June 2009
31 posts
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Watch#400: michael jackson - don’t stop ‘till you get enough (1979)
don’t stop ‘till you get enough, michael jackson’s first solo video, is the one i’d take to a desert island, with no disrespect to billy jean’s bioluminescence, thriller’s gigantism, bad’s melodrama, and black or white’s crotch-grabbing. it’s not just that the tuxedoed...
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Watch#399: sparklehorse - sad and beautiful world (1995)
the sad thing about this downtown honky-tonk nightmare ballad isn’t that there’s sadness in its title and opening line (“sometimes i get so sad”), it’s that no matter how glum sparklehorse’s mark linkous was feeling when he sang the song, he was still a year away from mixing so much alcohol and valium and...
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Watch#398: big daddy kane - smooth operator (1989)
instead of apologizing for his long and beautiful affair with “a dear, dear friend from argentina,” governor mark sanford should have just been like, “girlfriend, you’ve been scooped like ice cream, so just swing or fling a gathering, try to cling, because it’s a big daddy thing. and i’m loving them, right, word is...
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Watch#397: david bowie - rebel rebel (1974)
not that appearances are so important (only kidding, of course they are), but i resisted rebel rebel’s clammy, glammy, extra-warm, super-sticky, late-saturday-night charms until i watched bowie pretend to play it on a red guitar in spandex overalls, a polka-dotted neck scarf and an eye patch. outerspace rockstars who look like lesbians on mid-70s dutch...
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Watch#395: violent femmes - american music (1991)
for a band of shlubby, depressive milwaukee guys most famous for a folk-punk ditty about masturbation, the violent femmes are awfully good. not only is american music a catchy song about catchy songs, but it seamlessly and accurately condenses popular culture into proms, drugs and loneliness—plus, better yet, its video was shot by the man who...
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Watch#394: eric b. and rakim - i ain’t no joke (1987)
considering that eric b. and rakim are wearing sweet matching jumpsuits, and that this is the first song on their glorious first album, and that it includes the classic line “i hold the microphone like a grudge,” and that public enemy’s flavor flav randomly appears to do some excellent dancing on a basketball court, one can...
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Watch#393: elis regina - àguas de março (1973)
elis regina sounded like cotton, tasted like blood, smelled like pipe tobacco, and looked like wine. the only thing better than watching her sing àguas de março alone is watching her sing it with cardigan-wearing, flute-holding tom jobim, beaten only by watching her sing it with him alone in a studio where they can whistle and giggle in peace.
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Watch#391: animal collective - summertime clothes (2009)
can there please—pleeeeaaseee—be a do-over for this video? tectonic, supersonic pop songs about romantic strolls don’t deserve creepy, murky, muddy little films starring ice sculptures, scary clowns gyrating, and dancers in large plastic orbs (wayne coyne cornered that market a while ago).
and god help me but is that a flash...
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Watch#388: rolling stones - jumpin’ jack flash (1968, dir. michael lindsay-hogg)
brian jones’ dinner-plate sunglasses, mick jagger’s tri-colored warpaint and charlie watts’ out-of-character guyliner in the jumpin’ jack flash video are all nice, but nothing’s more important than the fact that the song’s about keith richards’ gardener.
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Watch#387: supergrass - alright (1995)
oh, the shaggy-haired youths of yesteryear! those clean-toothed, dirty-minded, piano-thumping, guitar-fuzzing, late-rising, bike-riding, ball-throwing, eye-rolling hooligans in customized tee shirts had no shoes, no cares, and nice music videos.
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