Artistic License

Have you ever seen a music video then stepped back and thought, ‘what the hell just happened?’

In a way I kind of love it when that happens. Artists have a visual blank canvas when they go to make a music video, and get the opportunity to be able to express their feelings through the actions on screen. For example, let’s take Rihanna’s new video for her song ‘S&M’ which has faced mass scrutiny for it’s sexual implications all the way through. I don’t care what anybody says though, ’cause it does match the lyrics of the song. ‘Sticks and stones may break my bones but chains and whips excite me’… It would be a bit stupid to have her doing anything else but frolicking around in bright pink lycra. That is beside the point though. We know what she is trying to implicate through this song and video, but sometimes, music video’s can go just a little bit too far.

Lady Gaga is one of those artists that, almost every time, over steps the line and pushes the boundaries of music videos. If any body has seen the extended version of her new video ‘Born This Way’ they would understand exactly what I’m ranting on about. The beginning of this seven minute epic, we hear Gaga doing a monologue which seems to be a stylistic way of emphasising the good and evil that will become. To be perfectly honest, that’s not the weird thing though. As well as featuring a mad, kaleidoscopic birth from the ‘good’ Gaga, the ‘evil’ Gaga also pulls a machine gun out of her lady business. At that point I was like ‘Yeah Gaga. You’ve lost me.’

Throughout the rest of the video, slotted in through the extensive dance routine where Gaga is wearing the smallest set of underwear, there are numerous other random and down right ridiculous things. A few times we see her dancing in a full suit, matching in make up and dress with Zombie Boy (the guy that’s tattooed from head to toe like a Zombie) and we occasionally see her in a mirrored room with her head in what looks like a jar with other disembodied heads around her…

I was honestly, completely baffled watching this whole video, and, even though the song is catchy and it’s doing amazingly well here and in the US, I can’t deny I was a little freaked out.

If you can watch it and make more sense of it than I did, then please, leave a comment and enlighten me a bit more!