Rihanna Called....

... she wants her song/pop identity/vocal signatures back (Nicole Shirts-a-Wringer, I am quothing to you).

(If only Empress Rhi did call.. *writes out phone number on S&N and checks phone obsessively for rest of entire life*)

This is hardly an 'exclusive' or an elucidating, hard hitting piece of investigative journalism, but what's going on ('Mother, mother, there's too many of you crying' etc. etc.)? The new Nicole Shrimp-Wrangler MV for "Right There" has just been released and it is a veritable game of spot-the-plagiarism. Alexis Jordan's treadmill sidewalk? Tick. A Willow Smith whippable hair braid interlaced with ribbons that's reminiscent of Queen Gwen's Frida Kahlo hair-homage in "Luxurious"? Tick tick boom. Street set up, dance routines and costumes taken from a "Crazy in Love" episode of MTV's Becoming (a.k.a. one of the best, and most greatly missed, pieces of television to ever grace our screens)? Tic (tac). A dance break that seems to copy one of the cheapest looking, and most rapidly dating 'nyitecloob' dance breaks ever, found in the enduring masterpiece that is the Pussycat Doll's "Beep"? Tik Tok. Nicole's even tried to take on The Rihanna Lipcurl™ (that takes a starring role in the "Rude Boy" MV).

It's no longer enough to offer a visual metamorphosis with each album campaign. We're at hyper speed now, so a new visual identity/reinvention has to be forged for each new music video, even each new performance or public appearance. This isn't exactly new *inserts some spurious comment about how Madonna pioneered this restless/constantly surprising approach to the music/image relationship (symbiosis?)* and can be seen in just about every current pop star's recent campaign. In offering a distinct, thematic 'look' that corresponds somehow to the song at hand, artists can appear to showcase not only a professional or artistic versatility - perhaps travelling from something dance heavy to a vocally challenging ballad and back again - but also some degree of personal depth, by linking image alterations in their work to the facets and nuances of one personality.

Although it's illusory, it can still be effective; Katy Perry might grate a little when blasting tit-cream into your face, but when she's waxing lyrical about adolescent diddlings she might seem to be offering up a more vulnerable, and relatable, part of herself. Katy Perry's also a good example of this image reliant method of illustrating a professional/personal versatility, as she used a photo slideshow of her intimate 'happy-married-couple' snaps as a backdrop for her high profile performance at the Grammys this year.

But this approach doesn't work if instead of cultivating your own seeming visual subdivisions (if that even makes sense?) you are just nicking other people's and cobbling them together as seen in Nicole Shroud-Wriggler's sexytime serenade above. She's not alone though. Although it can arguably be suggested that shameless copying and bandwagon-jumping is a commonplace feature in pop music that might seem to be purely throwaway and disposable - pop that relies heavily on whatever musical or sartorial trends happen to be floating about in the cultural ether, no matter how transient - it can be found in music that would seem to try and distance itself from that pop stereotype or assumption.


Step in Clare Maguire. Unlike dancer Nicole Shroom-Wrinkler, who has been part of a girl group that required choreography in unison and some degree of conformity, great emphasis has been placed on Clare Maguire's distinctiveness, both visually, with her pale skin and heavy, noir-glamour make up, but also vocally with both "Aint Nobody" and "The Last Dance" keeping her fairly static. She was almost pitched as a Siouxie Sioux with hair straighteners and some Pantene sleekening serum. Yet "The Shield and the Sword" has uprooted what seemed like a steady line of visual development and replaced it with a jumble of pop disguises. Seemingly dressed as, and acting as, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga and Adele tribute acts, the whole MV seems like a misguided attempt to show artistic flexibility. By seeming to remove any remaining hints of personality, the whole thing would seem to have failed - how can you show personal versatility when you've eradicated the personality? What is the point in trying to emphasise the chameleon-ic talents of transformation in an artist with such an idiosyncratic voice? It could actually be some sort of ironic commentary on the combative lyrics, with Maguire perhaps taking up her sword and waging war on other artists, but that seems unspecified and unlikely.

Various suggestions for an alternative video at S&N HQ (I love writing HQ, it sounds officious and turret-y) have included:

• Something Elizabethan featuring oversized ruffs and gory, corpse strewn battlefields.
• A Tess of the D'ubervilles style homicide and escape sequence.
• Just generally something that doesn't feature Róisín Murphy's old pom pom coat and an awkward dance routine.
• Something owl oriented and possibly medieval.

All of these are viable and aesthetically pleasing alternatives that avoid any shallow pastiches. Clare Maguire will obviously read this and take it on board for her next single video in which she will be fleeing a crime scene by cutting through an intestine-spattered battleground wearing some sort of Flemish wimple and an owl on each shoulder. In that set up her personality would be blinding and totally overwhelming etc. etc.