http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmOO5Y1wiIA

Ok. Can we just take a minute and talk about this video. The song itself is Homewrecker by Marina And The Diamonds--not usually my scene to watch something because a friend of a friend told me... But I went with it. In my opinion here, I like the song. It's a bit silly with it's strange pseudo-accent lectern-style narration, but the chorus picks up, it's catchy, I've listened to this particular version three times already; as well as listening while I type this. It's clean at it's nature, meaning you could play this on the radio, at ANY TIME OF DAY, on ANY DAY, without having to filter out a single word. But the song itself isn't entirely what I want to discuss; but rather the video.

Maybe it's just me, but when I see a music video, I want to enjoy the video as well as the song. I'd like to be able to load up the song off the internet, hit play, enjoy the song, and the video, in unison. I'm not about to get all modesty-nazi on you guys; but in this particular video... LOOK: A cute, not over-the-top sex-slave looking, girl. Now I don't find anything wrong with how people dress, I'm a firm believer in dress however-the-hell-you-want...but this video definitely qualifies as a culture shock for me. In this example she is, by even my old high school's standards, fully dressed. And honestly, it works. Nothing particularly outside-the-box in this video aside from the girl herself. Putting the focus on her singing, rather than what she is doing WHILE singing, or what she is [or isn't] wearing WHILE singing.

I'm only 18. What do I know? I'm just a dumb kid. But it should be obvious I'm talking about newer videos that are kind of just insane. I'm not necessarily complaining about Naked Miley, Naked Panic! guy, or Whatever you Call Lady Gaga; all I'm saying is that the change of scenery is really nice; showing you don't NEED a crazy gimmick to get your song known. Honestly, I LOVE the song Wreckingball, and I LOVE Applause, have yet to listen to more Panic! at the Disco but I've heard they're good enough. And it seems whenever I listen to the songs people automatically turn their thoughts of Wreckingball from being an interesting song to that of Miley swinging around completely naked half the time, or Applause and Lady Gaga becoming a naked swan or something... Just as Lady Gaga in general is considered just "EUGH" for the lengths she has gone for fame because 'she lives for the applause' *badpunkillmeplease.*

But what annoys me the most, is the fact that I am dwelling so much on Marina right now. The fact that NOT doing something crazy has become the 'something crazy.' The fact that just singing a cute song, not being naked, not crazy-tatooed, not being some barbie-doll cut&paste female impossible-to-get-figure, "IS" THE STUNT. She's beautiful, sure; but not impossible to reach. I could imagine her as one of my old classmates really, someone that worked hard doing what they want, and got it. A happy ending, so to speak. She isn't toothpick thin, but she's happy, she's singing, and smiling, even in kind of a grim song if you look into the lyrics. You can tell she's wearing makeup, but who doesn't? In a music video, REALLY, who wouldn't?

Many songs, "clean" [if you'd call it that] like this were before my time. But "older" songs, songs that didn't need silly tricks and schemes to get to the top. I absolutely adore Billy Joel, Queen, and don't get me started on Will Smith... While I typically was referring to the female pop-star archetype earlier, male singers have gone plenty crazy in their own right as well. Sure they don't have cleavage to show off, but these 'older' artists beat whatever you call "Blurred Lines," a song that I didn't even like BEFORE I knew what was going on in the lyrics and hated it more [seriously, I can enjoy rap, rhythm, dance, and beat, as much as the next guy... But this is just noise.]

I'm trying my best to not sound like a misogynist here, really, I don't care how women dress, and hate the fact people are dictating what they are allowed to wear certain places... All I'm getting at is why people feel the need to go to such great lengths in their songs and videos to get them popular? When did songs start requiring crazy lengths to bleep out almost every other word and/or having videos that just make you want to gouge your eyes out? I'm just as uncomfortable seeing a naked man as I am a naked woman in a video or on the street.

I'm only listened/watched a couple of Marina's other songs; but of what I've seen she's an artist that is remaining fairly clean. And if I had kids one day (I'm not, I'm actually dying alone, but indulge the hypothetical) this would be a cute song I wouldn't even bat an eye if I heard them listening to. It'd go under '12-year-old-girl-crap' and I'd leave it at that; a cute song that really wouldn't harm anyone. I feel the same about a lot of One Direction stuff; not a fan of the songs, but I think they're still pretty chill people, and if they want to tell every girl in a song that she's beautiful, makes my job easier.

Was going to post about this on Tumblr/Facebook, but thought I would probably get a better discussion out of you guys on the Dollars. Song's that are good because they're good; that don't need to be about raping people to get noticed; and that don't need a naked singer. Songs that aren't loaded with swears or composed entirely of sexual innuendos (although, I'll admit I really love a song with a couple hidden sex-jokes [such as 'six-inch rockets' in the song at the head of this thread;] but only a couple.)