[Video Review] Natalia Kills "Controversy"

I draw my inspirations from music and visuals, which is why I get excited whenever a darker, artistically autonomous figure emerges onto the pop scene with intent on experimentation and shock value. Pop music annoys the heck out of numerous genre folks I have talked music with and given the generic song writing and indistinguishable feel to songs, intent and music video clips to grace the Wonderland that is YouTube, I can see how unappealing the genre is to the people invested in originality, creativity and meaning.

Nevertheless, the field does give birth to musical and visual pioneers such as Lady Gaga, who has stated herself that she preoccupies herself with the image and the show more than with the music; a goddess of song she is not, but a goddess of show and shock value she is. Enter the European shark of darker, more mature pop, Natalia Kills and you have an artist who values both the musical and the visual in her work.

The song that has held my playlist hostage is Controversy, Kills’ latest offering and deserves a bit more attention than I think it has gained through the proper channels and YouTube. The song itself doesn’t spell lyrical genius as it follows a disconnected list of items, which have in one capacity or another served as a centre of controversy, with a repetitive chorus revolving whether the listener should or shouldn’t drink the Koolaid. Combined with reverberations and distorted vocals, layers upon layers of clapping, howls and static over a relentless beat, Kills’ lyrics paint a rather dark picture of modern society with a chorus inspired by the Jim Jones mass poisoning and what people are ready to accept without challenging it upon first hearing.

What propels the story and gives it an edge has to be the video, which relies on VHS effects and clever editing to give the viewer the idea that Kills is an accumulation of all the images, of all the controversies, that she in fact is the controversy. Given her dominating sexuality, the decision pays off, because even without lip syncing to her lyrics, skimpy outfits or anything close to choreography, Kills emotes her song through her carnal stares.

Kills reeks of sex. However, her sexuality is not the hyper sexuality of most pop singers, who are offered to viewers as a sex object. She is sex. She embodies the empowered sexuality of a woman in control of the situation, the predatory, the modern femme fatale with jaws ready to snap shut. That is why she doesn’t need a revealing outfit.

The happy ending edited in the song only signifies that she is charge and you, the listener, are her object to reach her climax.

Controversial, no?       

[Sound of Sunday] Pretty Reckless & Robyn

Today is the day I finally completed a project I have started two weeks ago give or take. It's good to have a story completed and after much contemplation, I think the title "Pages and Play Things" have stuck for real as I will probably discuss later, but as I wrote I was heavily under the influence of two diametrically opposed artists. Both are female, blond, gifted vocalists and lyricists.

What have you been listening to?  

[Tuesday 21st February] Asa - "The Way I Feel"

I've had a long day at work and I've been on around for hours of sleep, so my brain's capable only of browsing naughty words and processing pretty moving images. Fortunately, I have the latest of "RuPaul's Drag Race" and "Smash" to get me through the night.

Because I love you, here is the wonderful Asa with "The Way I Feel". Have a Happy Pancake Day to all in the UK.

[November 28th] A Touch of Racism in Music

It’s been quite the debate over whether or not Florence + the Machine’s video for their single “No Light, No Light” is racist. Youtube’s comment section has gone up in flames and several official music critics have expressed their negative opinions in regards to the video. The cause for this criticism is the painted in black Asian dancer, who performs voodoo rituals during the video. Here is the whole bit: 

I’m not convinced the video is racist. It’s decision to play a black-white motif [and I’d like to point out it has been present culturally long before the color became attached to races] with a set of religious beliefs that has everybody’s panties in a twist. To the average viewers pitting Christianity against Voodoo will represent Good versus Evil, mainly because misconceptions about Voodoo as a dark craft are still well and alive. What I believe this pairing to represent is the conflict between rigid control [Christianity] and the close to the heart desires [Voodoo] in the context of a dramatic, forbidden relationship, which throws the one receiving its affections off kilter [here comes the image of falling]. 

But Harry, the painted-black voodoo priest has a voodoo doll and pins it with needles? 

Yes, imaginary reader I’m having a dialogue with. The priest does have a doll and uses the most recognizable imagery associated with Voodoo to illustrate the passionate throes and pain associated with the type of love, which Florence sings about. Florence never sings of anything easy. She intensifies every feeling, every motif in her lyrics to the point that it overloads the human emotional circuit-board. 

It’s not an easy love. It’s all possessing and all possessive. It vibrates and finds itself in every aspect of the singer’s existence. If you watch the video closely, you will see that all the time Florence is laying in bed with a man, which means that the video sequence is happening within her soul space, it’s a conflict and questioning of what to do and how to behave. 

On the outside, she is as calm and controlled as the choir of young boys are [the idea of false self-control is reinforced through the scene where she falls through the stained glass roof], but below the obvious surface she is rocked with these storms of emotions, sweet and torturous at the same time. 

To me this would have been racist, if the dancer chosen to be painted black was Caucasian, which would have been a tasteless call back to racism in cinema, where people from African descent were portrayed using ridiculously painted over white actors. The fact that they chose an Asian and painted him black, thus creating a race that does not exist, but has the quality of haunting and visually striking beauty, is a giveaway that we, the viewers, have to think in terms of symbolism. 

At the end of the day, however, I believe that this video will be perceived as racist, even if I don’t believe it. Working with religion, beliefs and skin color is dangerous, because these are deeply personal and defining to a lot of people. It’s the same with sexuality, especially the jab that homosexuals receive, so I can personally see as to how the video can and has offended a group of viewers, even if it had no intention to attack anyone. It’s the risks that you run with art, I suppose. 

Tell me what you think. Is the video racist? Should artists in any medium try and experiment with skin color and religion? Has a music video offended you?