scene, where the choreography is nailed completely. With laser lights and an upbeat melody, you really can't go wrong.
This video is confusing, it gets even weirder the more you watch it. The pixels mess with your brain, disengaging the audience, which is the point of the video. Amazingly futuristically brilliant. Yet, I still can't quite make sense of this.
Britney Spears seems to be a constant on my blog, so the fact that she hasn't appeared since October ("Scream & Shout" doesn't count), just shows how focused I have been. But this song has been haunting me for the last month. It keeps coming up on my iTunes Up Next; then I heard it in Tesco's; next it was played on Signal 1, the radio station my alarm goes off to in the morning; not only that but my friend always plays the song when she comes over, which is quite often. People describe this song as Jonni's song, as people believe that it's about me, only I was born to make everyone happy, not just one person. I guess it's true, it's definitely a me song.
"Born To Make You Happy" was written by Andreas Carlsson and Kristian Lundin. This song is so powerful, and I can see why people think it's about me, sadly it isn't, although it could well have been. The song is about a woman who wants to fix her relationship. The video is not quite the portrayal it could have been.
Now this YouTube video is out of sync, the lyrics of the song doesn't match with Britney's lips. They're a few seconds out, which really annoyed me. I am not entirely sure if that is in the original video shown on the music channels or if it is this version on YouTube. Since I don't know, it does not affect my rating (however if I were certain it was like that in the original, it would create a low rating, since this is the worse matching up I have seen).
I have never seen this video, believe it or not. I was quite surprised that I hadn't so this is something new.
There's narrative and performance, once again. I love the use of it all being a dream. I struggled finding the name of Britney's love interest, but after much researching, I found him, his name is Christopher Snyder. There's not much to the bedroom scene apart from slow walking, pillow fights and sleeping, but she clearly makes him happy (or is it the other way round? Who knows?)
The performance side is filled with choreography. I especially like the blue and silver room that has different level tables, it's quite futuristic and engaging, I think there should've been more scenes cut from that part. The choreography shown through-out seems too quick for the song and it's not easy to follow, which shows how good of a dancer Britney is, but also makes me think she's dancing to a remixed version which is sped up.
Overall this song means a lot to me, and I agree with my friends, it is a Jonni Song, and if people were to write a song about me, it would be similar to this as I am always trying to make everyone happy. The music video is missing a lot, the choreography is too quick and the scenes flit by, you have to try and make sure you catch it all, as if you blink you might just miss something.
MGMT is a band I've never been interested in, and a band I never thought would appear on my blog. But here they are thanks to one of my flatmates suggesting me to review this video.
MGMT are 5 piece band from America, consisting of Andrew VanWyngarden, Ben Goldwasser, Will Berman, Matt Asti and James Richardson. They aren't quite a successful charting band, with this song being their highest charting single at number 16 in the UK, and it's a similar story with America. On the other hand, their albums have charted high, this is definitely one of those bands that will forever be on the rocks, not quite sinking into the water, but not flying high either.
"Kids" was written by Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser. This is usually what makes a brilliant song because the artist believes every single word they are singing, and you can definitely see that in the music video along with the voice in the song. But it's just not my sort of thing. I usually take a dislike to some songs, and I will never turn around and say I like it, never ever. Although I tend to end up singing a long to it by accident, so it shows this is just as catchy as the next song I take a dislike to.
This music video has confused me. My flatmate told me it was a great music video, and I agree to some aspect, but it's quite scary and then towards the end the video changes so dramatically it makes me think they may have ran out of money? It's like they've put two similar but different music videos together.
So there's two parts to this video, the live-action side which has a narrative with an extra performance scene, and then there's the animation side of things. I shouldn't split this video up, but that is what I'm going to do because it is split (although the music never splits so still don't quite understand).
The live-action side really gripped me, I was involved. I managed to get past the bad acting of the monsters, and managed to focus on how scared the boy looked. I can totally understand why critics went at this band, because the boy does look genuinely scared, but a behind the scenes video has proven it not to be the case. The monsters are scary and the only calm bit is MGMT dressed as a futuristic band, which fits perfectly with the song as it is quite futuristic.
Then for no reason whatsoever we turn to complete animation, where unrecognisable, unthinkable and shocking things happen that you wouldn't imagine would work, and we are completely right, it doesn't. What I really wanted was an ending that made me want to watch it again, but there was no such thing, leaving me unhappy and questionable about the switch to animation.
Overall a song that will inevitably be catchy although I am going to carry on disliking it. A music video that starts well and grips me making me think this is going to be a 5 star music video, but it soon changes with the animation and it just doesn't fit or work at all. So I'm indecisive with this rating, so I'm going straight through the middle today.
Okay, so some of you might have thought I lied to you, unfortunately I did not make a full return last week, due to an illness that drained the life of me. Just a simple cold, but it knocked me for ten. I am now back, no sign of any cold whatsoever, so I have no excuses. So I shall start this week with one amazing artist!
Rita Ora. She appeared out of no where and here she is again. Most known as having 3 consecutive number one singles in the UK which are "Hot Right Now", "R.I.P." and "How We Do (Party)". And a number one album. We all thought this girl would be unstoppable. Unfortunately "Shine Ya Light" stalled at number 10 and it looks like this single is also going to fall short of that all important number one.
"Radioactive" was written by Sia Furler and Greg Kurstin. The former is well known for collaborating with David Guetta on "Titanium". So I'm surprised this song hasn't done as well as the others, and it's making me question whether it's got anything to do with the fact that the album is released and that people have been buying the song from the album, therefore splitting potential sales between the album and the single. However I don't think that is the only problem, I think it may also be down to the music video.
I struggled deciding which new release I should choose, it was between this song and Avicii Ft. Nicky Romero's "I Could Be The One". So I decided to choose the one that is currently the lowest on the UK iTunes chart. I thought I might be able to help Rita Ora, but I can't help but say this music video is not at all what I expected.
Rita Ora should be bringing in a lot of money from all those number ones, but why are we left with a music video that looks like it's low-budget? After more viewing, you realise the budget may have been spent on the theatrical backgrounds and features. Leaving you wondering if they may have had a short amount of time to cut this. As this wasn't what I was expecting at all.
I wanted something similar to Ke$ha's "Die Young". A complete narrative and a perfect choreography, since this song allows you to do such a thing. But no signs of it, leaving me thinking a lot of green screen was used to make this and that Rita Ora wasn't given much to do, especially since we only see her back through the first minute or so.
Overall a song that should be performing better on the iTunes chart. But a music video which falls short of anything I imagined. There's nothing to grip you, nothing to keep me entertained. And if I were flipping through the music channels and this video came on I would flip over it looking for something better, and there probably would be something more interesting on another music channel. I hope her next music video is a lot more entertaining than this one.
