WORST VIDEO OF 2006:
And the "loser" is....
Johnny Cash "God's Gonna Cut You Down" Dir: Tony Kaye
Antville Post
u2b
Runner Up (Runner Down?):
Panic! at the Disco "I Write Sins Not Tragedies" Dir: Shane C. Drake
Antville Post
u2b
Poll Results Complete List of Nominees
thanks for voting!
Sweet justice.
for me, the best comment on the Cash video was scudmore's:
'it's as if kaye said, "nobody's gonna say no to the opportunity to pay their respects to johnny cash," and so took the opportunity to fill his video with celebrities.'
but reading the whole post is pretty amusing.
As for Panic! - I'm not a fan of it, but I feel some of the anger is a bit misdirected. No one is giving Drake credit for launching an unknown band to platinum status, in no small part due to the video. People lament the death of MTV and music videos (in the US at least); and here we are voting one of 2006's biggest "music video success stories" as the worst.
i'm gonna have to agree with captainmarc here - the anger seems misdirected. there is no way panic at the disco's 'iwsnt' or cash's 'ggcyd' are the worst music videos made this year. both are professional grade work (directing, cinematography, editing), both accomplish the primary goals of music videos, and on top of it all both videos are somewhat compelling to watch. does the antville community truly believe that these two vids were the worst two music videos produced in 2006??? even if we only look at big-budget, major label, and widely released videos there are still many, many projects more 'deserving' of the title of 'worst video of 2006'.
wait, I think the Johnny Cash video was awful and deserves the title.
The Panic! video made me cringe (I really hate circus motifs) but from a 'investing in a music video as an advertising tool' it was very effective; one example American labels may point to to justify continued spending on music videos.
Maybe. I don't know how things work on the labels end.
kalsta: there are myriad bad videos every year. what's intended here is (as previously noted): overhyped, lazy, derivative, or just plain awful. the fact that they are "professional grade" and attention-getters, even that panic's was frighteningly successful, in a sense actually qualifies them as rightful nominees. there are others more deserving of this title? did you nominate them?
progosk, perhaps you're right and these two vids deserve the nod - it just seems a little too counter-culture, anti-mainstream, attention-getting of a move to see mtv's best vid be the runner-up in the antville worst vid category. well, at least it didn't win...that'd feel a little lame actually (it'd so be a 'look at us we're different' kinda thing). and although i voted this year and proposed one category i didn't nominate any vids.
i was a little passive and wanted to defer to wiser heads this inaugural year. and although it was a democratic process and so a democratic result was achieved, vis a vis worst vid, i can't help but feel that hype's vid for janet's debut single smacks a little more of overhyped, lazy, and derivative than either of the elected works...but then again that last bit is just the opinion of one and clearly not the opinion of the antville majority. :)
as a final note,
thank you for all the hard work in putting this together. it's all too easy for me to sit on the sidelines and complain when you and others put in a lot of effort to pull this off. i do want you to know that i'm not complaining about the apparatus that was put together for the awards themselves. in fact, i think a masterful job was done. i just feel that the winning worst vid and the runner-up aren't truly representative of the award - but then again what is representative of the worst vid of the year award? and in what spirit do we present such an award?
truth be told, i was one of the people against there being a worst vid category and did my democratic best (didn't vote for its inclusion) to see that it wasn't a part of the awards.
well, enough rambling from me, i'll just go and suck on my sour grapes now...
I thought the Janet/Nelly vid was the biggest disappointment of the year. I'm not surprised people dislike celebrities or rue the VMAs, but "Call on Me" was just awful. I'm a big fan of Hype's too, so it's very disappointing, but videos are complicated so everyone's bound to make a real stinker every once in a while.
This is the 'grain of salt' category.
I agree with kal that the list compilers did a fine job with all of the end of year lists. Thanks for all the effort on the Ville.
I believe that the Janet/Nelly fiasco is a fine chooice for the WVA. I only wish the edit included the shot of Hype running out the back of the stage with all the cash that never ended up on the screen.
But my pick for the worst clip of the year is Chamillionaire's "Grown and Sexy".. The video is bad on many fronts. The artist looks un-attractive in the flat lighting. The setting is high tech and chilly, an odd choice for a street-centric performer like Chamillionaire (great name, BTW). Then there are the Uncanny Valley effects that show models transitioning from one look to the next in a, dare I say, Cunningham-esque way that was probably not intended. Universal was considreing reshooting the clip, but the song just sort of disappeared off of television. Just a bewildering clip that was probably not cheap.
30f jumps the shark.
Well, my real name IS Ted McGinley. That explains a lot.
Does it?
30f, i couldn't disagree with you more on the "Grown and Sexy" video. it's a rare thing when a hip-hop video tries to do something different, and that video has a lot of things going for it. firstly, its not just cars and strip clubs, the darker vibe was a nice touch, and the fx actually arent bad if you ever caught them on tv. rich lee over at dna directed the clip, and i was bummed to see he removed it from his online reel when the dashboard video started to pick up play. my guess is he did that because the concept is similar to his previous video for buckfast. it wouldnt surprise me if universal wanted to reshoot it, but then again most labels bitch and moan when their urban artists arent shot in the same lighting and context you always find them in. i know universal was looking to do something "different" with the track so they likely went out looking for alt/rock directors (this usually happens when the budgets arent big enough for an erik white, x, hype, or even benny boom to touch). so a lot of white kids wrote on the track with dreams of having a hiphop budget and improving their "street cred" as a versatile director. sorry it didnt pan out for you. i chose not to write on the track for the exact reasons above. when a label says they want something different for a hiphop track they just mean the same, but maybe a slightly different color grade...take it to beau instead of dave, etc. but kudos to rich lee for slipping one past "the man" and making a darker/more interesting video. ok im done :-)
mookie - much of what you write about the treatment process is spot on. I too applaud directors willing to try something different - but only IF they pull it off. This ain't Montessori. If the video is good it's good, if it ain't, it ain't. I don't think clips are graded on the curve. Everyone has worked on a project that has gone sideways and the creative team struggles to keep it going completely south - but the people watching teh clip only judge it on it's merits.
It's not that the effects are poorly done - they are just creepy and odd in a way that doesn't sell the song or the artist to his audience very well. The post fx also don't make any sense to teh concept. My guess is teh director does fx. The artist might have wanted some fx - so they put them into the clip, but NOT in a way that sells the lyrics or vibe of the song. In fact the fx seem to work against the point of the track (i.e. the artist likes to have doggie style sex with girls that have nice rear-ends but less attractive faces). the fx felt like they were in there for their own sake.
It sounds like you might know the director, so sorry if my post offended you - but it is only my opinion. The fact that the label didn't care for it AND the director took it off his webpage would indicate that I am not the only one who feels this is a sub-par clip.
And regarding the "slipping one past the man" - One, it didn't make it past the man, so failure there. Two, what was the "thing" that the man is opposed to that might have slipped by IF it had been executed properly? Was there some secret Proust or environmental message hidden in the telecine?
Your friend Ted McGinley wrote more about this craftmanship issue on his blog.
30f, i guess we'll have to agree to disagree on this one. i felt he pulled it off well in the clip, but it's a matter of aesthetic taste in the end. rich lee is an fx artist i believe, but i do not know him personally. i think he works with francis lawrence quite a bit, a mentor of sorts.
i can't help but rebuff criticism about a video not connecting with it's intended audience, because frankly i am sure there are lots of chamillionaire fans out there that would like a darker video that tries to do something different vs. bright lights and big bootys(pronounced 'boo-tays'). the video actually made me like chamillionaire more as an artist, even if in the end he had little to do with the selection of this treatment. in fact, i would hedge my bets that rich didnt take it off the dna site because of universal's lack of enthusiasm, but rather an indifference to pursuing more hiphop gigs. you see a lot of up and coming directors take a stab at hiphop and swear to never touch the stuff again after dealing with label and artist opinions, haha.
as for the slipping it past the man comment, plain and simple: it got made. besides the color grade, the concept was read, approved, bid, and booked. i think that's something to applaud in a constantly recycled and creatively diminished urban video market. sure, it's not some hugely edgey video, still has hot chicks, still has the artist semi-blinged out, but to suggest it should be nominated as one of the worst videos of the year, i couldnt help but disagree.
we have different tastes, i dug it, you didnt. no harm, no foul. i guess i should just keep quiet and be happy none of my videos were nominated in this category, haha. cheers.
30f/mookie: My 2 cents: Grown and Sexy ain't bad. The CG looks like crap in the online copies (higher quality mov), but overall the rest of the vid goes well with the track's feel. It definitely doesn't feel Dirty Southern. I guess Universal doesn't want Chamillionaire to be smooth and sophisticated just yet? I dunno, his appearance in Jim Jones' We Fly High (Remix) vid was both (Dale Resteghini/Jim Jones).
Rich Lee did an interesting vid for Dashboard Confessional called Don't Wait. I'm keeping my eye on him, anyway, but he better show he's not Marc Webb II.
that panic at the disco song makes bile shoot into my mouth, I can't make it through the first 20 seconds...
Grammy award for best video.... wow.
"The video came out ahead of Feist’s 1234 directed by Patrick Daughters, Gnarls Barkely’s Gone Daddy Gone directed by Chris Milk, Justice’s DANCE directed by Jonas & Francois & So-me, and Mute Math’s Typical directed by Brandon Arolfo."
nobody wants a grammy
corroborating coady's earlier observation: "sweet justice" - what's shite for the 'ville is manna for the masses.
