Hello, Hello, Baby

Happy St. Patrick's Day to ya, cheers. Allow me to bestow the Luck of the Irish(-American) on ya with my leprechauns and such. Now, follow the rainbow of this post to the truly exciting pot o' gold and four leaf clovers at the end. Or something. Hey, at least I tried.

So, I don't know if any of you heard or not, but last Thursday, the new Lady Gaga video stormed the Internets marked its premiered in a grandiose fashion indeed at midnight via YouTube and E!News. It was for "Telephone" and featured Beyonce. I realize this may be fresh news to some of you, just try and keep up, mmkay?

The anticipation for this video was literally months in the making and I'm kind of surprised the entire Eastern and Western seaboards didn't break and fall into the ocean due to the electrical surge that must have commenced in response. It seemed to be all people could talk about (and still talk about), analyzing and re-analyzing and overanalyzing the meanings of product placement, the cameos, the outfits, the scripting, the allusions to Kill Bill and Thelma & Louise etc. etc. Blah Blah Blah. Yadda Yadda Yadda. 

I'm not trying to sound flippant -- you all know how much I adore La Gaga. While I found the clip as engaging and spectacular as the next fan, I wasn't exactly blown away the way so many seem to be. (Excuse me while I dodge a string of  darts for this statement.) I suppose it's partly due to the fact that music videos in general don't tend to excite me anymore -- I'm in the camp that it's a dying art. It's only thanks to artists like Lady Gaga that video clips are even relevant at all in this day and age. Heck, the mere fact that CNN was circulating a rumor that MTV had "banned" the video was a bit of a joke in itself -- as my friend The Audio Diva pointed out, it's not like MTV even really airs videos anyhow. I'm not really sure how she intends to top a grandiose, 10-minute homage to American commercialism, but...I'm sure she'll figure it out somehow. At this point, don't we expect craziness from Gaga? Give me a normal-level performance video -- then I'll be shocked.

From a personal aspect, I'm more interested in viewing music videos by artists that I wouldn't see in normal rotation -- despite claims to the contrary, no matter how scandalous Lady Gaga presents herself to be, the video channels would be stupid to not play her videos as she is so high in demand, even if it is edited all to hell to fit MTV's slim pickings that are its music video timeslots. While I agree that premiering a new video right now when the excitement for "Telephone" is so strong is a bit silly, it's only silly if you are in direct competition with Gaga. Therefore, I shall buck the trend of posting the Gaga video here (as I know you've all seen it already, anyway) in favor of this...

A few weeks back, I mentioned my favorite K-Pop girl group 2NE1 and their new "comeback" sponsor single, "Try To Follow/Copy Me" (loose English translation). The official music video recently dropped, and while their label/support company YG has tried their darndest to keep it contained, it has been sprouting up all over the 'Net, including on Perez Hilton, singing their praises (he also recently plugged Korean boy band Big Bang and their recent release "Lollipop"). I repeat again -- get on board now. The fact that these girls don't currently have plans for America is kind of disheartening. The wigs, the outfits (the Shania leopard  catsuit looks much fiercer than the one Gaga rocks, in my humble opinion), the guns, the 'Star Wars' parodies, the (group-made!) choreography, the haircuts, the diamond-encrused face crystals a la Britney -- it's all banging. Can't I be their fifth member, already? ::pouts::