Double Rihanna with Coke; Easy on the Coke.

The 'tour video' is one of pop's necessary evils. As amazing as it would be to have flawless videos for flawless songs for the entirety of flawless albums, this being the modern age, where everyone smuggles pop songs into hard drives off of the coast of Cornwall, or strips pirates of Miley Cyrus singles, and album campaigns spring leaks in a matter of minutes like musical Titanics, tours are the main source of proper income, and bacon, for big shiny stars. So while they're out seeing the world and the inside of Wembley arena, their videos tend to suffer - either from a conspicuous absence of the artist themselves, or from being cobbled together from an unimaginative edit of 'behind the scenes' footage. Rihanna's video for "Cheers" falls into the latter category, but it does prove rather edifying. For example we learn that:

• She likes to do her make up herself.
• She can drive a car.
• She can ride a bike in stiletto heels.
• She may or may not eat chips.
• She sometimes laughs.
• She sometimes grinds on people.
• She's competent at looking after other people's children in swimming pools.
• She is not averse to karaoke.
• She is a kind person; not everyone would've given Avril the privilege of an extensive, if unnecessary, cameo.
• She has no issue with irresponsible behaviour, letting others skateboard into a swimming pool (!) and doing shots on stage.
• She is a dab hand at eating coconut innards.
• She is an amateur film maker.
• She can swim.

Ultimately we learn that Rihanna would probably be an amazing friend to have in real life, if she wasn't so busy travelling, having a career etc. etc. As videos go, it is fairly informative. She hardly divulges her personal musings of the meaning of life, but she does some stuff and makes funny faces, and really, that's all you need.

In Nicki Minaj's "Fly" she does even less. There are no coconuts, shots, cars or babies, just some sultry walking and a wig last seen off of Hilary Duff's career circa 2003 (not that that's an insult, I am a great fan of Hilary duff's solo work and hair and I pine for her return). Dystopian-carnage videos always sit uncomfortably; why are scenes of collective deaths, misfortune and pain commandeered as blunt metaphors? As someone on YouTube pondered, "does this have something to do with 9/11?". Comes across as a tad self absorbed. At least here it seems that this environment came about through some form of negligence, as evidenced by the charred dinner left on a table. Maybe a barbecue got a little rowdy at Heathrow... or something. At least they managed to avoid dodgy, and excruciatingly literal harness work, although they only substituted it with equally dodgy CGI flora.

It's at its best when things are happening: when Nicki is kicking some people in the face or emoting in close up on a set from the Berlin "Take my Breath Away| video and a Twiggy-Rave wig. Maybe they could've spent the video cleaning up the mess as part of a Rock Corps advert placement? Had a Cillit Bang product positioning? Maybe they could've poked fun at sexist product placement by mucking about with Cillit Banging some dirty planes or created insect alter egos for themselves? I'll stop typing now.