The Black Luigi

Andre 3000′s hit single “Hey Ya!” is a gleefully hyperactive song, fusing a classic rock sensibility with a modern, funky chic. It exploded on the scene in 2003, in a strange moment, when Outkast, a duo with a string of underrated, entertaining albums from  Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik to Stankonia, decided to release separate ones. They weren’t splitting; they were exploring different things. Speakerboxx/The Love Below was the outcome. At the time, critics marveled over Andre 3000′s The Love Below’s eccentricity and random energy, and casually accepted Big Boi’s Speakerboxx. What makes this particularly weird is that Speakerboxx was inherently the better product, a fact that’s much more obvious today by most mainstream musicphiles. The Love Below is a nifty experiment, but there’s a really blatant truth here, which is most obvious on “Hey Ya,” but has yet to be quite understood: Andre 3000, while a great rapper, isn’t a good musician.

“Hey Ya” bounces and rolls with the immensity and grandeur that a great pop song can be. It works well in clubs and parties, and brightens the spirits as it bounds through its synths, basses, and fake guitar/xylophonist melodies. It’s great as a wonderful 50s-esque rock homage; not so much as a modern rock song. Andre 3000 cut his teeth as a rapper, so his voice is barely registering in this song (mainly due to the fact he can’t hit the notes, choosing to drown his voice out instead). I don’t hate “Hey Ya” (although I never loved it). It’s good, but it’s good with an asterisk.

The middle of aughts was a really, really strange period. It was around that time that Youtube REALLY hit its stride and entertainment across the board started to pick up. Artists were finding success in niches, and it seemed that executives were trying to find the formula for recapturing the splitting markets. Options? Catering to new demographics was an idea – Desperate Housewives, The Sex in the City movie. Another option was experimentation. It worked in the early 90s, when animation ripped into the TV landscape with new, bold stuff. And in desperate times, why not try it again?

Lost was such an experiment, the ABC, 6-season mindfuck that, well, didn’t turn out to be a mindfuck. A moment in time, the perfect moment for a drama to break the landscape for what could be shown on TV. It was, essentially, an art film as a TV show. Expertly acted, crafted, designed, and displayed. A buffet of skilled workmen behind the scenes, who, despite what the most hardened critics say, left viewers and audiences unsatisfied. Period.

What happened in the post-Lost TV world was, well, nothing. The real TV-game changers were The Office, Adult Swim and 24. The Office defined Thursday night comedy for NBC, and while not a ratings-smash, defined new niche comedies that a network could expunge. Adult Swim opened the niche of singular voices in animated and non-animated comedy. 24, while ridiculous, pretty much defined serial television, showcasing the ability to not possess self-contained shows to be a hit. In the advent of DVRs, Netflix, streaming, and torrents, it seems strange that television is still marred in the classic mode of storytelling. Although, it is starting to break.

The truth is, Lost did not end well. It failed to tie in its plot lines, it failed to define a followup (some people suggest Fringe, although that’s more akin to X-Files), and, well, even as a casual fan of the show, there’s no desire to go back to it. The strange thing is, Lost, like “Hey Ya,” had so much raw impact at an individual level, but came to mean nothing in the end. “Hey Ya” falls in being sung by a not-good singer on a weird but not-that-great of an album. Lost, with no strong narrative and no real endgame, failed as a TV show. Good, but with asterisk.

I also humbly submit Pan’s Labyrinth as the film equivalent of good, asterisked media. Guillermo Del Toro is an craftsman director, a visionary into the heart of creations and monsters – a modern day Henson, more or less. And while Pan’s Labyrinth had the rich fairytale rhythms and acting that hit all the right notes, it was a not-so-consistent story. The “fairytale” theme became more of a gimmick, an excuse for characters to randomly act out of character. Looking back on the question of its dream/non-dream settings, I keep wondering why and how the film managed to get to certain points without acting wildly out of sync. I can’t imagine re-watching this without a rub of the chin and a cock-eyed expression. Who has it in their top fifty films? What did we really like about this again?

The asterisk is there because I want to be clear: this is different that the typical cultural embarrassment that we’re usually engaging in. This isn’t the Macarana, 80s power rock ballads, bland raunchy comedy, 60s animation, or other forms of entertainment that was terrible content-wise AND media-wise. “Hey Ya,” musically, is solid, just as Lost was masterful television and Pan’s Labyrinth visually arresting. But as “music,” as “game-changing TV,” as “the cinematic experience,” these three mid-2000 reeked of some missing element, a lack of commitment to the real core issue – entertainment that was aggressively “forest for the trees.” In other words – Andre 3000 can’t sing, Lost failed to have an endgame, and Pan’s Labyrinth’s characters made too many uncharacteristic decisions.

Today’s entertainment seems to have taken the lessons ultimately learned from this and created… well, not better-quality material, but better contained material. Although if Terra Nova, the DC comic reboot, and Thundercats (more on this later) are the norm, then we may just be coming back full circle.

It’s pretty easy to dismiss “Friday” as a shitty song – and it most certainly is. It’s also pretty easy to believe that such a song may “represent the downfall of American culture” or some other hyperbolic  sentiment on how a fleeting piece of awful pop entertainment implies the end of the essence of American civilization. I’m going to get into that on my next entry – and that one will be a doozy – but I’m here to talk about the pure idiotic spectacle that is Friday, a music video that has no legal right to see the light of day.

I’m not a music guy, to be honest; in fact, I’m kinda sorta looking for a person who knows music well but isn’t a snob; who can “bridge” the link among entertainment forms in relation to his or her knowledge of various forms of music, without overwhelming the piece into a music criticism screed. Pitch aside, I do know what I like, and I definitely know what I hate, and I indeed join the nearly two million people who “thumb down” this song.

This song and video is a product of ARK Music Factory, a “record label” that is pretty much an overwrought virtual music video machine, an overpriced version of that carnival sideshow attraction where you and your friends can overact and lip-sync in front of a green screen to your favorite songs (this was big in the late 80s/early 90s). While such an act would cost you maybe 100 bucks (20 bucks split among your buds isn’t too pricey), ARK charges $2000 – $4000 for the same thing, albeit they assist in the writing and distribution of the song too, which is inherently a sadder revelation.

Still, for the wealthy, or desperate, it isn’t an awful idea, and ARK claims it isn’t doing it for fame. In fact, if the whole thing was an elaborate joke or silly game, it really wouldn’t be that bad. Rich kids have spend a lot more on stupider things (I’m thinking of a too-young-to-drive Bow-Wow owning a lime green Beetle with an X-Box inside), so four grand on a disposable song and music video isn’t the worst thing in the world.

Somehow, though, Friday became a “hit,” and it’s a little unclear how that happened, or whether the song’s popularity is due to overwhelming, misguided enjoyment (like how young teens buy whatever pop-crap album some pop-crap artist releases) or pure hate masked as ironic approval (the same idea that made William Hung and Tay Zonday popular). It doesn’t seem as if ARK did anything extraordinary in pushing the song, other than dropping it on iTunes. Perhaps it’s just that there’s a particularly brand of awful that pervades the song that made it so notorious; even crappy garage bands put more thought into their songs than this.

But there’s also something else about Friday that’s striking. In terms of the realm of all-things awful, there’s nothing new about it. Shitty lyrics. Inexplicable moments in the video. Terrible green-screening. Clothing from another dimension, let alone decade. Incomprehensible “guest” rapper. Awful lip syncing and camera work. There’s hundreds of Youtube videos out there with the same amount of crap, with budgets larger that four thousand. But it seems that the complete combination of all those elements make Friday into a particularly infamous disaster.

And it’s not even that much different from the songs that make the billboards these days. If you heard this on the radio during a mix, would you even bat an eye? Probably not. Like most pop songs, certain moments have a distinct “likeable-ness” to them, and while this song almost has nil, I kinda enjoy the “Partying, Partying (Yeah!)” part, a line that’s essentially interchangeable in every dance single, ever.

But everything else in this song is unworldly, in the sense that it’s popularity beguiles its content. The opening lyrics:

7am, waking up in the morning
Gotta be fresh, gotta go downstairs
Gotta have my bowl, gotta have cereal
Seein’ everything, the time is goin’
Tickin’ on and on, everybody’s rushin’
Gotta get down to the bus stop
Gotta catch my bus, I see my friends (My friends)

Kickin’ in the front seat
Sittin’ in the back seat
Gotta make my mind up
Which seat can I take?

– are the lyrics your five year-old child would sing to him or herself during the morning routine before school. You know, when they sing about everything they do and see and kinda try to make it rhyme, but fail, but doesn’t let it bother them? This is what Black did, and what the rapper did as well, if one substituted “white suburbia” and “black ghetto” into said child’s surrounding environment.

In the end, though, the truth is, Friday says nothing about our culture, other than terrible things can spread quicker than expected. If we’re truly judging the world based on arbitrary pageviews on a song that is, objective and subjectively, an abomination, then we really need to re-establish how the entire judging process and really examine what we mean by culture. Because, seriously, confusion over the days of the week can’t really be what America is all about. There’s too many cute animal pictures to counteract that.

Aren't only dogs supposed to do this?

Cats Don’t Dance – 1997

Director: Mark Dindal
Starring: Scott Bakula, Jasmine Guy, Natalie Cole
Screenplay by: Mark Dindal, Robert Lence, Roberts Gannaway, Cliff Ruby, others

The Netflix blurb described Cats Don’t Dance as a “nostalgic animated version of classic MGM musicals.” That got me pretty stoked. As a youngin’, I had failed to make that connection since, while I was aware of the existence of musicals, I didn’t quite grasp their impact and significance in the overall development of American cinema and stardom. Also, watching a non-Disney animated film is always a treat, since you get to experience different themes, ideas, and movements. And, let’s be honest: Disney wouldn’t have released a film like this with such a lame title. Cats Don’t Dance? Really? The furry version of White Men Can’t Jump? Not exactly the warmest sounding title around.

NOSTALGIC LENS: I remember going to see this film by myself. It looked like a fun and eccentric romp through some crazy sets, and it was. Just TOO eccentric. Everything was going so fast and moving in blurs, harsh cuts, and speedy camera tricks that I had no idea what was going on. I remember none of the songs or secondary characters, save for the big-ass butler and really, really stupid ending sequence that actually irritated me, even in terms of cartoon logic. I’ll save that complaint – if it still holds – for the write-up.

DOES IT HOLD UP: I’ll say this: Cats Don’t Dance was not intended for the big screen. It’s a film tailor-made for the small screen – for closer observation. How often do you hear that?

Cats was marketed as a simplistic kids film of colors and frantic movement, talking animals and an Animaniacs-like exaggeration of animation, which simply put, means it’ll keep kids quiet for an hour. The movie, however, is a brightly-rainbow’d homage to not only the MGM classic musical, but the original musical nature of the early black & white/Merrie Melodies era of sing-songy cartoons. It’s a historical piece – a pretty goddamn esoteric one, but the signs are all over the celluloid.

Of course, young kids wouldn’t get it. Of course, parents wouldn’t understand what the film was delineating. The only people that may have been aware of the film’s aesthetic ties may have been historical animation fans, but that requires a clear and free understanding and appreciation of the history of American animation (and film) of a specific time period of a specific genre. That’s a rather egregious disconnect. In that way, Cats Don’t Dance is a failure, since it does little to draw its audience in and clarify its intent.

However, if you ARE aware of all of this, Cats Don’t Dance is a fresh, glorious treat of frantic action, a ballsy film against the slow, straight-forwardness of Disney or Pixar films. It’s tale – homely cat Danny travels to Hollywood to make it as a big time dancer and singer – is so typically cliche of one-third of the plot of most musicals, but that’s the point. Its entertainment draws from the energy of songs that break out of no where, of speedy dance numbers that develop into visual pastiches of its medium, of physical gags no longer utilized save in Spongebob. Check out the first ten minutes:

The simplicity of the opening montage segues into a much more exciting music piece. It’s like we’re going backwards; “Now Our Time Has Come” is such a 90s “hope song,” but “Danny’s Intro” is a play to exploring that new Hollywood space, a Wizard of Oz-like ballad of early triumph. Hello, 50s.

As I mentioned, Cats Don’t Dance homages the animated musical shorts as well. Remember when animated figures would grab random objects in a junkyard or alley and make awesome impromptu music?

I can’t help but think about this notorious cartoon when thinking about this film:

(You may have heard this on a certain South Park episode. Also – my man Tex directed this classic.)

The movie is filled with moments like this, as well as surprisingly sharp jokes about the time period. Sure, some are groaners (Rats being offended by the line “I smell a rat”), but there are some nifty ones, like when antagonist Darla Dimple (an evil Shirley Temple clone) only bites off the heads of animal crackers in front of Danny. (Darla’s offer, though, excites him so much that he starts eating the crackers too. In fact, the entire sequence between Danny and Darla is a lot of fun.)

Which is why the ending disappoints. Musicals, in general, seem to have weak, “JUST WRAP IT UP” type finales that’s all style and no substance. Whether Cats Don’t Dance played to that or not still doesn’t make it any better. Danny’s fight with big brute Max is exciting (and a marvel in animated form), but the ending sequence does nothing to build on that. Darla flicks a number of switches to try and ruin Danny and company’s final number, but it just makes it more awesome. It lacks the pluckiness of Danny’s earlier battle; none of the characters ‘fight’ through the chaos to deliver a great piece. Everything just works out. Ho-hum.

But for one hour, Cats Don’t Dance is a loose, whimsical, enjoyable film, a song/dance “cartoon-cartoon,” and not simply an animated live-action film. (The last animated film to employ such a free-sense of itself? The Emperor’s New Groove.) And it’s surprisingly relevant. Darla essentially screws Danny over; sure, Danny uses his skills and abilities to bounce back and win in the end, but he too had to do some sneaky shit to even earn that right (break into the theater of Darla’s movie premiere.) As much as we’d like to think that our abilities  should speak for themselves, unfortunately in this job market, we may have to get a bit dirty before starting the cleansing process.

IN A NUTSHELL: I found myself really drawn to this film, so much so that I wanted to watch it a second time almost immediately. Sure, it’s flawed, but it’s a movie that’s one of its kind; a film that aims to be more aesthetically informative and historically nostalgic. Does it work 100%? No. But it does make you pine for the days where you can sing-a, along with the moon-a and the June-a, and the spring-a. While avoiding an anvil or six.

EDIT: I should have mentioned that Gene Kelly himself worked as a consultant on the film before he past away, which clearly contributes to the show’s wonderful energy and dance numbers.

NEXT UP: Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey