Kanye West - “Stronger”

  We start out with a solar flare that completely destroys the universe. Oh wait, maybe not. We cut to the inside of some very intense, futuristic medical establishment where we have lots of interesting-looking machines and flashing lights. Some folks who normally race motorcycles have been hired to punch a lot of buttons and wear their helmets so we can’t see their faces.

  We then get rapid-fire jump shots of urban street scenes and some nice graffiti title cards to let us know we’re somewhere in Japan, or at least trapped in an anime-inspired film about Japan. But the main story is back in that creepy medical building where somebody appears to be baking inside a giant burrito maker.

  The microwave dings, and Kanye comes rolling out of one of the E-Z Bake oven, lying on a hospital gurney or maybe a high-end coffee table. He has electrodes and such attached to his body, so they might be testing him to see how many more hit singles he can produce. The helmet heads continue to run scans of Kanye using giant white Cheerios while the Daft-Punk sampling music continues in the background.

  Cut to Kanye somewhere else, wearing those now-famous glasses that look like window blinds. He’s standing against a shadowy wall, being all street, while we get quick glimpses of a supermodel looking sultry and sporting an asymmetrical hairdo while neon glows behind her. Kanye likes to do dance moves that involve shoving his hands in his pockets, in case you need to take notes about that sort of thing.

  Next we have some military people looking bored, a couple of folks who seem to be angry with those military people, more of Kanye on that coffee table, more of Kanye breaking it down for us in that alley, and shots of overcrowded city streets where no one seems to be happy. All of this is accompanied by the flashing Japanese words which probably explain exactly what is going on. Or maybe not. They might just be there for style and atmosphere.

  Suddenly, we have a motorcycle gang racing along through the middle of town. We have no idea who invited them, what it’s all about, or why it’s so important that they get somewhere fast, but the brake lights (the few times that they use them) look pretty and blurry as they race past designer boutiques and startled woman lugging groceries that are probably far more healthy than anything an American would eat.

  Kanye appears as a third version of himself, this one having something to do with wearing a hoodie while he’s bathed in golden light and standing in front of a bank vault door or at least something that’s metal and round. He seems to be upset. Are they not letting him get to one of his safety deposit boxes? Doesn’t he have his own bank at this point?

  Next up is the supermodel again as she walks along inside some giant tube, pausing to do a few hip thrusts here and there to show that she’s multi-talented. Then she does something in front of a glass wall of neon tubes that magically allows her to clone herself and get sexy with her own image. Then Kanye comes along and nuzzles her neck from behind. She obviously has a far more exciting life than we do.

  Now we have another supermodel (or at least another outfit) standing in the middle of a busy intersection and glaring at us. I’m not aware of what we might have done, but she clearly didn’t like it. Cut to one of the Kanye characters in a place with lots of pipes that don’t really seem to have a purpose, followed by Coffee Table Kanye still being digitally poked and prodded by the bike racing duo with the identity issues.

  Next up is a nurse walking down a hospital corridor and dragging along one of those odd machines with the clear enema bag hanging from a pole. As she nears one of the patient rooms, we cut inside to see Kanye (Number five? Not sure.) writhing about on his bed like something wasn’t right with that Mexican platter he ordered. Nurse Lady opens the door, takes a gander inside, then runs screaming back down the hallway. (Honey, you’re supposed to make the patients feel better, not worse.)

  Hysterica apparently alerts the authorities, because we suddenly have a whole pack of armored people stomping down the hallway, closing in on a slightly-sweaty Kanye who appears to be swathed in toilet paper. (No idea.) It seems that Kanye does not appreciate being confronted by strangers with guns, so he sends a mind beam their way that makes them fly into the air and presumably die. Kanye don’t play.

  Cut back to those bored military people, who seem to be a bit more invested in the goings on now that there have been explosions and stuff. But they still don’t seem to be doing anything worthwhile, so I’m really not sure why they’re on the payroll.

  Now we have a montage of the Kanye personalities, with Sunglasses Kanye repeatedly advising that it’s “not like I never told ya”. (I guess I missed a memo because I don’t remember him ever telling me anything. We don’t talk as much as we used to.) Anyway, Kanye gets over it and moves on to the rest of the song, while images of the Supermodel Lady are splashed on the wall behind him. (I may be mistaken, but she appears to be grooming his back with her tongue, in what might be one of those naughty wildlife games you read about on the Internet.)

  Brief break in the lyrics so Kanye can perform some more choreography and repeatedly touch his nifty sunglasses to ensure that we see them. Then he’s back to singing while we get another montage, this one involving more of that eerie medical equipment, followed by shots of Supermodel Lady walking back down the strange tube, heading away from the place where she made love to herself in the mirror.

  Oh wait, maybe she wasn’t done with the cloning business after all, because she’s back in front of the glass and now there are three of her, each of them straddling furniture and shimmying with burning heat and passion. But before any of them can reach an orgasm, we start getting shots of somebody spelling out something with a fancy gun that shoots neon paint. (Possibly a citation from the Health Department?) Then Kanye comes out to nuzzle Super Lady again and the video abruptly-


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Katy Perry, Kanye West - “E.T.”

We start out with old-timey music playing while the camera pans over piles of rubble. It’s not clear what we’re looking at, but some of the tidbits of this and that sure do look like bones, so this might not be the happiest video ever. Is this the fallout from a war of some kind, like the Republicans trying to do everything they can to prevent universal health care and, oops, they went too far?

The camera focuses on a robot on the ground, sporting what might be a tiny coal furnace in his chest. That seems odd, so we zoom in for a closer peek, but we don’t really learn anything because suddenly we’re in outer space, with a pod-ship flying toward us. (Hey, is that Sigourney Weaver waving at us from the window, wearing tiny panties and clutching a cat?) Next thing you know, Kanye is onscreen, rapping away, so the plot’s a little hard to follow here.

While Kanye floats around in some anti-gravity chamber, he babbles about his sexual prowess and how having bang-bang with him will blow your mind. That’s nice. Thanks for offering, but I believe I’ll pass. Then the pod-ship flies away from us, and I can’t say that I shed a tear that Kanye had to go somewhere else for a while.

We start hearing Katy’s vocals while we watch some billowing thing floating around in the night sky. (Or maybe it’s not night and the sun is dead. Wouldn’t surprise me, this hasn’t been a real uplifting video so far.) The billowing thing undulates for a while, and we get the sense that there is some kind of being in all the billowing fabric. Maybe a drag queen with a little bit too much dependence on chiffon?

Eventually we see that, yep, there’s somebody in there, but it’s an alien, sort of like the “E.T.” that we know and love from the movie, but WAY stretched out and not accompanied by Drew Barrymore in pigtails. While this guy continues to billow in the sky and Katy wails about “different DNA”, we get quick images of scientific-looking things and possibly an egg being fertilized.

Oh wait, here comes somebody else doing gymnastics in the sky whilst wearing an outfit with far too much flapping material. We have more quick images of various things, none of them very pleasant until a shot involving some guy’s naked chest. We could certainly study that for a while, but I guess we don’t have time. Okay, the new sky floater is apparently Katy, wearing wicked-ass makeup, a blouse made out of plastic tubing, and a severely-rigid hairstyle that makes me want to organize my CD’s.

This Katy floats around for quite a while, probably because she refused to get strapped into THAT mess again and they better get some serious footage while they had the chance. We see another series of nature shots that are somehow uncomfortable, then Katy does a wardrobe change into something that involves a lot of white material and a new hairdo that could easily grate cheese. I guess there’s some structural issues with this new outfit, because she seems to be having trouble getting the top half of her body in a comfortable position.

More nature shots, and we move from uncomfortable to downright vicious, with animals killing each other and such. Nice. Not really caring for that business. But Cheese-Grater Katy doesn’t care, continuing to do a bad version of The Robot while whizzing through the air. Oh wait, she’s not whizzing anymore and seems to be falling down to… well, I don’t know if it’s supposed to be Earth. We’ll just call it “ground” for now.

It seems that Katy changed her clothes once again while re-entering the atmosphere, and now she’s all dusty gothic, with the train on her skirt long enough sleep 60 dinner guests and another new hairdo that makes me think “Jennifer Lopez in ‘The Cell’” for some reason. Oh look, Katy has landed near that robot thing, and she runs over to investigate if that really is a coal-burner in his chest.

She takes a few seconds to sing a touching part of the song, then she wipes some radiation fallout off the helmet of the robot, and we see that inside the helmet is the video image of a head. Seeing this, Katy then crams her hand into the coal-burner thing on his chest. (Not really sure that would be my first plan of action, but we’ll assume that Katy has read a manual somewhere that says “when encountering video heads, shove your hand into places that look hot”.)

And this fire-touching leads to Kanye returning to the anti-gravity chamber for another round of rapping. (And the connection would be?) At first, Kanye is using one hand to grip his crotch so hard that you really expect toothpaste to shoot out of his head. (Kanye, HOW old are you again?) While Kanye continues to love himself down, we see the robot get to its feet, along with shots of violent sex among animals.

The randy footage gets Katy’s hormones a-jumpin’, and she smooches the robot on his glassy helmet. This apparently causes a brief nuclear explosion, so I’m not sure that was the best move. But it also causes the robot to turn into a slightly-androgynous male who likes to shove his chest forward so Katy can lean toward his nipples and we get a close-up of her fabulous makeup.

It seems that Katy might have some failing eyesight (honey, maybe you shouldn’t be floating around in space so much) so she reaches for some spectacles lying conveniently nearby. While Kanye appears to be sucked away to another galaxy by some vengeful gravitational force (yay!), Katy slaps on the glasses, then pulls off her outfit so we can see she has gazelle legs and a puffy tail. Didn’t see THAT coming.

We wind things down with Katy holding hands with her new lover, and the camera slowly pulls backwards as she and her surprisingly butt-baring beau stand and watch yet another nuclear explosion occur in the distance. Then they take a few steps toward their future together as a non-traditional couple. I’m guessing the marriage won’t take place in Texas…



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Kanye West, Rihanna, Kid Cudi - “All Of The Lights”

Side Note 1: There’s a disclaimer with the video that we also have vocals from Fergie, Charlie Wilson, John Legend, Tony Williams, Alicia Keys, La Roux, The Dream, Ryan Leslie, Alvin Fields and Ken Lewis. Seriously? Did they record this song at a Grammy after-party? Anyway…

Side Note 2: You might not want to watch this if you have any type of seizure tendencies. There’s some irritating strobe-light business going on…

We start out looking at a letter board with lots of names and numbers. We have no idea what this thing really is. It could be an apartment directory or some weird stock exchange. Who knows. Cut to a little girl opening a door, and we immediately feel sorry for her, because some wicked parent or guardian has forced her to wear a scarf around her neck that is bigger than she is. But the little girl is a trooper, so she and her neckwear and backpack head out into the snowy streets of some city.

The little cherub wanders around for a while, probably because she can’t see where she’s going and is just walking until she slams into something, then she’ll adjust her plan. Then we start seeing images of what might be an apartment complex, or perhaps a mental institution for people traumatized by things around their neck. Back to the little girl, still trudging along and trying to breathe, It’s dark now, so this poor thing has been marching for a while. I hope she has some snacks in that backpack.

And here we go with the really busy part of the video. Words are flashing and zooming all over the screen in a variety of colors and fonts. It’s interesting for about three seconds, and then you’re over it. Apparently somebody doesn’t understand this, and it goes on forever. Rihanna’s voice shows up during this bit, and she has quite a mouthful to say, so I’m already thinking this is one of those “featuring” songs where the guests do all the work while the supposed main singer plays Scrabble.

Two hours later, the words finally quit flashing, and we see Kanye make his debut, first on top of a police car (no idea), followed by him holding his head, and then some shots where he might have been involved in some domestic violence. It seems that somebody was doing something they shouldn’t have, and people got slapped, and then somebody else went to jail. Not really sure.

Back to the squad car, where Kanye is busting some moves on the roof, or at least doing something with his hands that might possibly be coordinated with the beat of the song. Even though there are several police cars in this odd alley, we don’t see any officers, so who knows what happened to them. (Did Dunkin Donuts just open?)

Oh my, Rihanna just made her onscreen debut, and the poor thing is wearing what looks like a horse’s bridle on her headlights, and that’s ALL she’s wearing. She’s trying to be sexy and seductive, but she has to restrain her movements or we’re going to see nipple, and we know how that turned out for Janet Jackson. Back to Kanye thrusting his arms around some more while he straddles the lightbar on top of the police car. He’s really insistent about something, but I’m just waiting for him to slip and fall, because that’s how I roll.

More Rihanna, with her nipple-limited dance moves (she basically waves one hand over her head while swaying back and forth approximately 2 millimeters). Then she throws caution to the wind and gives us a side view, making it clear that there’s really no reason for her to be wearing anything at all at this point. At least the security-screening people at the airports will appreciate her getup, because it’s obvious that she’s not hiding anything anywhere.

Now Kanye is in some room where it’s necessary for different-colored lights to flash all over his body while he performs a dance that I can only describe as “Cave Man Looks For Bush To Pee Behind”. Then we get a close-up of his face, so we can see his designer shades and jingling bling, because you’re really not a pop star unless you have such. He also insists on looking at the ground instead of at us, and this is very annoying.

More shots of the little girl. She’s still out on the streets, her head balanced on the killer scarf, and she’s looking around in all directions. (Is she trying to find the rest of Rihanna’s outfit?) Zip back to the alley with the police cars, so Kanye can do some more mystifying moves while law-enforcement personnel remain AWOL.

Next we have a close-up on Rihanna‘s face, and she really is pretty, so I really don’t get the need for her to choose couture that lets us check the status of her latest Brazilian wax. Well, shoot, we go back to the full figure shot, and you can tell that Rihanna is a bit over the harness thing, because she does the same few simple moves, and then turns her spotlights toward Tokyo.

Oh look, now it’s time for Kid Cudi in his red leather jacket. It looks like somebody forgot to explain some fundamental rules to him, because he faces away from the camera the whole time. (Has he done something lately where he’s concerned that people might recognize his face?) Whatever his reason for the doing that, it doesn’t stop him from waving his arms all over the place and jiggling like he really needs to find a bathroom, stat.

And we’re back to Kanye on the police car. It’s obvious to me that we’ve milked this setting for all it’s worth, but nobody asked me to direct the video. To make it even more annoying, Kanye is just standing there, trying to look all street while trumpets blare on the soundtrack. (Does he think he’s in “Rocky XXII: Sylvester Stallone Done Spent All His Money And Needs To Fight Somebody Else”?)

Kanye poses for a very long time. We even get a close-up of his shoes. None of this is necessary in any way and my attention is waning. I start hoping that Taylor Swift will walk around the corner and set Kanye off, because at least that would be interesting.

Aw hell, now we cut to more of the blazing and jittery words flashing across the screen. I was over it the first time, and now we’ve got an encore. During this mess, the director of the video (Hype Williams, like that’s a real name) keeps splashing his name like he’s really proud of this part. He shouldn’t be. This segment goes on forever as well, with all the people supposedly singing on the song getting a shout out, along with the food service people, somebody’s dog, and a list of good criminal lawyers.

And we end with a series of colors jittering on the screen. That’s one way to finish things up. But I’m more concerned about the little girl. Did she ever get that damn scarf off her neck?



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