[TheRainbow]

Originally Posted by orbitalaspect

I watched Duffy's video. I've also seen Pagan Poetry and Monae's Cold War. In Warwick Avenue, Duffy is clearly on her way or leaving Warwick Avenue and going through the motions in the backseat of the car. In Pagan Poetry, Bjork is actually shown receiving a corset piercing that's part of the elaborate dress she wears in the final scene.

And Janelle... well, I can't think of a single thing Janelle has done that I thought was interesting. I watched the video and the read the lyrics, and I think that video is intended to just be her without any props or fancy editing because the lyrics talk quite candidly about her feeling put down and told she's not good enough the way she is. (I think it has to do with her being black?) But I honestly can't take her seriously. She is, and I don't intend this to be offensive if you're a fan, but she is quite brutally just another neo-soul/old school singer, and those singers were already a dime a dozen before she debuted. Hell, the UK got Paloma Faith just months before Janelle showed up, and this was only a year or so after Adele and Amy Winehouse showed up and a year after Joss Stone hit #2 on the Billboard with her third first album (because every new Joss Stone record is somehow her new debut... over it.)

I think this would be a reasonably okay video if Ayu weren't singing a song about what's happening between her and another person... to another person. I could see if this were like a "curtain call" type of song, something heartfelt directed to the fans, but these lyrics are actually quite a bit more detailed than The GIFT, the production is honestly better developed as well. And the The GIFT is the PV that clearly got the money to tell a story.



I would've not done a PV than put out this... well, it's trash. It really is. It could've been filmed on an iPhone 6 set up on a mini tripod, and between cuts Ayu could've reached up and knocked the light around to keep it moving. She could've bought the dress at Ross or Marshall's (you can clothe an entire family for less than $100, according to the commercial). It's just really disturbing, and I say this because there's a point where the money could've been better spent... like fixing that mixing problem with the vocals on the chorus that someone else brought up.

I, personally, would've spent the entire budget for this PV on hiring a real drummer for this track, so it didn't sound like synth drums compared to the rest of the rock tracks on the album.

I don't want this to start a trend that later results in Ayumi filming PVs in the bathroom because she can reasonably take a %@#$ and work at the same time. I don't care how pretty her dress is at that point, I'm over it.

Thanks for responding (and I do mean that)! I'll have to spoiler this because I wrote way more than I intended

Spoiler:

Yes, Duffy's leaving Warwick Avenue in the video, even if that doesn't fit with the song (where she's on her way there). But they decided to capture the emotion, and to the listener, now the lyrics can mean something else. It can now be that Duffy's retelling the story to the viewer in a taxi, for example, though that's not how it was intended when shot.

And yep, I'm a Janelle fan, though no, the video isn't specifically about her being put down for being black, it's part of a concept album theme she's developed. It might be influenced by race, yes, but like any interesting form of art, it doesn't have ONE meaning behind it. That's just taking it at face value as the video itself. You're entitled to that view and it might be partially right, but it won't be the sole correct one.

That being said, I don't understand the point of calling her "another neo-soul/old school singer" (as if it's a bad thing, too) when 1. there are plenty of people in every genre before everyone... ever, 2. you're unaware of what she's expressing, but are quickly judging by the first impression you get, proving my point. I'm not offended, just confused as to why mention all that, really.

As for LM being about someone else... I never dismissed that idea:

"With her movements, I think she's either trying to live with herself, put the pieces of her "soul" back together or fighting with someone/something that's tortured her for a long time."

To me, the lyrics could just be vaguely referring to ~someone else~ while really referring to the other side of her (see: the video). She is still singing to someone, it's just another version of her. It's not like the budget was so little that they couldn't afford a man to sit on that chair, or have a mannequin silhouette or something Or so I hope lmao. Only she knows what she really means in the song and why she expressed it this way, but to dismiss it as "trash" and her "new low" seems like such a gross over exaggeration given her track record with some of her music videos lately. And none of the reasons you gave (iPhone, DIY, cheap dress) make a video trash, especially if the end-product meant something to someone--and while there are people that disliked it, plenty of people really loved it too. It can be trash to you, but it's not "really" trash, like you so definitively say.

I'm happy the video didn't go for the obvious, even if it was because of budget or for a specific reason. I could be wrong about the intentions, but my interpretation/projection won't be, which makes art interesting to me.

However, I'll agree, the most disappointing part of the video for me is that the song wasn't mixed properly. -___- I love the general idea song and it was fine for the single, but what is so hard about getting a real drummer and a good mixer for the album version? That screams budget issues more than the video to me, which was just done spontaneously and didn't go through a huge planning process (that doesn't mean I think it didn't have any thought btw haha.)