Pitbull, Marc Anthony - “Rain Over Me”

We start out with aerial shots of some desert, with a nice sports car racing along in the blowing sand and dust. We don’t know where the car is headed, but since it’s the desert, it’s most likely not anywhere fun and I’m already losing interest. Cut to a woman staring out a window, her lips all pouty and freshly-painted. Then we suddenly have Marc sitting on a green couch and bellowing the words with an intensity that usually indicates someone needs gallbladder surgery.

Wait, why is Marc starting off Pitbull’s song? Is this going to be another example where the featured artist actually does all the work, and the “main artist” basically sits around in a chair, drinking beer and hollering “that’s right, uh huh” after every chorus? Hmm. We’ll see.

Wait, there’s Pitbull, standing all alone in a patch of cracked ground. He’s got his arms out like he’s ready to meet Jesus, but before we can see if that really happens, we’re back with that car racing to nowhere, then with Marc on that couch, bouncing around and sucking back what I would hope is a nice glass of gin. Meanwhile, Pouty-Lip girl is still standing at the window, apparently unimpressed that Marc can sing and drink at the same time.

Cut to a woman in the desert wearing a pointless dress that is sheer enough we can check on the outcome of her latest waxing. She’s walking away from a perfectly good bottle of vodka sitting on the sand, so you know her priorities are messed up. Before we can ask her what her problem is, we start doing this split-screen thing with Marc and Pitbull. Marc is still sitting on that couch (did they not have a very big budget for this shoot?) and Pitbull is still tromping around in the desert all alone, wearing a suit and his trademark attitude that Jesus should be coming to meet him.

Now there’s another girl, or maybe one of the same ones, it’s really unclear, is fiddling with some sunglasses and appearing to wantonly need something. We don’t have time to get her story, either, before we’re back with Pitbull and his arid hand gestures. Gauzy dress woman comes waltzing up to him, because strangers appearing out of nowhere happens all the time in the desert.

Well, maybe they’re not strangers after all, since Pitbull starts fondling her like he desperately needs to set the oven to 350 degrees. (We get some jump shots of just Pitbull, smirking and very proud of the fact that he just touched some breasts.) Then he’s groping her some more, pretending like it’s a sexy dance, and she’s accepting the groping and smiling to indicate her readiness for plunder, pretending like she doesn’t mind that she now has sand everywhere sand shouldn’t be.

Back to Marc and Pouty for a bit, just so we can be assured they are still drinking and sweating, then we spend some time with a woman who feels its perfectly normal to let a snake crawl all over her body. (I guess she went to a different kind of school than I did.) Then we get to a bit where Pit and Marc are singing together in the desert while the sun lowers behind them. Well, somebody’s singing, let’s put it that way. The other one feels that all he really needs to do is wear sunglasses and the world will love him.

Eventually we have Pitbull encountering another woman wearing a billowing dress who wants nothing more than to have Pitbull touch her inappropriately, followed by some girl swimming underwater. It turns out she’s only doing this so she can break the surface of the water and make herself look just like the promo shots for Wild Things back in the day. (Except that she’s clearly not Denise Richards and probably won’t be marrying Charlie Sheen.)

This doesn’t stop the woman from staring wetly at us forever, waving one of her arms about in a manner that she apparently thinks is sexy, but actually makes her look like Helen Keller on a bender.

Somebody crosses their legs just right, and suddenly we’re someplace very dark, with an interesting image of rain-drenched Marc and/or Pitbull playing on a screen while yet another female gyrates in front of it, doing an interpretive dance of the Stock Market on a very busy day. Just to make sure we don’t forget that all women can’t help but want these two men, we have jump shots of Wet Girl being joined in the pool by other girls who just want to stretch and paw at themselves in a frenzy of passion. (Or maybe it’s the chlorine fumes.)

Then we have a montage of Pitbull and Woman Number…. I don’t know, 84 or something, dancing together in the desert and having the best time despite the heat and the scorpions and the lack of anything moist for miles. Whoops, I guess Pitbull loses interest in her, because now he’s running his hands over another woman (wow, I never noticed that he has really small fingers) while she squirms seductively and he smiles at his own prowess.

This kicks off a veritable parade of women flouncing and bouncing in various scenes, with the central theme being “just dance around like you gotta have you some Pitbull even though you understand that he must be with hundreds of different women every night, never remembers any names, and sure as hell won‘t be signing anything”. Or something like that.

And finally we roll into a mix of everything we’ve seen so far, with revisits to Pitbull speaking the language of thrusting hips with a cavalcade of revolving beauties, Pitbull and Marc doing the “Couple’s Dance at Sunset” thing with both men believing that raising both hands and pointing your index fingers in different directions is very important, and then everybody, including a dance troupe that just happened to drive by, gathers in a part of the desert where it actually rains, and they all do a line dance about the joys of getting wet while wearing black.

Final shot is of Pitbull being lead to a helicopter, which then takes off across the sky. Did the Singing Police finally catch up with him?


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Sugar Ray - “Every Morning”

We start out with two guys dressed in clown-felon outfits doing some type of break-dancing routine on top of an ugly yellow car. They seem really invested in their activities, but since I’ve never seen such a thing before I don’t know if they’re really good or if they suck. I do know that I don’t want to see any more of that mess. Gave it a try, gotta run.

Luckily, the music of the song soon starts up, and we ditch the bouncing jail-people to go watch lots of high-school folks dressed in that 80’s style where the whole point seemed to be about outrage of some kind. (Super-pointy hair, razor-blade earrings, tattoos of goats, that sort of thing.) Everyone seems to be headed into a building which could be anything from a skating rink to a bowling alley to a local branch of the state mental institution. It’s a brick building, that’s all that is certain.

Before we can properly figure things out, here comes Mark McGrath, riding a motorcycle and sporting a mullet that is apparently taking its own steroids. Because he’s really cool, Mark just drives right into the lobby of the building, which causes the females to become horny and the males to either high-five or secretly want him. There are just a lot of things about this video that aren’t really clear, but we’ll be polite about it for now.

To make matters even more mystifying, we start seeing Mark and the band playing on a gaudy stage where gold draperies and balloons are involved. Right away we learn that Mark feels his performance requires considerable waving of his arms and rhythmic hand gestures, which is a little annoying, but he does have the best hair so far in the video, so there is that.

Cut back to mullet Mark, who shoves aside some youngsters so he can take over a pinball machine and basically have sex with it while he plays. The little boys, of course, are totally enraptured with Mark’s prowess and can’t wait until they are old enough to reach the coin slot. I guess one of the pinballs hits a special dinger thing, because we suddenly start seeing jump cuts of an odd little man doing roller-dancing all by himself in the middle of the wooden skating rink. This is probably not good.

Then we get to watch a long row of women who should have graduated from high school years ago but didn’t, as they watch Mark singing, fully intent on having his baby during intermission. (There’s also some mess with a poor girl having to deal with serious braces headgear, that horrible, painful contraption that youngsters today have no knowledge of, and can therefore sleep at night.)

Then some fool lights up the “All Skate!” sign, and everybody immediately thunders out onto the floor. Right away, we have two of those show-off couples performing intense twirling moves where the woman is airborne and the man is earning flamboyance badges that will help his later career on Broadway. (The rest of the skaters just seem to be standing around and waiting until the next time they can feather their hair, so I’m not sure they really understand the concept of skating.)

Doesn’t matter, because we cut to two girls wearing Catholic school-uniform skirts and “accidentally” unbuttoned white shirts. (Just to help us understand that they are most likely total sluts.) But before we can watch them trollop about, we have some jump cuts of large afros, Mark performing more singing stances that he’s been practicing far too much, and more people confused about what to do at a skating rink.

Then we have a long montage of the people who do know how to skate, but this is counter-balanced by other people being total victims of the fashion rages back in that day. We thought we were beyond cool then, but viewing all that mess now confirms that we clearly lost our minds as a people, and there have been repercussions to this day.

Anyway, the Slut Twins put the moves on one of the band members who is playing a pizza boy, a disappointing sequence that helps us realize why the concept of “editing” had to be invented. Then we’re back to another long montage of people pretending to skate even though they don’t know how, people pretending like their outfits haven’t been outlawed in several progressive states, and the band pretending like they aren’t seriously mugging for the cameras.

Speaking of cameras, someone decides it would be really special to set one of them on the ground and let people skate, dance or hump their way toward the lens. (Mark seems to be the most excited about that last part, thrusting his crotch with practiced and eye-opening abandon right in Mr. DeMille’s face.) There’s a side-story about two mean roller derby girls having a misunderstanding of some kind, but they aren’t thrusting anything so it’s not quite as fun.

The music suddenly stops, which results in everybody standing around because no one knows what to do if there isn’t a soundtrack accompanying them. This goes on for a bit, then Mark bangs out of the backdoor of the rink, strumming a red-white-and-blue guitar and picking up the song. He sings for a while, strolling amongst some street people playing dice. This turns out to be no fun at all, so we quickly cut back to the conga line of pelvises and blue eye-shadow.

And that’s where we basically stay through the end of the video, with everybody shoving everything they can at the camera, laughing and whooping it up and continuing to wear offensive couture. Then Mullet Mark hops on his bike and heads out, which apparently signals the end of the party, since people start leaving and making up stories to tell their parents about why they smell like tequila and old bleach.

Ah, memories. But I never had a mullet. It’s very important that people understand that about me. ;)


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The Band Perry - “If I Die Young”

We start out with a close-up of lead singer Kimberly, as she and her golden locks launch into the song. (Not certain what that thing is in her hair, but I’m sure it’s important to her.) Quick shot of Kimberly floating in a worn-out canoe thing on a river, possibly deceased or just very tired, then back to the band. Now we can see her brothers, Neil and Reid, playing in the background. They also look tragic, so this is probably not the happiest of videos out there.

Cut to Neil and Reid playing their instruments in a nicely-restored house, the kind where you don’t dare touch anything or you’ll get your ass whupped, then we’re outside with Kimberly leading the way while the brothers carry that little boat. The house behind them is gorgeous, so I can’t imagine why they’d want to leave it, but they do. They march for a bit, then we have another snap of Kimberly in the boat. Singing and alive this time, so that’s good.

Short scene with a woman abusing a rose, so there must have been an incident with a thorn in her past, then back to the trio tramping along with the boat, and more of the band playing in that house. Back to the river, where the brothers load Kimberly into the boat and set her adrift. (Brothers always gang up on the sister.) Then we have a montage of Kimberly in the boat, clutching a book of poems by Tenneyson and pretending like her head isn’t uncomfortable, even though it’s jammed against the seat of the boat. But her dress is pretty.

More of the band playing, with the boys still refusing to smile or get haircuts. Then we might be having an actual happy moment, with Kimberly smiling and running along while a cute guy chases her. She’s not trying real hard, so you know she wants to get caught. Brief interlude with the band, then we see Kim and Beau gazing at one another with affection, deliciously naughty thoughts most likely filling their heads, then she’s back in the damn boat again, floating and lifeless.

Okay, people, we get it. Life can be super short. So let’s spend more time on the happy moments and less time floating down a river. Just sayin. Oh wait, maybe Kimberly heard me, because she suddenly pops to an upright position in the boat, like maybe a frog done hopped in her bloomers. Then we have quick shots of Beau and the rose-hating woman looking startled. Maybe it’s just me, but they seem a little upset that Kimberly might be alive after all. These people are just too damn gloomy.

Montage of the book floating in the water, separate images of Beau and Rose in a green room, reaching for something (the craft services table?) , floating flowers, and the brothers running through some field, possibly heading back to the river where they were mean to their sister, making her go sailing when she didn’t want to. What are they going to discover?

We’ll have to find out a bit later, since we cut to all the band members singing and playing back in that house, where somebody likes a really vibrant color scheme. (And insists on putting an odd grey square in front of some of the windows. Does this mean something? Are there wicked things outside the windows that we shouldn’t see? Southern people have too many secrets.)

Oh, look, there’s Kimberly and her brothers trudging across the lawn of the house, while Rose is standing at the door and smiling. Rose rushes out to greet them, along with Beau, who comes running from wherever it is that Beaus go when no one is requiring any chasing. Everybody is now very happy that she didn’t die.

Then why the hell did they put her in the boat to begin with? Is this what happens when people eat grits all the time? There’s a mandatory airing-out period?

We may never know. The song winds down with a few more random shots, then we close with a final image of one of Tenneyson’s poems, “The Lady of Shalott”. Really? If memory serves, I think I tried reading that once, some enforced-learning experiment in junior high, and it involved some mess with a woman being cursed and wallering around in a boat until she expired, unsatisfied and most likely damp.

I’m thinking Kimberly should just stay out of the library. You?


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