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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Toto, I have a feeling we’re not in Baltimore anymore.

Last modified on 2008-10-11 22:02:27 GMT. 3 comments. Top.

The New York Times has a piece up about another famous Ed: Ed Burns, creator of “The Wire” and its predecessor “The Corner”. “The Wire” is possibly my favorite series of all time, combining spectacular writing, a number of knock-your-socks-off performances from relative unknowns like Michael K. Williams and Dominic West, and a biting and gritty sense of reality. It seems that with The Wire’s conclusion after their fifth season, Burns and company are casting their bloody spotlight somewhere else: Iraq. The upcoming “Generation Kill”, if Burns’ previous work is anything to go by, should be spectacular. After the spate of preachy cinematic failures on this subject, a dose of basic storytelling could do wonders for all these PR issues they seem to be having over there.