In This Club

Every time I signed in to my blog to make a post I couldn't stop laughing at the previous post of my cat. It distracted me to the point where I forgot why I was at my computer.

No more! I am now making a post about nothing in particular, but it will start with a song. Specifically, one by Usher. Even more specifically, Love In This Club.

How the hell did I miss this gem of a music video?! Please observe below a carefully googled image of various screencaps:I know exactly how I missed this video and I'll tell you right now: when it came out three (?) years ago, my life was not centred around hilarious internet videos, knitting, and my cat. I'm not really sure what in my life was so important at the time that I couldn't watch this, but there it is.

Anyway, I was watching this video and several things jumped out at me.

The first was that the lyrics for this song are patently absurd. I know this isn't a revelation for any song on the radio, least of all one by Usher, but I HIGHLY doubt Young Jeezy has the power to free me "sexually, mentally, physically, emotionally". Maybe I just have to give him a chance and "make love to a thug in the club with his ice on, 87 jeans and a fresh pair of Nikes on". Clearly he hasn't seen an IPA representation of the word Nike because if he had he would know that it has two syllables, the latter containing a high front unrounded vowel, but I digress.

That's all I really have to say about this song, I guess. I had a lot more ideas when I started writing, but my flowery wording distracted me. I agree with the charts when I say that the song is catchy as fuck and I'm not ashamed to say I like it. The lyrics are terrible, but I'll be the first to admit that the last poetic song in top 40 went the way of Pogs(TM) some time in the mid-late 1990s. The video, however, has no redeeming qualities. I can't stand it when videos are either completely disjointed from the song they're representing to the point of being absurd, or so obviously the EXACT SAME THING as the song that you just know the creative team had a hard night of drinking and could think of fuck-all. In short, I just wish people would make some creative mainstream music videos.

Actually, I do know of one thing that I liked about this video. The Michael Jackson influence. The abandoned bar, the dreaminess, the magic/disappearing stuff? That's Smooth Criminal to a T! And, well, just about every other MJ video.