nobody's talking, cuz talking just turns into screaming

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

OK, the twist at the end of this video just made me totally choke up.

It's probably really predictable but I didn't have my mind fully engaged when I started watching. Anyway, Matos at Idolator is OTM about how the quality of this video corresponds exactly to what makes Ne-Yo's music special: scenes we've seen before, but done with so much more acuity that they cut that much deeper.

Also of note is Ne-Yo's 'Single' - a rejigged version with New Kids On The Block is the actual single, and it's fine but definitely not as good. But the song itself is just exquisite: on first half-listen, I assumed the scenario was just Ne-Yo macking on a girl on a club, which meant that it stood out more for the 'Time After Time' sample and gorgeous melody than the lyrics. But then I realised that it's actually some kind of apotheosis of meta-pop. Ne-Yo is singing as Ne-Yo, the pop star, present not in the action of the narrative but in the music the subject hears; the song doesn't refer to itself for the sake of it, with an arch wink that leads nowhere in particular, but as a perfectly expressed comment on how pop music functions as fantasy, escape and comfort. And it's a never-ending thing: just as the fictional girl in the song, hurt and rejected by her boyfriend, finds solace in Ne-Yo's song for three minutes, so there are probably thousands of real life girls in the same situation doing the same thing.

Comments

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Also, the narrator of 'So You Can Cry' is so totally the Gay Best Friend, not the new lover.

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

NOOO rubbish the video is broken for me somehow. D: I got like 3/4 of the way through and it just went into some adverts or something wtf.

The song, from what I've heard of it, didn't strike me as Ne-Yo at his best but is far more than serviceable. He's got an extraordinary warmth to his voice.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

hmm it works for me? you could try youuutube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj-umSHqk2M) instead...

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Bloody hell what is it with videos of dudes having out-of-body experiences at the moment? Enrique, Lemar and now Ne-Yo. Enrique's is a bit daft though and Lemar might as well be on Mars - this is kind of worryingly straight-faced (i.e. I am worried that if I take the piss out of it then Ne-Yo's mum will come round and tell me off).