Jennifer Lopez has made a relevant and enjoyable pop record for the first time since 2007 (in which she released the still-incredible "Do It Well"... unf, that is a great song). Yay, for Duchess Dame JHLo (the 'h' is silent). Well done indeed. It's clearly paid off as it looks like it will officially be a hit for her rescuing her from ageing diva flopdom.
There's not much to say about the video. It does the job. It frustratingly doesn't feature enough (any) of HjHlo's trademark incredible dance moves, but whatever. It doesn't hurt the eyes either. We have low expectations in life. It does, nevertheless, feature one odd touch. As Countess Marchioness Hennifer Hlop is banging on about her new generation of party people (eurgh, please don't celebrate a generation of people who consider Black Eyed Peas quality music) there is a shot of gollum's gay(er) third cousin once removed, all penetrating eyes and covered from top to toe (we imagine) in iridescent midnight-coloured glitter.
For why? What does this image mean and why is it in Hjenny from the Hblock's otherwise very pedestrian and visually unchallenging new music video? Look, here's a screencap just to prove we're not making this up.
See? We don't always exaggerate/lie. Well, we have an idea. We've seen this sort of thing before and we have a theory, if you will. It's almost definitely correct because we're always right about everything (ahem) and it goes something like this: basically, most female pop divas want to be perceived as arTy and CrAyZee and tOtaL paRtee AnimalsS (sO cReatiVe) but are reluctant to actually cover themselves in glitter (for example); so in their video, an extra is often hired to dress like a performance artist and give the entire thing a veneer of cool and 'krayzinezz' without Jennifer (or whoever) having to spend hours in makeup/risk hurting their vanity by looking unpretty. Jennifer clearly has better things to do than dip herself in glitter (she'd look amazing, her loss) so someone else does it. And someone has to do it, otherwise you have a video with absolutely no edge. A blunt video (not that sort of blunt). And who wants that? Blunt videos are for flops and bores etc.Here are some other examples of it happening. First, Beyoncé. Bonce is a prime example of a diva keen to look 'with it' and unusual without actually having to act/dress too cray-cray herself. Her whole set of Germanotta collaborations were an attempt on her behalf to get down with the kidzzz by association (although Stefani Joanne's intentions were just as cynical as she got appeal to 'urban' fans out of the bargain). Here is someone painted silver and crawling about in a cage (a loose Grace Jones reference) in her 2007 video for single "Get Me Bodied":
You wouldn't catch Beyoncé doing that, that's for sure. Secondly (and lastly because we can't think of any other examples off the top of our head) is Fergie of the aforementioned Cack Eyed Peas. Fergie is/was a great solo artist. We enjoyed that. But she, like Beyoncé and JLo, is (or at least seems) like the kinda gurl who identifies as 'normal' and just likes 'relaxing with a dvd and a glass of wine' on her night off. She is not the kinda woman to be running through the streets wearing guns and painted in blood screaming that she's an artist. So, of course, when it comes to her videos, she wants to look sexy and pretty and glamorous in an unthreatening and 'safe' manner, and leave the necessary crazy shebang to some extra who can flail in the corner for a bit, exuding cool. Here is a woman dressed as... well... we have no idea. Some sort of pink mutant giraffe-zebra hybrid (a ziraffe? a gebra?) replete with mohawk and silver gloves:
Again: you would not catch Fergie in that. She'd much rather wear a 'cute dress' (as she does in the actually quite brilliant video).Anyway, we're not sure what we've learnt from all this, but we wanted to bring it to your attention. So there you go/there you have it/that's your lot.
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