Ellie Goulding - “Lights”

  We start off with some random lights twinkling somewhere, then we start getting some blurry images of what might be artsy images of someone taking a shower and really enjoying the wetness. Then somebody finally finds the focus knob on the camera and Ellie snaps into view, standing on a stage, holding a tambourine, and shaking her hips like an overworked combine. Girl definitely had some coffee this morning.

  Next we have a close-up of Ellie (think “Kesha without the grunge patina”) as she and her gloved hands start singing the song, with a convenient wind-machine blowing her golden locks around in case you just want to watch that instead of actually listen to the lyrics or anything. Ellie is still insistent on thrusting those hips, although not quite as fiercely, so she might have some issues that we can explore later. She also likes turning her head to the side and jutting her chin like she just had a chaste orgasm. (Maybe it’s all that wind.)

  And she sure loves her tambourine, shaking and waving it with enough exuberance that small children could easily burst into tears. Ellie’s one busy little dynamo, and it wouldn’t surprise me if she surpasses solar power as a viable option for renewable energy for the planet. Somebody ratchets up that wind machine to keep pace with Ellie, and there’s so much turbulence in the air that somebody should probably issue a hurricane warning.

  Then we cut to the first scenes of what might be a rave party, but the bouncer at the door must be really strict since Ellie seems to be the only one there. Whatever this place is, it’s apparently very important that Ellie stand perfectly still in a dramatic pose while odd digital graphics that are clearly drug-inspired swirl around her. Then we have some mess where Ellie appears to be trapped in a circle of red laser beams, where the only way to escape is by dancing and waving your arms.

  Meanwhile, we keep checking in on the original Ellie, who continues to dance on that one stage with the wind machine and the fetish tambourine. While we were gone, she apparently learned some new choreography, some moves that require her to do everything she can to make her hair flip around with even more firepower. To make sure that we see her new mad skillz, the director repeats the shots where she appears the most twirly.

  And with that, ladies and gentlemen, you have the basic rundown of the rest of the video: Ellie on the main stage where she is singing and playing a hand-held instrument that you can’t actually hear in the song, and Ellie playing “statues” at the members-only rave party where somebody’s graphics program exploded all over the dance floor. In both locations, Ellie is very proud of the fact that she has a pelvis.

  Oh wait, I just lied. Here comes a third Ellie, this one wearing a severely-modified tuxedo and banging on a set of drums as if she’s calling out to her ancestors to resurrect themselves and come help her out with some pressing issue. (Maybe the ghost of Great Granny Goulding can help Ellie settle down a little.) Whatever she’s doing, it’s still very important that she whip her hair around like an organic weapon.

  Then the montage kicks back in and we’re jumping all over the place, with the various Ellies doing whatever they need to do to get to the end of the video. Sadly, Rave Ellie is still all alone at her little flashing disco, so at one point she decides to clone herself so the hyperactive graphics will look even more mystifying and cool. Oh, and there’s a bit where one of the Ellies tries to do a backbend but apparently gets confused.

  After a while, all this mess, though colorful, gets to be a bit boring, so somebody hands another Ellie a torch thingy so she can swing it around and act like she’s on Survivor. But just like everything else, Ellie goes at with an eye-opening amount of gusto and twirls that torch with such determination that the entire soundstage is going to burn down if somebody doesn’t hand the girl some tranquilizers. That version of Ellie soon disappears from the montage, probably for insurance reasons.

  So that leaves us with just the three (or maybe it’s four?) Ellies as they cavort about in a frenzy of musicality and fashion. We don’t see much new, and I’m sad to report that the ghost spirits never show up despite the dedicated drum-pounding. But at least Ellie looks cute the entire time and never once does she smudge her lipstick despite the extreme athleticism and romping about.

  We eventually start to wind the whirlwind images down, but not before Torch Ellie escapes from her temporary holding cell in the Ladies’ Room and lurches back in front of the camera right when we were supposed to be focusing on some pretty lights for the final fade. Instead, we appear to have a small explosion as Survivor Ellie presumably electrocutes something and the screen goes blank.

  Hmmm. Hope everybody was okay….


Click Here to Watch the Video on YouTube.

Justin Bieber - “Boyfriend”

  We start out with images of a young woman wearing vicious-looking rings on her hand that could probably slice you open, followed by some mess about metal gears that are turning, melting icicles, and close-ups of Justin’s face. Sadly, and maybe it’s just the lighting, but he appears to be wearing a nice shade of pink lipstick. Justin, or somebody, really needs to be making smarter choices when it comes to image design.

  Justin starts the rapping part of the song, with his face shoved against the side of Death-Ring Girl. It’s actually a little creepy, but she seems fine with it and even starts writhing a bit to indicate that she really enjoys people vocalizing in her hair. Meanwhile, we’re also getting jump shots of wet stereo speakers, Justin doing some carefully staged choreography with his hands, and some confirmation that Justin has finally moved on from that questionable haircut.

  Next we have two young lasses sitting in a fancy sports car that they clearly would have no idea how to drive, both of them gazing at Justin performing on a wireless phone, their faces aglow with the fires of his sexual prowess. As they study his moves with sun-drenched lust and Justin moves into the falsetto part of the song, the video suddenly goes black and the music cuts off.

  Um, what?

  Then we fire things back up again with a giant title credit for Justin, in case you forgot who you were watching during that odd two-second break, followed by the song title and an announcement that the festivities have been directed by “X”. Maybe there really is a director out there that goes by this moniker, but my immediate suspicion is that somebody didn’t want their actual name on this thing. Uh oh.

  Now we have Justin and some other folks parking their sports cars in some place where people go to hang out when there’s nothing on TV. The guys are all wearing leather jackets and attitudes, and the girls are all barely wearing anything. We get jump shots of various youngsters as they lounge in and around the fancy cars, with the guys striking poses and the girls pushing out their glossy lips to let us all know how extremely heated they happen to be.

  Suddenly, in a strongly ill-advised decision, we see Justin and several of the partiers breaking out in a spontaneous but carefully-planned dance, where he doesn’t seem to know quite what to do. Even the anonymous director realizes that maybe the world isn’t ready for that just yet, and we soon cut away to more moist lips, people riding skateboards in a violent manner, and Justin safely tucked back in that car where he doesn’t have to move his feet.

  He stays there and sings for a while, as several nearby nymphets gaze at him with voracious intensity. Eventually one of the young ladies, probably nominated because she’s wearing the skimpiest pair of cut-offs, sashays up to Justin and they immediately being pawing on one another. To make sure that we understand exactly where this might be going, we get shots of Justin revving his engine and doing donuts in the parking lot.

  I guess everyone else is really happy that the two of them will eventually be mating, because the dancing starts up again, with various folks strutting around and executing street-based moves with lots of swagger and little basis on the actual rhythm of the song. Oh, and everyone manages to remain incredibly horny, because it says so in the “script” and they all want to get paid at the end of the day.

  Some new girl drives up and gets out of her car and, based on the condition of her torn clothing, she may have just returned from fighting a really-irritated grizzly bear. She must not have suffered too greatly, because she immediately tries to dominate the dancing activities. It’s not clear if she’s also vying for Justin’s attention of if she’s just one of those girls who can’t stand it when people aren’t watching her move.

  At some point somebody must have handed Justin a guitar, because he’s suddenly playing one in some of the shots. In other scenes, he’s nuzzling Cut-Off Chick’s neck and encouraging her to use her booty in an aggressive manner. She’s more than happy to oblige for a while, then she can’t resist the lure of the dance floor and pulls Justin out into the middle of that mess for some line dancing.

  And apparently somebody sent the right memos to the right people, because now we can see that Justin has a bit more polish to his steps. In fact, Cut-Off Girl gets twirled out of camera range for a while so we can focus on Justin gettin’ down with his bad self. (There are a few random shots of some new girl sitting in a car off to one side, really using her acting skills to appear both trampy and stoned at the same time. It’s not clear why it’s important that we see her, other than to make us wonder how she got in the car with all that mess of hair she’s got.)

  And that basically wraps it up for the plot points of the video. People continue to dance, Justin continues to strum, Cut-Off Girl continues to lustily gloat that she done bagged the big prize at this here impromptu dance-off, and much of the gathered crowd manages to break into little sidebar couples, where they gaze yearningly at one another and lightly sweat.

  Speaking of the dancing, that part does get a bit more physical, as folks ramp it up and really start aiming for the crazy-eyed moves. This acceleration in activity is probably due to the fact that the sun is going down and a lot of these kiddos probably have curfews, so they better hurry up and get to the good stuff before Momma comes out on the front porch and hollers for them to get their asses inside.

  This last bit of dance fever has more of the synchronized dancing where everyone magically knows all of the choreography, probably because Justin is wearing really fancy shoes that the camera makes sure to advertise so you can order some after the video ends. And the video finally does, with a last lingering shot of Justin clutching both his guitar and the girl while they sit on the trunk of a vintage car that real people can’t actually afford…


Click Here to Watch the Video on YouTube.

Maroon 5, Wiz Khalifa - “Payphone”

  We start out with Adam in one of those big-ass concrete gulley things, possibly the same one where Danny made Sandy tingle with his driving skills in that movie where everybody sang and wore poodle skirts, not clear. He’s a little banged up, and we can’t help but notice that a car is on fire right behind him. Obviously something did not go quite right with his day, but we really don’t care yet because we’re distracted by Adam looking mighty fine in his tank top and soot-coated skin.

  He fiddles with his wireless phone for a bit, but I guess there’s a signal issue because Adam chunks the phone at the burning vehicle and wanders off to a payphone in a nearby booth, which is a tricky thing to do because there are only about three of those left on the planet. He shoves some coins in the unit and dials a number.

  Cut to what might be a bank somewhere, where Adam is sitting at a desk and looking bored. (His outfit this time is a business suit and some killer eyeglasses, for those keeping score.) He continues to be bored for a bit, and then we hear the song start up in the background, which signals the video editor to jump us back to the phone booth so we can watch that version of Adam sing the song instead of putting out the fire that is still burning.

  Then we’re back at the bank, where a pretty woman is marching along and trying to act like she’s a professional woman in a business suit even though she’s probably a supermodel and is wearing more clothes than she’s accustomed to doing. Next thing you know, some rude little bank robbers come running into the place and interrupting everyone’s financial activities. These guys are serious about their mission and make this clear by shooting guns and making people lay on the floor even though they’re wearing couture.

  The robbers dash about collecting money that does not belong to them and other bank-heist stuff, while Adam cowers under a desk. Then he notices that the Supermodel Business Woman (let’s call her Bianca just to make things easier) is also cowering at an adjacent desk, and he decides that maybe being a superhero would not only be fun but might convince her to go out on a date with him. So he motions for her to take off her shoes, which she immediately does without asking why, so she might be a little bit trampy.

  Adam then grabs the gun of a conveniently nearby robber who is distracted by doing something stupid with a duffel bag. Adam fires off a shot or two, which is kind of pointless since there are about 400 bank robbers, then he grabs Bianca’s grateful hand and they run through a hail of bullets and out the door, hardly getting a scratch because a director never kills off his top-billed actors in the first part of the movie unless that director is Alfred Hitchcock or Brian DePalma.

  Once outside, Adam throws down the gun as he and Bianca hightail it to somewhere that is presumably less noisy, but a policeman sees the gun-flinging and assumes that Adam alone is responsible for all the gunfire that is destroying the building. So the officer and his buddy hoof it after the sprinting couple, instead of checking on the other folks who are still screaming in the bank.

  Adam and Bianca manage to lose the cops rather quickly (those donuts take their toll after a while), and then they mystifyingly decide to run to a hotel where Wiz Khalifa just happens to be getting out of a fancy car. Adam convinces shoeless Bianca to pose seductively behind another car, and then he runs to jump in Wiz’s ride, flooring the gas and racing down the street, leaving the little car valet guy scratching his head and wondering what happened to his tip.

  So now we have the beginning of a nice car chase, with Adam zipping down streets and crossing bridges with the po-po on his tail. Within seconds they have completely left the city and are roaring down some country highway, with the pursuing squad cars having magically multiplied from one to six. Oh, and we also have four police helicopters joining the fun. Apparently they just happened to be flying in the neighborhood and wondered what all the fuss was about.

  The chase goes on for quite a bit, which allows us to get lots of dramatic shots of Adam shifting gears sexily, even though he’s been driving in a straight line for long enough that surely he’s already in top gear. While that business is playing out, we cut to Wiz rapping and profaning while standing near a burning barrel or some such. It’s not clear where he’s at, but it must be a place that doesn’t have automatic sprinklers.

  As words whiz out of Wiz’s mouth, we check the status of the car chase. Uh oh, it seems that Adam is still in checkered-flag position, but then he discovers a pack of pesky squad cars coming from the opposite direction. And to make the situation even more grim, one of the officers pulls out a big-ass gun and starts shooting holes in the expensive Wiz-mobile. Adam needs to go to Plan B, stat!

  So he does, doing some nifty things like slamming on the brakes mixed with more sexy gear-shifting, with the end result being that some of the dual-approach police cars slam into each other and become airborne balls of fire. (It’s very clear that the majority of the budget for this video came into play right here.) Naturally, Adam survives the hailstorm of auto parts and flaming landscaping, driving off into the sunset and leaving the burning bushes behind.

  Cut to Adam, apparently some time later, driving the bullet-riddled Wiz-mobile up to that place under the bridge where we first met him. (He slowly rolls past some unknown lumberjack guy that is just standing there and watching him. No idea what that’s all about. We’ll just assume that they might be in L.A., where lots of lumberjack guys stand around and watch things that are none of their business.)

  Adam calmly gets out of the car and whips off his shirt for no apparent reason, not even bothering to flinch when the car explodes right behind him. He assumes a brief studly pose, letting us see that his packaging is still in order so the upcoming concert tour is probably not in jeopardy, and then he wanders over to that payphone where everything started. He makes the phone call that we’ve already seen him make, and we’ll just assume that he’s calling Barefoot Bianca to apologize for abandoning her shoe-less ass to go play Speed Racer at a really inappropriate time…


Click Here to Watch this Video on YouTube. (Explicit version, by the way.)