Not all these girls are all about fun. Rihanna & Leona Lewis chill out with laidback crooning while Avril & Florence bring on the intensity!
Florence & The Machine’s latest single from the second album, What The Water Gave Me, reminds you why exactly there is so much effort made to keep indie music, well, independent. The video is refreshing, whether or not you understand the visual metaphors being played out.
A montage of scenes drawn from the recording studio when, presumably, this song was being recorded to Florence Welsch‘s own reveries atop a roof singing to the skies. It sparks off the meaningless optimism that we all crave. Even though the song is called ‘What The Water Gave Me’, there isn’t a flowing stream anywhere in sight, which might be only conceptual lapse here.
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Leona Lewis is extremely good looking, which is absolutely no reason for her to inflict a music album on us, even if they come wrapped within pseudo-sensual music videos. “Collide“, her latest single is probably aimed at club rats who are too inebriated to look beyond their crotch, nevermind critique the senseless lyrics on this one.
Apart from the chorus, which is uptempo and therefore, definite dancefloor fodder, the rest of the song sounds like a Girl Scout oath recited to dance music.
The video, well; it could only do so much. It tries too, with Leona mouthing those inane words as seductively as she can, while pyromaniac hippies play about. If you have a ‘mute’ button, hit it.
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Tina Turner was such a phenomenon that every black female artist coming through after her was inevitably compared against her benchmark. That would make all the sense, till you check Rihanna out in her new pop anthem video, “Cheers (I’ll Drink To That)“. To harbour an attitude and make it credible is tough, but Rihanna does it effortlessly.
She is sexy, but refrains from silent pouting. She is graceful, even as she flashes her butt at you. Using an Avril Lavigne yelp sample (as well as an Avril Lavigne pool-splash), there are layers of Carribean influences in this song and it’s video, from the laidback beats and Rihanna’s coy Barbadian accent, set against the tropical paraphernalia, that mollycoddles you to not let ‘those bastards bring you down‘. And listening to her, you’d believe it too.
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Canadian songstress, Avril Lavigne, was supposed to the Janis Joplin of our generation. She could guitar, could sing and was satisfactorily irreverent. But she seems to be regressing back to adolescence, as per her new effort, Wish You Were Here. It’s like listening to a teen who can’t come to terms with reality. “Damn, damn, how I want you here” compares pretty unfavourably with that other song of the same title, recorded by Pink Floyd, which became an all time classic. Nevermind cult classics; even N’Sync would’ve balked at the immaturity of this song. So what happened, Avril? Overdid the marshmallows again?
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