The Greatest Music Videos of All Time, Part I

Last modified on 2008-10-20 04:56:17 GMT. 1 comment. Top.

In the beginning there was Radio. The great people of this nation were expected to entertain themselves with it, but this proved impossible because of the precipitous collapse of Cuba Gooding Jr.’s career.  Fortunately, in 1928, inventor and Mormon Philo Farnsworth created the first working television.  That same year, Chester “Howlin’ Wolf” Burnett took up playing guitar and the music video was born.  Today, October 18, 2008, marks the 80th anniversary of the fifth public demonstration of the television conducted by Farnsworth.  By all accounts this was the best demonstration to that point because the first episode of “The Simpsons” debuted.  To celebrate this historic anniversary, A Talking Ed will be publishing a series on the greatest music videos of all time, to celebrate the anniversary of the beginning of the end of western civilization.  With no further ado, Episode One, Part One, Chapter One of The Greatest Music Videos of All Time!

Biz Markie - Just A Friend

A Critical Analysis

“Have you ever met a girl that you tried to date
But a year to make love she wanted you to wait.”

The opening lines of the Biz Markie opus “Just a Friend” are timeless.  One can find an echo of this sentiment reverberating throughout the annals of human civilization.  Take, for example, Robert Herrick’s 1648 poem “To the Vigrins, to Make Much of Time”.  This charming bit of verse is often misinterpreted by 16 year old literary scholars as being a traditional love poem, but a closer reading reveals another layer of meaning:

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying:
And this same flower that smiles today
To-morrow will be dying.
The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he’s a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he’s to setting.
That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.
Then be not coy, but use your time,
And while ye may, go marry:
For having lost but once your prime,
You may for ever tarry.

Herrick, in saying that “this same flower that smiles today/ To-morrow will be dying” is describing the fleeting nature of youth and beauty, and goes on to declare the necessity of collecting on that beauty by, as they say, gettin’ it while the gettin’s good.  Recently, this mentality has come under fire, with films such as the recent biopic of Henry Kissinger, “The 40 Year Old Virgin”, glorifying the celibate youth.  Such examples continue to be rare, however, indicating the sturdiness of Herrick and Markie’s ideals.

The video itself pays great tribute to the brilliance of the source material, upending many traditional beliefs about the role of gender in society and of African Americans in the media.  The premise of the song, and also of the video, involves a woman Biz Markie is romantically involved with.  The woman, to whom he devotes himself entirely, engages in a dalliance with a man she claims is the titular “friend”, but who is, in fact, all up in that.  Told in the fashion of a “play within a play”, an homage, perhaps, to “The Murder of Gonzago” put on in Franco Zeffirelli’s unforgettable story of love, madness, and Mel Gibson, “Hamlet”, the video begins and ends with Biz Markie cavorting with a gang of toughs in an inner-city neighborhood.  In start contrast to the romantic and dedicated Biz Markie of the operatic portion of the video, the narrative Biz Markie is cold, jaded, and find no appeal in the trickster machinations of the women he finds on the sidewalks of this veritable urban jungle.  The hunter, it would seem, tasted spoilt meat, and has lost his appetite.  The richest portions of the “Just A Friend” experience are found in the story of this condition’s origin.

The story begins with Biz Markie and the unnamed woman, known only as “blah-blah-blah”, meeting at a concert.  A romance begins to blossom between the two.  According to Biz Markie:

“So we started talkin, getttin familiar
Spendin a lot of time so we can build up
A relationship or some understanding
How its gonna be in the future we was plannin.”

Quite apart from the traditional gender ascribed inter-relationship roles, Biz Markie displays none of the characteristics often ascribed to inner-city black youth.  By his own admission, Markie is attempting to develop “understanding,” a “relationship,” and “the future.”  The traditional role of the male has been ascribed to the unnamed woman in this video; namely, this role entails infidelity, dishonesty, and a somewhat philandering and misleading character.  Does this indicate a rejection of the typically assigned role, or an attempt to ascribe negative images and fears of the self onto an “other” as a form of ritualistic internal conflict resolution?  Only Biz Markie can say for sure.  He is, however, quite explicit in his treatment of the role of the strong African American man in today’s media-driven society.

Part way through the video, in what is certainly one of the most poignant and memorable scenes ever put to celluloid,  Biz Markie appears in late-18th century European regalia, not dissimilar to what would have been worn by Mozart or Beethoven.  The ensemble is entirely white, as is the wig, and stands in sharp contrast to the dark, candle-lit room and gleaming black piano.  Biz Markie is certainly not equivocating in his stance.  Standing, pounding on the keys with joyful abandon, Markie makes clear to us all that the musical antecedents of the West have been fully assimilated into, and even improved upon by, African American musical movements.  It is truly a stunning endorsement of equality, a brilliant proclamation of egalitarianism, that will surely reverberate over the coming generations.  Biz Markie may well be remembered as a latter-day Olaudah Equiano.

An interesting, yet much more subtle, element to the video is the repeated employment of humor and wit in the opening and closing segments.  The video opens with Biz Markie and the toughs engaging in an exchange of the fabled “yo’ mama” jokes.  This vignette, naturally, demands explanation.  Why is this group of toughs in such jolly spirits?  One rarely sees the impoverished and bellicose in such chipper spirits.  What reason would they have to joke and carry on like this?  There is only one reasonable answer, excluding possible substance abuse, and that is a taking to heart of the old addage that it is better to laugh than cry.  Clearly, these men are so distraught by their circumstances, the nature of their relationships, the gaps in the welfare state, and so forth, that such joking is the only means of getting through the day.  Truly, this video is as full of tragedy, brilliantly and subtly illustrated, as any other.

In short, Biz Markie’s “Just A Friend” is a truly revolutionary video.  Combining a sharp eye for social commentary and a gleeful, bleating voice, Biz Markie has provided an example to all of what smart, crisp filmmaking can accomplish.  And now, with no further ado, the video:

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Pandora Radio: Revolutionary, Brilliant, Restoring My Faith in Humanity

Last modified on 2008-10-25 19:55:27 GMT. 2 comments. Top.

Some questions trouble me on a very fundamental level.  When someone posits that humans might be the only highly advanced life forms in the universe, I think immediately of “The Hills” and family-friendly improvisational comedy performances and I curse God for playing such a cruel, cruel joke on creation.  The same is true of the Internet.  In such a boundless space as the world wide web, to be a bastion of quality carries with it a terrific burden.  The fate of the entire world could very well rest on my shoulders, being as I am a member of the startlingly tiny web-accessible minority capable of forming a coherent sentence.  That is why Pandora Radio means so much to me.  I have been gifted with one more ally in the fight for brilliance on the Internet.

Pandora’s brilliance lies in its simplicity.  Created by Will Glaser, John Kraft, and Tim Westergren, Pandora asks you for songs or artists you like, then takes that information and kicks back to you a feed of hundreds of songs it deems that you might also enjoy.  The Music Genome Project, which created the algorithms that drive Pandora’s suggestions, was concocted by Glaser, Kraft, and Westergren in 2000.  The dynamic trio compiled a list of over 400 attributes that could be used to describe any given song, and then they and a group of musical technicians began cataloguing the attributes songs one by one — a process which takes between 20 and 30 minutes per song. So far, Pandora’s music library consists of over 500,000 songs, with about 15,000 more being added every month.  Best of all, Pandora is completely free to use.

The RIAA and assorted other rich folks, who are renowned for their party poopery, prevent Pandora from allowing the user to rewind or replay songs, or to play a particular song on demand.  That discovery filled me with rage when first I encountered it, but I had only half-drawn my sword when my computer, in a brilliant gamble to save itself from certain death, started playing some other song I’d never heard before.  Normally this wouldn’t give me any reason for pause, and I would have hacked the damned machine to pieces.  The abnormality of it was how great the song was.  And the one that followed it.  It was song after song I’d never heard by artist after artist I’d never heard of.  Sheer bliss!  Never again would I be stuck expanding my musical repertoire by asking friends about songs I heard them play in their car.  In the age of Pandora, we’re all cutting edge.  This, I think, is exemplary of a greater shift that is beginning to manifest in the digital realm. Pandora does not do what most musical resources in the internet have always done:  give you access to the music you like.  Pandora doesn’t let you pick the songs you like.  Like a brooding mother shoving carrots down your gullet, Pandora will give you something else, something different, something good for you, and by Jove,  you’ll learn to like it!  Pandora is way better than carrots, though.  It’s more like being force-fed a magical ice cream that won’t give you brain freeze or a spike in blood sugar.  In short, Pandora helps us open our ears, and by extension our minds, to new and exciting things.  My greatest hope is that someone will find a way to expand that philosophy to more and more elements of culture and society.  There is never any harm in expanding our boundaries, particularly when it is as painless as this.