Lady Gaga-cum-Barbie-cum-AI/T&A/Autotune-cum-softporn-cum-girlieboys…

 …and a weird dose of nostalgia, as for something half remembered.


What did you do for your Memorial Day remembrances? 

We watched the laying of the wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns and the President’s speech. The audience was large, and the people there looked amazingly normal. Attentive and respectful. The way our parents taught us to be at solemn events.

We heard the fireworks begin after dark and put the Thundershirt on our terrier Tommy, who isn’t entirely sure that fireworks aren’t an approaching thunderstorm. All we needed of that timeless ritual, since we’ve both been to many such occasions, including the field a mile away where the Salem event is always held.

It was only at bedtime that I tried something new. In my constant search for background sounds that facilitate the hours of sleep I get before the inevitable wee hours summons to the keyboard, I try different things, usually intended to be monotonous and therefore soporific. British crime documentary series are good. All that Brit understatement about the crime scene gore, and their slow methodical timidity about acquiring the Kilimanjaro of proof every Brit jury has been trained by QCs to regard as necessary to overcome reasonable doubt (i.e., ‘beyond any possible fucking shadow of a doubt’ in American English.) But sometimes you don’t feel like Brits. Or Fifties monster movies. Or old ‘One Step Beyond’ episodes. Or that mesmerizing female narrator on “Snapped.” You know. Different.

So I checked out the music options on the ROKU search function. There were several categories of VEVO videos I’d seen at least somewhat recently. But there was also a category specifically calling out Memorial Day Weekend and contemporary Pop Hits.

Why not? I haven’t listened to any pop music that hasn’t been necessary research for catching up on phenomena like the Beatles laurel some have crowned Taylor Swift with of late. I’ve probably seen brief lurid clips of twerkers and Satanic rappers and insaniac has-beens like Springsteen, but that’s not really pop music. Or is it? I wouldn’t know. I once got roundly criticized a decade (or so) ago for questioning Victor Davis Hanson’s knowledge of American pop culture, Back then I was still trying to keep my hand in on that credential for insightful punditry, but I haven’t tried too hard at that lately. Hanson on the other hand seems to have learned quite a lot about the seamier side of American youth in recent years. Of course, he’s a year younger than I am, and I can claim AHIP excuse. 

Which I shouldn’t. They didn’t even put me to sleep as effectively as I thought they would.

This time I’ll start with the evidence and wait to provide my take on it later on. The title of the post should give you a hint about my general view of it. Try to watch at least a little of all of them. You can use the slider to fast forward to the juiciest parts if you want. Have at it…

Stupid Love

Lady Gaga


All the Time

Zara Larsson


Coconuts

Kim Petras


Midnight Sky

Mylie Cyrus 


Kiss Me More

Doja Cat


Pop Star

Justin Bieber


Runway

Lady Gaga


Confetti

Little Mix


34+35

Ariana Grande


Smile

Katy Perry


Jaded

Mylie Cyrus


One Drink Away

Cher Lloyd


Bad Blood

Taylor Swift/Kendrick Lamarr

abcdefu

Gayle


What I Want

Lil Nas

Anybody out there want to disagree with the post title? These aren’t really music videos. They’re AI collage graphics of tits and ass imitating dancing in jump cuts, and the women all kind of look the same under their makeup, hairdos, and sheer fashion moments. And where is Taylor Swift? Lately, I’ve heard attempts to cast her as ‘the Beatles of her Generation.’ But her schtick is generally different from what we’re seeing here. Usually, She’s Alanis Morissette dressed up and dissing her past lovers away from the iconic piano legspread. The one vid I found in the Memorial Day Collection, Bad Blood, was a more aggressive version of her star persona. Reminded me, not kindly to her, of the video the Stones used as their intro in the 1999 No Security Tour, a no-nonsense smaller venue follow-on to the global Bridges to Babylon stadium tour. I saw both, the grittier one at the Spectrum, Philly’s home for hockey and NBA games. 

Sinister mood without explicit violence. That happened in the stands later. Had to 
leave when fights broke out in the upper row seats we’d bought in the parking lot.

Taylor Swift’s video violence is no more real or convincing than her monotonous song list. But maybe that’s what she’s the iconic archetype of in the late 2920s, flashy monotony pushed as far into the bright lights you can get without having anything unique or original to offer. I can’t remember any of the faces I saw in all the videos I half watched because they didn’t wake (woke?) me up enough to pay attention.

Why I don’t have much more to say here, except maybe below the fold…


______________________

Below the Fold

Undercurrents of nostalgia? Several anomalies cropped up in the course of finding the YouTube videos from the ROKU Memorial Day Weekend splurge of 375 videos. First, there were ‘pop’ entries featuring incorporation of the music hits of years ago. This one’s a standout in that regard:


How Will I Know

Clean Bandit/Whitney Houston

Meaningful that today’s pop lineup falls back on talents that have gone missing in the age of Autotune and AI graphics dominance? What about the converse, a contemporary pop star trying to hearken back to old songs in a context signifying homage? Mylie Cyrus kept cropping up with exactly this anomaly.


Heart of Glass




Wish You Were Here




Comfortably Numb



What is going on here? Possible illumination from a clip that kept showing up in the sidebar links accompanying the Mylie throwback recordings.


Cry 12 (Sonny and His Women)

Godley & Crème

1st Comment attached to YT File: “Women were better looking back then. No tattoos.” Lots of comments including…


Of course, when you think of Sonny Crockett, you also get an instant flashback to his Ferraris, at least two of them in the run of the series. Is it irony or more than that that Memorial Day Weekend also brought us news of the first ever Ferrari Electric Vehicle. As reported by the wire services…

Italian luxury automaker Ferrari saw its stock price tumble on Tuesday after unveiling the Luce, the company’s first fully electric vehicle, marking a significant shift in the brand’s traditional approach. Former Ferrari Chairman Luca Cordero di Montezemolo slammed the EV, telling reporters, “I hope they at least remove the Prancing Horse from that car.”


CNBC reports that Ferrari revealed its new electric model at a venue in Rome, with the name Luce translating to “light” in English. According to the company, the name was chosen to evoke “clarity and direction” as Ferrari embarks on this new chapter in its storied history.


The critics and fans were absolutely scornful:

The most common comment at ‘X’ was that the Ferrari EV looks like an iPhone. $640,000?

Maybe the analogy also works for the Pop Music Collection we just sampled. Lots of money spent, lots of promotional flash, lots of technology, lots of same old same old with no star quality. Expensively dressed crash test dummies singing out of an invisible electric motor. Color us blue too.

Comments

Pat Laird said…
What a sorry state of affairs. I can barely believe the producers and distributors make a nickel from this stuff. Surely there are songwriters and singers somewhere in this country.
May 28, 2026 at 12:56 PM
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