Watching TV the other day and I saw this video for Alexandra Burke’s Bad Boys and I have to say that the plot as well as the coregraphy got my sick mind thinking about what could it all mean. You don’t have to watch too closely to realize that this video seems like a 4 minutes metaphor for a gang bang. The girl’s car breaks down in a shady neighbourhood at night and then she is slowly followed and surrounded by an army of thug looking fellows, who keep checking out her bod. They end up in a pool joint, where the guys make their move and she ends up dancing with all of them, while Flo Rida sits alone and sad outside contemplating “She so so addicted to them rougher fellas” or “get them more the merrier” and concluding “You’ll have them shawty don’t worry”. It all ends outside, where the bad boys circle the girl and one final face-off follows, leaving them big guys down on the ground. This is one faulty cautionary tale for girls walking alone at night…

WHAT D’YA THINK ?

And just so you wouldn’t think that I’m raging against The X Factor, because it’s the seasonal thing to do, I’ll focus my sick mind on a classic hit, a video which I actually saw the same day: Billy Joel’s Uptown Girl. The lyrics talk about, obviously, an uptown girl who is “getting tired of her high class toys” and I guess that because “she never had a back street guy”, she decides to look “for a downtown man”. In the video, the girl just so happens to have her chauffeur stop at a garage, where Billy and his gang of Merry Mechanics giver her the full treatment. As soon as she gets down from her car, the dancing starts. Two bikers and two breakdancers with weird tops join in and soon our uptown girl is dancing with 8 guys at once. Her chauffeur doesn’t interfere, which is very Once Upon a Time in America of him. This is a cautionary tale for all of you uptown boys, this is what happens when your girl gets tired of “living in her white bread world”.

Up WHAT Girl ?!

If this would have been the review of a Single Masterpiece, it would most definitely be about Crucify, but, even so, it’s quite a challenge to skim through her Non-Single Masterpieces and choose just one. The Power of the Orange Knickers displays a lot of Tori’s themes, styles and methods, as well as being one of her few collaborations, this time with Irish singer-songwriter, Damien Rice. Her songs always sound  intimate, but this second vocal presence amplifies that feeling and the soft voices used by both singers make the track sound as a lullaby sung by both parents to their child. The title and lyrics showcase Tori’s often ironic view on love and relationships (“When you become a twist, For their latest drink”), especially when it is unrequited love (“this terrorist”), which seems to be the theme of Orange Knickers. It’s wonderfully stated through some of the lyrics: “Shame shame, for letting me think, That I would be the one” or “The power of listening to what, You don’t want me to know”, all of these creating the image of a relationship where just one loves and the other feeds on that. There is a metaphor to underline this, one of the best metaphors in the history of metaphors (Shakespeare included): “Am I alone in this kiss?”. BONUS: Tori sings the word ‘fun’ in a very cute way in this song.

ORANGE FEMALE UNDERWEAR                  LIVE VERSION