Dublin Opinion

Woke up this morning feeling like Vincent Hanley… hence this meandering post containing five or so promo vids with tenuous connections. My starting point was that recent Erykah Badu vid where she goes all Sinéad O’Connor. In what is apparently a protest against the invasion of her privacy - she proceeds to conduct Operation effin’ Barbarossa on what was left of it - ending up in the buff on Deeley Plaza (or whatever it’s called) in Dallas :

Badu’s vid had reminded me of a pretty cool vid (and track) that I’d looked over a while back on Graham Linehan’s blog (by Brooklyn’s Matt and Kim ) …

For the numerous poor sods among us on the lookout for a midlife career conversion, I reckon there are more and more openings out there for skilled pixelisers (outside of Japanese porn and crap Reality TV shows).. (mental note: must ask my counsellor if they’ll finance a training course for me in the use of that thar software)

Erykah, Matt and Kim have brought the ‘walking along the street’ genre of the promo vid to another level. This was the genre that created openings for (video)camerapersons prepared to be wheeled along in a shopping trolley and for those skilled in manoeuvring a shopping trolley along a crowded street just a little ahead of walking pace. Over to Massive Attack and Shara Nelson with the original and the best musical speedwalk (mental note : nick a camcorder somewhere / don’t leave back that Lidl trolley that’s in the garage) :

Imitation being the sincerest form of flattery, Mr. Ashcroft and his bandmates also managed to talk a cameraman into a shopping trolley and a twelve-year-old crack head to act as ‘driver’. Two of the better tracks of the 90s, and both of them had the word ‘Symphony’ in them :

Which brings us back to where we started, Deeley Plaza in Dallas. Badu’s antics also reminded me of a halfdecent track I once had on an NME freebie - making heavy use of samples related to the Kennedy assassination. No shopping trolleys, no pixellised nudity - just Steinski and the Mass Media (here accompanied by a TedMarzipan Fanvid) :

(Mental note : renew that subscription to ‘Conspiracy Theory Monthly’ magazine)