Dear Rashid, You fell off. That Universal Mind Control album? Garbage. And that shit hurt my heart. Your career trajectory was inspiring, to say the least. Fifteen years after your debut, you were just reaching the apex of your powers circa Be. Prior to that, you’d released one of the most adventurous albums in modern hip-hop history, Electric Circus. Props for that one, too. But man, listening to you spit over warmed over Neptunes beats…it was like if LL had […]
Posts tagged "The Viewfinder"
The Viewfinder: Duran Duran’s “Girl Panic!”
In much the same way All You Need is Now marked a return to the sound that made Duran Duran household names in the early Eighties, the video for “Girl Panic!” marks a return to the types of videos that made the Durannies the first ever “MTV band”. Of course, there’s no longer a vehicle like MTV for Duran Duran to dominate, so maybe “Girl Panic!” just appeals to the nostalgist in me. But shit, this might be the best video these guys have made […]
The Viewfinder: Dark Heavens’ “Rock Ya Chewbakka”
The twist ending at the conclusion of Dark Heavens ‘ “Rock Ya Chewbakka” is of M. Night Shyamalan proportions but it doesn’t mean you should skip to the end and not enjoy our titular hero as he takes extreme sports to a whole ‘nother level in a pink Chewbacca costume. Ever see a Wookie ride a rollercoaster? Ever see a Wookie professionally skateboard? Ever see a Wookie surf??? If you watch this video you can check “yes” for all of those! Not […]
The Viewfinder: Rihanna’s “We Found Love”
Hardest working woman in show business? Quite possibly. Rihanna’s been operating on an album-per-year schedule since the inception of her career, and seeing as she’s made time to do everything from tour to model in between projects, you have to wonder if homegirl ever has time to sit around the crib and watch “Law & Order” marathons or something like that. “We Found Love” is the first single from the Bajan pop queen’s sixth album, entitled Talk That Talk. Produced […]
The Viewfinder: Fountains Of Wayne’s “Someone’s Gonna Break Your Heart”
Man, the videos are flying out from Fountains of Wayne’s Sky Full of Holes , eh? Barely a month after the clip for “The Summer Place” surfaced, the guys are back with a new “short film” (to use Michael Jackson’s favorite term)-this one for “Someone’s Gonna Break Your Heart”. It’s not a particularly thrilling video-tons of quick cuts, mostly live footage (or “candid” footage of the band members goofing around) mixed with beach shots containing a pretty girl and kids. It was probably thrown together for not a lot of […]
The Viewfinder: Jennifer Lopez’s “Papi”
I have no idea why I love Jennifer Lopez’s Love? as much as I do. I also have no idea why I watched About A Boy starring Hugh Grant for the umpteenth time the other night. Things happen and we can’t explain them, alright? Anyway, Jenny from the block is back with “Papi”, her latest single from the aforementioned record. It’s also my favorite song from the album. Don’t let me sway you though. Listen to “Papi” once and I […]
The Viewfinder: Beyonce’s “Countdown”
Even with a little bambino on the way, Beyonce is still as (Sasha) fierce as ever. She debuted her new video for the Boyz II Men-sampling “Countdown” last night, and it’s pretty much 4 minutes of everything you’d expect from a Beyonce video. The cuts in this video are so fast (and there’s so much happening even apart from that) you might just go dizzy from watching. It’s certainly the best of the videos released so far from the 4 album. […]
The Viewfinder: The Original 7ven’s “#Trendin'”
I know what you’re saying. Didn’t you guys just post the audio of the new song by The Band Formerly Known as The Time just a couple of days ago? We sure did. However, we had no idea that the video clip was gonna arrive just a few days later. Lo and behold, Morris and co. have dropped the visuals on it while the irons for the audio are still hot. I wasn’t so sure I dug “#Trendin’” at first, […]
The Viewfinder: Kelly Clarkson’s “Mr. Know-It-All”
Kelly Clarkson’s made such a name for herself playing the “someone done me wrong” card that it’s hard to picture her as anything but. I suppose “My Life Would Suck Without You” was a happy love song, but even that came within sort of an aggro framework. Somewhat unfortunately, “Mr. Know-It-All” comes from a similar place, only with a lot less of the personality that defined earlier hits like the now-classic “Since U Been Gone”. I don’t know-to my ears, […]
The Viewfinder: Kele Okereke’s “What Did I Do?”
Bloc Party frontman Kele Okereke is back with a new solo EP available at the end of October. Entitled The Hunter (Cue Mastodon mix-up’s now), it’ll feature 7 all new tracks including a cover of “Goodbye Horses” (The “Buffalo Bill” song in The Silence of the Lambs) by Q Lazzarus along with the first single, “What Did I Do?” featuring vocalist Lucy Taylor on lead vocals. I am definitely a fan of Bloc Party’s and Kele’s electronic direction. I loved Intimacy, and though uneven […]
The Viewfinder: Liam Finn’s “Jump Your Bones”
Drum sets are fuckin’ dangerous, yo. Singer/songwriter/adorable mofo Liam Finn’s new album, FOMO has been out for a couple of months already, and the diminutive Kiwi has recently started melting faces on tour. I guarantee you, if you check this guy out live, you will become a fan immediately. Not only is he talented as shit, but he’s an amazing ball of energy. The video for “Jump Your Bones” finds Liam attacking his drum set with the vim and vigor that […]
The Viewfinder: “The Summer Place” by Fountains of Wayne
Technically, we’re still looking at a little over a week of summer left. So it’s not *too* odd for Fountains of Wayne to just now release their video for “The Summer Place”, right? Adam, Chris and the guys have spent most of the past couple of months touring behind their excellent new release “Sky Full of Holes” , so maybe it was just a situation where the guys had plans to release the video earlier and just never got around to filming it? Yeah, […]