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poptimists2008-11-26 09:33 pm
alexmacpherson.livejournal.com) wrote in poptimists2008-11-26 09:33 pm
Entry tags:
nobody's talking, cuz talking just turns into screaming
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.
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.
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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.
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