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Labels: He Who Is Always Named, label, music video, trainwreck, video link

I know, two posts in a week. It's like the old days.

Idolator linked to this post on Tripwire about a super-indie band called Team Robespierre and their recent, failed, efforts to get one of their videos played. The video has a very, um, “home made” quality to it – but apparently MTV was allegedly going to air the clip on Subterranean. The post is a blow-by-blow of how the band got the run around and felt abused by ‘the system.’

Here is a quote from the Tripwire article:

So a year after the record came out, over six months after the video debuted on Pitchfork, three months after it’s initially scheduled MTV2 air date and lots of wasted money we were given a “maybe” in early 2009. That was until we got the news that the person we had been dealing with was laid off in December. Now, not only was the status of the video up in the air, but we had no one to talk to about it.

Most of the commenters on Tripwire and Idolator have ripped the writer, who is not in the band but somehow helping them get their video not played. This does come across as some pretty spoiled baby stuff and it made me think of lots of articles I have been reading about employers, back when the economy had ‘employers,’ needing to adapt to deal with the self-absorbed attitude of recent college graduates.

This is from the Daily Mail:

Others expect to be pandered to and lack initiative, according to the report, based on responses from 217 graduate employers including investment banks, law and accountancy firms. In one case, a new recruit to a transport company was overheard on the phone to his mother saying: "I have got to go to London tomorrow and they haven't even told me how to get there."

Certainly the band misunderstood many, many things about the video airing process. All videos on television must be close captioned. Mean ole MTV didn’t make them do that – the FCC did.

The MTV programmer that liked the video enough to push it forward was replaced and the new person was not enthusiastic. Oh well, sometimes you drop your ice cream cone on the sidewalk and Allah/Jesus/Iovine doesn’t magically grant you new one.

Yes, there were silly standards and practices edits that seem hypocritical coming from he network that airs Tila Tequila. But you know what kids? Your Mommy and Daddy say you shouldn’t drink – but they (gasp) do it themselves. I could go on and on about how these kids don’t get it (too late, I know).

Obviously, Team Robespierre has already gotten more attention off this ‘scandal’ than they would have if their video had actually aired on MTV. So good for them, despite their ‘poor little hipster’ whines.

The larger issue, in my eyes, is this intersection of the amateur and the professional. Getting your band’s video up on Youtube is easy – you just post it and it is there. Granted, even YouToogle has Standards & Practices and rights issues. Once the video is there, who says it will rack up any more views than grandma’s birthday party.

As long as artists want the benefits of the professional end of the music industry – they are going to have to play by the pro’s rules. And with AMTV suddenly showing (shocker!) music videos on MTV – there might be more opportunity there.

The recent crumbling of the music label empire has made going amateur the rule – in recording music and in making music videos as well. We could argue about whether or not Team Robespierre would ever get signed to a ‘real’ label, and I am sure that the band might reply with, ‘We don’t want your smelly label, old man!’ But when the young punks want their precious video on the old man’s MTV, a label might come in handy.

Labels: insider, media, MTV, music video, trainwreck, video link, videostatic

There is this dim-bulb chick from a dopey reality show who has recently made a “music video.” The clip is not very good, but if you see how they made the thing – this is no kind of surprise. The song is goofy and the video is worse – even the fact that the video’s star is a blonde in a skimpy swimsuit showing off the goods in a way that seems like it is aimed at getting clicks 9and other one-handed activity) on dailymotion rather than airplay on music television.

My point in bringing this up is not to pile on the already well-mocked artist/song/video. There are plenty of other people doing that. The reason I mention this clip is because I have come to see the response to this video as a good thing. Not because people are finally rejecting reality TV trash (ha, like that is gonna happen) – but because …

Everyone seems to realize this is NOT a real music video. I was actually surprised that the general public could tell this waste of pixels apart from a genuine video. Pleasantly surprised, indeed.

It makes me happy that people can discern a real music video shoot (like Timbaland – complete with professionals shouting in funny accents) apart from this other thing. Though one could speculate about who's body is more artificial - Timbo or Heidi.



On a side note, there is a five part interview series with Spike Jonze, Kanye and special guest Hype over on vbs. A cool bit of insight into the thought process of a star who really cares about his videos. Thanks to najork for posting on antville.

Labels: Heidi Montag, media, music video, Spike Jonze, Timbaland, trainwreck, video link, viral video, YouTube

Hey, did you hear? There is a new Britney Spears video. It hasn’t been getting much press (well that and the Radiohead pick-a-price adventure) – so I thought I would let you know about it.

I do not want to get into piling onto Britney’s personal life or pointing out all the substandard elements of the clip. Anyone with eyes can see that. This is an actually decent pop song with a flat and effortless music video. Not much more needs to be said about the clip itself.

How and why this particular video got made does interest me, though. The director is listed as Jake Sarfaty. Some have said this is an Alan Smithee name for Jake Nava, a director who has worked with Britney before with some success.

The director of “Gimme More” is not the well known director of highly professional clips for Beyonce and Mariah. Jake Sarfaty is a real guy, a gaffer/grip with a reasonable amount of below-the-line credits on a variety of productions. So how does this guy end up directing a video for one the most (in)famous artists around? I certainly don’t know for sure – but my guess is that no one else would do it.

There had been talk for months and months about Britney making her OWN video. Jive didn’t want to pay (they thought the market wasn't ready for a "comeback") and yet Britney wanted to get out there right away and answer her critics. Is answering one's critics ever a good idea? How about answering the critics with a pole dance? That'll do the trick.

So this other, never produced, self-made Britney video was probably a different song, but I recall the story being that she wanted to shoot a clip where she was crucified on a cross made out of tabloids. Brilliant! This rumored video was supposed to get shot at Britney's own house and she reached out to some real directors – who came back with budgets and the like but it never took off. The story was that Britney was paying with her own money, so perhaps a professional was gonna cost too much or maybe someone talked sense into her and she decided to wait a bit on her “comeback.”

But finally, Britney gets the video she has been wanting to make - over the protestations of Jive it seems. There are soooo many mistakes with "Gimme More." Britney clearly needs some time off, both personally and in the marketplace. I don’t think people are ready to see her as an artist again, right now. She is still the “train wreck” in most people’s eyes and we are not ready to hear what she has to say musically. We are still more interested in whether or not she wears shoes into public restroom or gets her kids taken away by Sheriff’s Deputies. This is too soon, but it seems like Britney is not getting the best advice these days, or at least not listening to it.

Spending one’s own money is almost always a mistake. Anyone that casually watches Entourage must know this. It makes sense that Britney wouldn’t want to spend too much of her own money on a music video, so that is how a gaffer with zero directing credits gets the job.

The whole thing comes across so half-assed it is actually more like quarter-assed. It seems thrown together and almost completely unplanned. The song ain’t bad, but this isn’t gonna spark any kind of lasting comeback - despite the current surge of popularity on iTunes. Videostatic posits that we are watching for all the wrong reasons – and I have to agree.

The video for "Gimme More" doesn’t come across like a career move, but rather a desperate grab at keeping the mercurial flame of fame alive. All I can say is that Britney’s gonna need to find some more flammable stuff to throw in to keep it smoldering, because our attention is gonna burn through this balsa-wood thin distraction in way less than fifteen minutes.

Watch "Gimme More" on mtv.com.

Labels: Beyonce, Britney Spears, insider, mariah carey, MTV, music video, trainwreck, TRL