Lifehouse - "Whatever It Takes"

Okay, so we start out with lots of cut shots showing mundane things you would see in a typical apartment: pictures on the wall, cooking essentials, a bag of chips, a microwave. No real clues yet on where we might be heading. The lead singer is sitting in a bedroom.

Then suddenly the lead singer is strumming his guitar while surrounded by a variety of table lamps. Are they doing a benefit concert at Pottery Barn? He's not even singing yet and I don't know what's going on.

Then we get better views of the apartment, and the theme is industrial, concentration camp, and creepy. Okay, this song is about him doing whatever it takes to keep somebody, and I'm gonna have to say the first item on the checklist should be hire a designer that knows how to use color.

He finally starts singing, and we jump back and forth from Stalag 17 to the Pottery Barn concert to Free Tibet. What is the obsession with accent lighting?

Then he breaks into the chorus, and suddenly the pictures on the wall and various other objects around the bedroom start exploding into bits. What the hell?

Finally the apparently deadly chorus ends, and the lead singer moves into the kitchen. (We get close-ups of his grunge-booted feet actually walking, not sure why.) He paws the kitchen counter, and then fiddles with a picture of him and some girl, and I'm assuming she's the object of his affection. (Gotta say the girl is right to have reservations about the relationship, especially now that we know his singing can cause destruction.)

And there he goes with the chorus again, and all kinds of crap is blowing up all over the kitchen. Cheerios flying, milk gushing, condiments all in a tizzy. I'm really starting to hate this chorus. People could die.

And more shots of him playing his guitar with the pottery barn lamps. Okay, symbolism can be fun and interesting. Confusion is just... confusion.

Oh wait, now he's singing again, and all of the things that previously exploded all over the apartment are miraculously reassembling themselves and everything is all pretty again.

Then he's back in the bedroom, and the girl from the kitchen picture is slumbering peacefully behind him while he sits on the end of the bed. He reaches over and wakes her up (rude, dude). She beams up at him, they hold hands, and the lead singer turns back to the camera and looks happy and satisfied.

Loved that final shot, touching. But everything up to that point? What the hell?


Editor's Note: This is the place where you would normally click to see the video on YouTube, but for some odd reason you can no longer find the original video that I reviewed. No idea what happened, but I'm guessing there was some type of litigation and a copyright holder got pushy. You'll just have to do the visuals in your head...

Leona Lewis - "Bleeding Love"

We zoom in on a residential building, and we get glimpses of several women in their apartments, each of them in various states of undress as well as emotion. The camera finally comes to rest on Leona, sprawled out on a hallway floor, wearing a really pretty dress. (Girl, you don’t DO that in couture. Get your ass off the ground.)

But Leona’s stubborn, so she starts to sing and play with her hair instead of getting up. When she finally does, the wall color is different, so either somebody messed up or she has special powers and can walk through walls.

Cut to a crying woman on her unmade bed, looking at photos, which I think we’re supposed to take as proof that her man is seeing somebody else. Not clear, and I’m distracted by the fact that her sheets are half off the mattress. She sloppy. Then the drums kick in, and I’m much more interested in that.

Leona’s back on the floor in the first hallway.

Then we’re in another apartment, with a sobbing woman sporting enough mascara to re-tar the roof of Buckingham Palace. Her man comes in the door (hey wait, is that the guy in the photos?), and she throws some wadded up panties at him that are (presumably) not hers.

Okay, better shot of Leona in the second hallway, and she IS wearing a different dress. So now I guess the explanation is that she’s quick doing costume changes in the lobby during the bits when people are crying over photos on a tacky bed or throwing panties across the room.

Quick shot from the side of the building and we see a total of four angry women in apartments, so I guess Leona has at least two more costume changes as the stories unfold.

Back to mattress girl, who is now jumping on the bed and throwing the photos around. (I would get spanked for doing that, just sayin.) And panty girl throws her cheatin man out the door. (He stands outside the slammed door and looks confused. Dude, those weren’t her panties, so unless they are YOURS, you don’t live here anymore.)

More shots of Leona in the golden hallway. (She really likes to play with her hair.) Not sure why she’s rubbing up against the walls and all, and at one point I do believe she was humping a radiator. And she can’t seem to stand up on her own, leaning against the wall like she’s really tired. (Was there alcohol at the craft services table?)

Brief glimpse of a third woman, so we’re about to get her story, but first Leona, in a new outfit (think Barbarella) wanders into a bedroom, flops on her back on the bed, and then sings a line while arching her back and shoving her breasts up to Jesus. The height she achieves is amazing. Seriously, stop the video at 1:42.

Okay, time for third girl’s story. Jerk from the photos and the hurled panties walks up to her door, she opens it and they immediately begin sucking face. Then they jump on the bed and whoopee ensues. I guess they know each other.

More shots of Leona roaming the halls. She’s not wearing a back brace, which kind of surprises me after the athletics of her previous scene. She’s got a new outfit, of course, so we’re about to see the fourth girl. And it looks like somebody found her some coffee, because she’s not sliding along the walls as much.

Final girl is sitting on HER bed, wearing pantyhose with giant white circles, waiting for the phone to ring and checking her watch. Honey, whoever you’re waiting for is not going to show up until you take those awful pantyhose off and burn them. Or you can at least throw them at somebody. Girl #2 can give you tips on how to do that.

Quick shot of Girl #3 still flopping around with the Jerk, and hey, they’re right next door to pantyhose girl. You wanna call this one or should I?

Lots of shots of Leona again, with her hair blowing wildly, even though she’s inside and not near a window. Thankfully, she’s not using her breasts to recreate part of Mt. Rushmore in this scene.

Okay, then we get really busy. Let’s see, some guy walks in on Jerk and #3 and there’s a scuffle, Bed Girl lights all the photos on fire, and Pantyhose Girl tries to drown herself in the bathtub. This is getting serious. Luckily, Bed Girl catches that bed on fire and the sprinklers go off.

This calms down Bed Girl, stops the fight in Girl #3’s boudoir of shame, and allows Leona to dance around in the streaming water, twirling, singing and shimmying. Quick shot of Leona’s feet sporting very high heels made out of golden chain-link fencing. Somebody paid big bucks for those, so they had to have their own cameo.

Oh, and the beau that Pantyhose girl was waiting on DOES show, it’s somebody we haven’t seen so he’s most likely a nice guy innocently visiting a house of madness. And happily, since the fire sprinklers are still going, Pantyhose Girl doesn’t have to explain that she’s dripping wet because she just tried to kill herself over the fact that her date was ten minutes late.

I now fully understand why Leona keeps, keeps bleeding. Don’t you? Thought so.


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Kelly Clarkson - "My Life Would Suck Without You"

So Kelly’s on a swing in a park, and at first it seems she’s watching some young kids frolic about, but then you quickly realize that it’s daytime in their park and night in hers. So either she can see really far, or these things did not take place at the same time.

Oh, and the kids are doing something with a bracelet, but it’s not real clear what that might be. Perhaps they are making a pact of friendship, or maybe it’s a livestock transaction in Ancient Greece.

Now Kelly is wearing that same bracelet, only now she’s in an apartment, answering the door. It’s some guy, and she waves keys in front of him and then runs all over the house while he tries to catch her. (Maybe this scene was supposed to be for the kids and somebody got the script pages messed up.)

Shots of Kelly in the night-time swing again. She must like it there.

Back to the apartment, where Kelly finally throws the keys in the toilet. (I’m still thinking the script is jacked.)

And then, HEY, Kelly’s on stage for the chorus. Girl looks hawt, with the lights and the wind machine and the zooming cameras. This is much better than people running and swinging.

Sadly, the chorus eventually ends, and we’re back in the apartment. Kelly and the Key-Wanter are on the couch, and she decides he’s been reading too much or something and snatches away his Juggs magazine. Then she hits him with it and throws it out the window. She mean.

More shots of her swinging.

He throws something of hers out the window, I think, can’t really tell because her hair is in the way. Then she’s racing through the house, grabbing up other things of his and chunking 'em out the window. Come on, people. Is all of this really necessary?

Back to the more-fun chorus on stage, and a little relief, but this time they include cut shots of them still cleaning out the closets and throwing crap onto the street. Kelly even gets dangerously close to throwing a fishbowl, with live fish, out the window. And we would have to hate her a little bit if she did that, even if it’s only a pretend music video, because that’s just wrong. Bad Kelly.

Key Man saves the day at the last minute by snatching out the guppy (isn’t that a Jamaican song?) at the last second. And are these people not thinking about who might be walking below the window? Nice grandma on her way to the retirement center, lugging freshly-baked strudel, and BAM. Wetness and death. This is a really mean video.

Then we have the quiet part of the song where Kelly realizes she can’t let him go. Of course not. Otherwise he would testify against her in the domestic violence lawsuit. And HE saved the guppy, not her. She’d be paying some big money to settle that one.

So now they’re all happy, and decide to go ride around in a jeep, so Kelly can whip her hair around in the wind and he can look cool wearing shades. (Quick shot of the famous bracelet hanging from the rearview mirror, so I guess there was no livestock swap.)

Chorus again, so more mixed shots of Kelly’s hair on stage, and then Kelly’s hair in the jeep. Things go sour in that jeep when they apparently get lost and start a fight about it. Kelly hits him AGAIN, this time with the map. Girl needs some anger management classes.

All this bickering causes him to lose control of the jeep, and although there’s no real danger, they do end up in a gravel parking lot where dust gets everywhere and they aren’t so pretty anymore. I guess the horrifying possibility that she might be dirty AND single is too much for her, so Kelly grabs the guy and they kiss.

And then we’re done. Did you learn a lot? Me neither.


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Taylor Swift - "Love Story"

 
We’re on a college campus, with Taylor walking along and looking forlorn, when she spies a boy sitting under a tree. While she rudely stares at him, she starts getting flashbacks of a past life they apparently shared.

We’re transported back to old-timey days (which would be 2004 for Taylor, but a couple hundred years for the rest of us), and Taylor is now standing on a balcony opening off a humongous house. If you haven’t figured it out yet, she’s playing Juliet, and she’s wishing for a Romeo.

Then she’s in a ballroom, lots of candles and everyone is beautiful. In walks tree boy, all dappered up, and they only have eyes for each other. Then everybody joins together for a waltz, and I guess they didn’t have a lot of time to practice, because the extras are really bad at it. But everybody’s still pretty, and Taylor and Tree get to do cute things with their hands.

Later that night, or that century, who knows, Taylor is trudging through the forest, holding up an oil lamp, acting like she’s using it to see with, but really so the camera can get good shots of her dewy skin. Suddenly, there’s Tree Boy, standing next to one of those creepy statues from “Interview with the Vampire”. (Seriously, stop the video at 1:42.) Hope she’s got a wooden stake up in that petticoat, just in case.

She goes up to him and discreetly puts her finger across his lips. (“Shhh. Don’t tell me you’re a vampire. It’s been a long day, singing on the patio for hours and then all that dancing, so I really don’t have time for any more issues.”)

Then they wander around a bit, holding hands and chatting, the oil lamp never more than 3 inches from her peachy face. (Girl, careful with that burning oil, that weave will go up in a flash.) Of course, this is a chaste little video (all those tween-ager fans out there, sayin), so they end up just petting a horse conveniently standing nearby instead of having sex.

Whoops, I may have lied. After he leaves, we see Taylor plucking a cherry off a tree. Umm…

Then Taylor’s back on that balcony, and I guess it’s been a while since she went to the zoo with Tree, because she’s singing the part about how she hasn’t seen him in so long and wonders if he’ll ever come save her. Lo and behold, she spies Hardwood walking out of the forest, headed her way.

Ecstatic, she starts racing down endless flights of curving stairs, the 20-foot train on her dress artfully billowing out behind her. Quick cut shots between the two of them, with his in slo-mo, ‘cause he only has to cover about 5 feet of grass and she has an entire plantation house to navigate.

They stand in the middle of a field, hold each other’s head, and glow at each other, while the camera swirls around them. But they never even kiss. Hello?

Back in the present, Taylor and Tree stand in the middle of the campus courtyard, unable to hold each other’s hands because Taylor is carrying some stupid books, and glow at each other. But they never kiss. What’s the name of this song, again?

Does Taylor Swift even know how Romeo and Juliet ended? Just wondering.


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Black Eyed Peas - "I Gotta Feeling"

We start out with some really skinny girls in short skirts walking down Hollywood Boulevard, so you know right off this thing is going to be of the highest artistic integrity.

Quick shot of Fergie in some sort of dressing room, proving that she can indeed lift her leg over her head, even while wearing high heels. Shots of other people getting dressed for something. Apparently it’s hot outside, because nobody’s wearing much of anything.

Will.i.am starts out with the vocals, while he wanders around searching for something, probably looking for some additional lyrics beyond the two lines that he knows really, really well. We see little snippets of neon paint dribbles that will prove to be an important plot device later on in the video.

For some reason, lots of shots of Fergie wearing only a g-string and a boa. She must really love that boa, considering how she’s rubbing it on her body.

More shots of people getting ready, people walking on the streets in their skanky outfits, and somebody spilling more of that paint.

Then we come across Taboo just floating in the air, for no apparent reason. The skanky ho’s all walk past him like it’s no big, they see it every day.

Okay, finally we see some people in actual CARS headed to this shindig party that everyone has been prepping for. This is L.A. People don’t walk anywhere, especially while wearing the stiletto heels that keep appearing in front of the camera out of nowhere.

We get to the party house, the music gets louder as we swing into the chorus, and everybody is jumping all over the room with a lot of energy, bouncing off the walls. Clearly, these people are on something a little stronger than appetite suppressants.

Now it’s Fergie’s time to sing, so she struts around a bit, waving this weird feather-duster thing that’s really distracting. Then she almost falls off a couch, while on the wall behind her is a giant target with a shark coming out of it. I supposed that means something to somebody.

More drinking and hyperactive dancing, brief shot of Fergie feeling up some female extra, then she’s crammed in one of those plexi-glass ball chairs on a chain, then she’s groping somebody else, then she’s on the other side of the club. This girl gets around. But she still hasn’t put down that damn feather duster.

Shot of two girls kissing, then a slo-mo shot of Fergie twirling her hair through the air, and more shots of shoes.

What’s this? Oh, here comes some guy carrying the can of day-glo paint that’s been dribbled all over town. Everybody immediately starts shoving their hands in the paint up to their wrists, making pseudo gloves. (Because that’s the first thing YOU would do, right?)

They break out more paint, and people are smearing it on their faces and clothes and whatnot. Then they switch on the black lights and everybody breaks out into the chorus and pogos around the room with even more intensity.

This goes on for quite some time, so I’m guessing this scene was the biggest part of their budget. Someone gets creative, and starts turning the black lights off and on so it sort of looks like a different scene and they can get more footage out of it. But it’s still the same dance moves, same people, and same repeated lyrics.

And I keep thinking, did an Oompa Loompa explode up in here?

As we near the end, they start just throwing in any random shot: people getting thrown in a pool, some klutzy woman taking cookies out of the oven and spilling them, people rolling off beds in their underwear, passed-out hookers in hallways, and folks taking a tumble in the bathroom. Those wacky Black Eyed Peas. Hoo boy.

Finally, the party’s over, and we see people wandering off into the night. One of the skinny models from the opening shot trips and busts her butt on the pavement. I think that was my favorite part.

And yes, the last time you see Fergie at the party, she’s still got that dang feather duster…


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Rob Thomas - "Her Diamonds"

Okay, we start off in… I don’t know what it is. A cave? A disco? Some spooky lost room at Hogwarts where Hermione morphed from frizzy-haired munchkin to supermodel between movies? All we really know is that Rob is already singing about the sad, lonely girl who cries pretty tears.

Oh, and it seems that one of the motifs for this video is using reflections of Rob on odd surfaces. They’ve already done that about 20 times and we’re barely 30 seconds into it.

Wait, now we’ve switched over to an apartment, guessing it’s in a high-rise because you can see other tall buildings out the window. Hold up. What is THAT? Some freaky woman is sitting on the bed, covered in ice, her hair is all spiky and it looks like someone shoved icicles into her head. Maybe it’s Lady Gaga doing a cameo.

Ice Girl is just sitting there, staring out the window. It’s not quite clear if it’s sunrise or sunset. She’s not drinking coffee (oh wait, she can’t, she’s frozen) or putting on her jammies so we have no visual clues to help us out here with the time frame.

Oh wait, now Rob is trapped behind a wall of ice, still singing. Poor thing.

Close-up on Ice Girl’s eye. Wow, her mascara looks really good, considering she’s a popsicle and all.

Okay, the sun outside the window just moved up, so either it’s morning or the camera guy tripped. Whoa, the sun just got really bright. It‘s morning. (But we still don’t see anybody drinking coffee, so something’s obviously not right in this place.)

More singing Rob behind the ice wall. Then reflections of Rob in the icy spikes sticking out of the girl’s head. (Told ya, reflections everywhere you look, they’re gonna wear us out with that.)

Hey, now Ice Girl is melting, chunks falling off of her. I wonder if she really wants this to happen? She looks very troubled about something. But she’s not getting up to close the window, so I guess we’ll just have to see.

How convenient. We just got a quick shot of an iPhone, and it’s 7:15am. Thank you. I was so worried about what time it was, because that could TOTALLY change the story.

Rob’s still behind the ice wall, but it looks like there are cracks now. This is SO deep. Wow.

Hey, Ice Girl just broke one of her hands free of the ice. And now an arm! Things are really starting to get busy up in here, big sheets of ice sliding off her onto the bed and floor. (I hope she has insurance, because this is turning into a mess.)

Reflections of Rob on the icy, watery floor.

Wait, is Ice Girl really Alicia Silverstone? (Pause it at 2:32, study, and get back to me.)

Oh dear. She just rolled off the bed and fell on the floor. Now she’s wallering around in all those chunks of ice. THAT can’t feel good, hope Alicia got paid well for this.

Okay, ice wall is gone, and now Rob is singing and dancing in front of a really bright sun thing, doing some pretty pathetic arm movements. (He should have hired Celine Dion’s Arm Choreographer, THAT person is really good.)

Alicia crawls to the window and pulls herself up into the sunlight. She still doesn’t look very happy (she might just be wondering who is going to clean all this water up, not sure). Wait, it looks like she might be trying to sing along with Rob, but you can’t hear anything because right then all 120 of Rob’s backup singers kick in at full throttle. That’s kind of rude.

Okay, the camera guy realizes there’s too many people singing, so he does a close-up of Alicia’s vocal cords so we can see that she is, indeed, singing. And then she throws her head back, and based on her expression, something very sensual just occurred and/or happened to her.

Wait, it’s over, final scene with the camera man walking backwards (watch out for that ice!) while Alicia stands at the sunlit window in her nightie. There are so many unanswered questions. How did the bitch get frozen? Is she going to get revenge? Does she have anything dry to wear? Did anybody ever get any coffee?

Sigh.


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Pink - "Please Don't Leave Me"

We zoom in on a really ritzy house, with Pink and some guy tussling over golf clubs and looking generally unhappy. And Pink is sporting a very chaste hairdo and subdued clothing, so you know she’s not in her right mind. But she does manage to show some cleavage, so all is not lost.

So then the guy gets a better grip on the golf clubs and is racing out of the house, even though Pink is clearly singing to him that he shouldn’t go and all. He nears the top of a staircase, where someone has conveniently left a pile of clear and black glass marbles. (Looks like somebody’s been to Pier 1! In 1987.)

Of course the guy loses his balance and goes ass over elbows down the stairs. While he’s writhing in pain at the bottom of the steps, Pink gets an odd expression on her face. It’s not certain if she’s wondering how badly he’s hurt, trying to figure out if she’s enjoying seeing him in pain, or just remembered an appointment with the gynecologist.

Next scene has Pink dolled up in some hooker circus outfit, with a cute little hat and all, just as she’s appropriately singing the line “how did I become so obnoxious?”. The golf guy is in a hospital bed in the same house, and she’s stitching him up with needle and thread. (That sewing project in junior high Home Economics finally paid off. Whew.)

Then Pink snatches up one of the golf clubs and does a naughty little dance with it (um, you can keep that club when you’re all done riding it, thanks). Suddenly, she hauls off and whacks golf guy’s injured leg with the club, and we learn two things: Pink has issues, and we’re doing movie tributes. Yay! (This one is “Misery”, for those keeping score.)

Now Pink’s in the kitchen really hacking away at cabbage or some such with a big-ass knife. (She must hate vegetables and/or roughage.) Golf guy tries to sneak out of the house, but Pink hears him and catches up to him at the front door. But instead of actually stopping him, she pauses to belt out a few lines of the chorus and fondle a colander. Guy opens the door, and is immediately attacked by Cujo.

Next scene has Pink in another hooker circus outfit and cute hat, but this time she and Arnold Palmer have kabuki makeup on, making them look dead or just really hung over. He’s strapped into a wheelchair, and she’s touching up his lipstick. Then she hits him in the chest right during the “perfect little punching bag” line, cause you knew that one was coming.

They’re on some stage thing (this is a BIG house), and the seats in the audience are filled with those creepy porcelain dolls that are always a sign of the devil or at least mental instability. I’m guessing this is a nod to “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?” Pink shoves his wheelchair off the stage (you know, like Diana Ross did to Mary Wilson during that Motown anniversary special) and he crashes into the devil dolls.

She then jumps on top of him, all smoochy and loving, and I’m assuming they have Cabbage Patch sex because she wakes up naked. To find that her golfing buddy is not in the room with her.

Well, that just irks her to no end, so she puts on another cute outfit and then grabs an axe and goes searching. And she manages to chase him into a bathroom, where he slams the door. So of COURSE they have to act out “The Shining”, with Pink whacking a hole in the door and shoving her face through it. He makes sure to fumble around for a weapon long enough that she has time to finish singing another round of the chorus. Timing is everything, yes?

He sprays something in her eyes, she stumbles backwards, and wouldn’t you know it, there’s those damn glass marbles again (See, boys and girls. Pier 1 can KILL!) and Pink goes sailing over the balcony and crashes a few stories below. (Which is a tribute to a lot of things. “Vertigo”, “King Kong”, the economy, Paris Hilton’s contribution to society.)

We end with medical people and police diddling around while they wheel Arnold out the door, and Pink is all splayed out, maybe dead, but still singing. Then she sits up and throws the viewing audience a big kiss, meaning it was all in fun and she’s not really advocating domestic violence. Hee hee.

Just put the dolls away, okay? Thanks.


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