August 25, 200520 yr VMA Hopefuls Get a Critical Beatdown Published: Thursday, August 25, 2005 Though they lack the prestige of the Grammys, the MTV Video Music Awards are at least honest: Pop consumers want the whole package, both the image and the music, and to separate the two would be a disservice to that genre. We've assembled a crack team of pop music experts to give their opinions of this year's nominees. They've rated each video on a scale of one to five (one being the lowest, five the highest), and at the end we'll tabulate the scores to give you our choice for best video. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kanye West — "Jesus Walks" (Roc-a-Fella Records) Total Score: 12 Kanye is truly building with the gods on this one. Underneath his multiplatinum passion play about the travails of the original Young Jeezy, there lurked a sense that Kanye (and his deity-size ego) was fancying himself as not only a preacher but also a beleaguered saint. When director Chris Milk gave him an accidental halo for the video, the double meaning was realized but softened with epic and wrenching images of true suffering -- a complex and grave metaphor for America, the divided country. -- Julianne Shepherd Rating: 5 Kanye West -- the first zealot with a backpack and a Benz -- thought this song was so important he filmed three different versions of the video. To even criticize the song will probably land you in some unknown layer of Hell with all the other Kanye hataz and Cindy Sheehan supporters. So we'll play nice: Kanye flipped the ARC Choir sample beautifully, and the video is nice (if not painfully portentous) eye candy. -- Sam Chennault Rating: 3 Are you a member of the KKK, a drug dealer, a slave on the plantation, or simply on welfare? Then you need Kanye West ... uh, I mean Jesus. In this heavy-handed clip -- one of three Kanye commissioned for the Top 10 single -- the rapper walks through fire, arms outstretched to embrace these sinners. Hip-hop is saved! -- Mosi Reeves Rating: 4 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Snoop Dogg featuring Pharrell — "Drop It Like It's Hot" (Geffen Records/Star Trak Music) Total Score: 14 Thirteen years after helping create a nation of parrots squawking, "It's 187 on an undercover cop," Snoop is still slangin' catch phrases, wearing his blue flag on the left, and, against all odds, staying relevant. With little more accompaniment than the Neptunes' tongue cluck, Lamaze-style exhalation, and a skeleton of a keyboard hook every 24 bars, Snoop became the pup that roared all over again. -- Rich Juzwiak Rating: 4 The sharp black-and-white video is a perfect accompaniment for the spare clicks, pops, and beeps of the song. It also gives wannabe hoochies a new brand of booty-poppin' technique to master, one that's part Beyoncé-Uh-Oh-Dance and part Uh-Oh-My-Back's-Thrown-Out. -- Tamara Palmer Rating: 5 The only song in VMA history to conflate snack food catch phrases with spousal abuse, and gang wear with retro fashion gear, "Drop It Like It's Hot" is easily the most offensive nominee in recent memory. The Neptunes' pop-up synths, an absence-as-omniscience beat, and bubbling tongue clicks are equaling startling. Sin never sounded so sweet, or so weird. -- Sam Chennault Rating: 5 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Coldplay — "Speed of Sound" (Capitol) Total Score: 7 Chris Martin's voice is still as discordant as Thom Yorke's, yet stateside Coldplay enjoys mass success on a scale that Radiohead hasn't tasted since "Creep." In XXL this month, Martin says that perhaps rap artists dig him and his band because they are "allowed" to act feminine, whereas rappers are not. All women should be offended to hear this tool reduce femininity to sounding like a cat in heat. -- Jess Harvell Rating: 2 U2's "New Year's Day" is more than twenty years old, and Coldplay's moans and guitar tones more than deserve Adult Contemporary positioning, but I have to assume that the nomination is merely meant to give yuppie lightweights someone to root for. The video has lasers and stubbly young Brits who accompany Coldplay's patented brand of Radiohead Speedwagon. -- Anthony Miccio Rating: 2 If Chris Martin's mates weren't such ugly muckafergusons, director Mark Romanek could have had them all cavorting in a club with a bunch of hot babes like they were G-Unit. As it stands, this simulation of a live performance by the so-called "next U2" will have to suffice. Next up: piano humping. -- Mosi Reeves Rating: 3 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Green Day — "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" (Warner Bros.) Total Score: 8 Funny that the Green Day guys find out how stunningly grandiose and weepy-ballad pretty their sound can be around the same time they hit their lyrical nadir. I wish I were the first to notice that the opening line kinda resembles the chorus from Whitesnake's "Here I Go Again." At least the video makes sense: Walking! Desolation! Graininess! Eyeliner! -- Nate Patrin Rating: 2 There's nothing sadder than an aging X'er realizing that all the time he spent pulling his pud coulda been spent pulling voting booth levers. Except when his wake-up call is delivered in vague, nonsensical downer lyrics over the alt-rock loop of the damned who will be playing in Hell's vestibule, where we'll meet up with the dudes from Train and Lifehouse. -- Jess Harvell Rating: 3 "Dream On" plus "How You Remind Me" plus "If You Could Only See the Way She Loves Me" plus "Here I Go Again" equals the Rosetta stone of rock nostalgia, revised for the denizens of the alt-rock nation. And this time Green Day doesn't scare off Republicans. Robert Smith should get royalties any time heavy eyeliner is used to hide an old rocker's eye bags. -- Anthony Miccio Rating: 3 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gwen Stefani — "Hollaback Girl" (Interscope) Total Score: 13 Gwen puts the smack on her booty-callers in cheerleader form -- replete with drum line and cheer straight from Pharrell's sugar-cane brain. This is exactly the video you'd hoped for: the platinum-blond songstress donning a majorette uniform, an eye-candy pep squad in a lowrider Impala rolling up on a marching band, and a group of cheerleaders doing a routine after storming the Kleenex aisle of a grocery store -- all as genius and banal as the song itself. -- Julianne Shepherd Rating: 4 The only thirtysomething artist who could take over a high school and come off youthful, fly, and not out of place, Gwen and her bad-ass troupe of dancing Harajuku girls bring it on. Not since Toni Basil's "Mickey" have we seen such fine use of cheerleading in a video. -- Tamara Palmer Rating: 4 This is the weirdest bunch of muted, brash nonsense to hit No. 1 since Prince's "Kiss." It's a crowning achievement for Gwen, pop music's greatest innovator of annoyance, perfectly cast here as a high school student. The single edit, with no "shit," piles on the delicious silence and, as part of the video, lets Gwen show off a like-buttah mani with her replacement shushing. Ingenious! -- Rich Juzwiak Rating: 5 Our Winner: By the slimmest of margins, Snoop Dogg featuring Pharrell, "Drop It Like It's Hot."
August 25, 200520 yr I'm so sick of listening to dickheads like this with their heads up their asses, pretending their opinions are more important than us mere viewers. Yuppies at that. These people don't even know who the listeners ARE. I'm so sick of it! I don't know what purpose these assholes serve on this planet, other than to alienate those who have a different musical taste than theirs. Do they get off on this?? Honest to god, do you have to screw a different chick each week, wear 700 pounds of dead linx and rap about shooting some bitch to be cool now? I think I'm going to lose my fuckin' mind. :dizzy2: I'm sorry. I think that all my anger about a lot of things just came out. Been building since all the negative X&Y stuff. I'm crazy, please excuse my meaningless rants. :dozey:
August 25, 200520 yr ...all of that really made no sense. Thirteen years after helping create a nation of parrots squawking, "It's 187 on an undercover cop," Snoop is still slangin' catch phrases, wearing his blue flag on the left, and, against all odds, staying relevant. With little more accompaniment than the Neptunes' tongue cluck, Lamaze-style exhalation, and a skeleton of a keyboard hook every 24 bars, Snoop became the pup that roared all over again. -- Rich Juzwiak whats that have to do with the video? Chris Martin's voice is still as discordant as Thom Yorke's, yet stateside Coldplay enjoys mass success on a scale that Radiohead hasn't tasted since "Creep." In XXL this month, Martin says that perhaps rap artists dig him and his band because they are "allowed" to act feminine, whereas rappers are not. All women should be offended to hear this tool reduce femininity to sounding like a cat in heat. -- Jess Harvell hey fuckface.. whats that have to do with the video? U2's "New Year's Day" is more than twenty years old, and Coldplay's moans and guitar tones more than deserve Adult Contemporary positioning, but I have to assume that the nomination is merely meant to give yuppie lightweights someone to root for. The video has lasers and stubbly young Brits who accompany Coldplay's patented brand of Radiohead Speedwagon. -- Anthony Miccio WHAT THE FUCK DOES U2 OR RADIOHEAD HAVE TO DO WITH THE VIDEO ANTHONY? GOOD GOD.
August 25, 200520 yr If Chris Martin's mates weren't such ugly muckafergusons' date=' director Mark Romanek could have had them all cavorting in a club with a bunch of hot babes like they were G-Unit. As it stands, this simulation of a live performance by the so-called "next U2" will have to suffice. Next up: piano humping. -- Mosi Reeves[b'][/b] UGLY MY ASS.
August 25, 200520 yr My god. Ok. Any reviewer who would rate Hollaback Girl higher than ANYTHING Coldplay has ever done needs to be shot, seriously. She had an okay band before, but decides to go solo with a song that spells Bananas......B A N A N A S. Urgh! It's the worst song I've ever heard....it's so....god-awful.
August 25, 200520 yr My god. Ok. Any reviewer who would rate Hollaback Girl higher than ANYTHING Coldplay has ever done needs to be shot, seriously. She had an okay band before, but decides to go solo with a song that spells Bananas......B A N A N A S. Urgh! It's the worst song I've ever heard....it's so....god-awful. she shouldn't have gone solo...she's better with no doubt.
August 25, 200520 yr d My god. Ok. Any reviewer who would rate Hollaback Girl higher than ANYTHING Coldplay has ever done needs to be shot, seriously. She had an okay band before, but decides to go solo with a song that spells Bananas......B A N A N A S. Urgh! It's the worst song I've ever heard....it's so....god-awful. she shouldn't have gone solo...she's better with no doubt. i dont know---but i like her---i love her with no doubt--as they are my fourth favorite band and i like her solo---i think the songs are catchy and kool :P
August 25, 200520 yr you do? :o lol, the song where she screams: "what you waiting what you waiting for" it's like the worst song i've ever heard!! but i respect your opinion of course :) i also agree that she was better with no doubt.....her new single (cool) makes me remember them
August 25, 200520 yr yup---that song is my fav. of her album---its kinda like "running" from nodoubt :P but yeah---i like her songs---also, i think she is really beautiful
August 25, 200520 yr Ugh people piss me off...honestly how can you rate rappers and gwen stefani higher than anything coldplay has ever done? And who are these people anyway? pop music experts my ass..why do their opinions matter whatsoever? If this was based on popularity...obviously if coldplay records are SELLING then they are more than a fricken "cat in heat" whatever that means :x
August 25, 200520 yr Ugh people piss me off...honestly how can you rate rappers and gwen stefani higher than anything coldplay has ever done? And who are these people anyway? pop music experts my ass..why do their opinions matter whatsoever? If this was based on popularity...obviously if coldplay records are SELLING then they are more than a fricken "cat in heat" whatever that means :x Good points :thumbsup:
August 25, 200520 yr I think the victory of Snoop Dogg in this one kid of puts this whole load of crap into prespective. They obviously don't like anything outside the rap/hip-hop/pop realm. Because (Not to say I like Greenday) "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" and "Speed of Sound" are the only ones outside of thoes genres on that list and they got the lowest scores. Stuff like that makes me want to rip my own face off. :beadyeyes:
August 25, 200520 yr expect reviews like this for the rest of Coldplay's career. Don't rise to it y'all ;)
August 26, 200520 yr I agree. I'm sick of whatever is mainstream at the time winning the awards and getting coverage even if the music is no good. I wish really good bands, including Coldplay, of course, would get more attention and credit. Just because it's popular doesn't mean it's good!
August 26, 200520 yr If Chris Martin's mates weren't such ugly muckafergusons' date=' director Mark Romanek could have had them all cavorting in a club with a bunch of hot babes like they were G-Unit. As it stands, this simulation of a live performance by the so-called "next U2" will have to suffice. Next up: piano humping. -- Mosi Reeves[b'][/b] UGLY MY ASS. :lol: sorry but I found that funny
August 27, 200520 yr We've assembled a crack team of pop music experts What does that mean?...lame-ass people who don't know anything?
August 27, 200520 yr I know what it means. POP (standing for Positively, Outstandingly Pukish) music experts... on crack. :idea2: :rolleyes:
August 27, 200520 yr people like Snoop Dog (what a poor name) have no talent, they just say a heap of words as fast as they can. Its SHIT! :angry:
August 27, 200520 yr I know what it means. POP (standing for Positively, Outstandingly Pukish) music experts... on crack. :idea2: :rolleyes: ah, it makes sense now...thanks for clearing that up! :)
August 27, 200520 yr f people like Snoop Dog (what a poor name) have no talent' date=' they just say a heap of words as fast as they can. Its SHIT! :angry:[/quote'] i like hiphop and i like snoop D-O-doubleG--------hiphop is just another artistic form of music--which i admire---but i like the old style better anyways---i do agree though that VMA's only reward popularity and not talent----that sucks
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