The 15 Worst Videos Of 2012

Let the fun continue! Much like my worst albums countdown, choosing the shittest music videos of the year was like shooting fish in a barrel. I don't know what happened to the art of the music in 2012. Lana Del Rey was the only bitch that actually gave a fuck. The rest of game just opted for cheap and cheerful trash. Although, as these offenders prove, even that can be hard to pull off. I tried not to be swayed by low budgets and bad production values for independent acts and newcomers. However, the big names did not get off so easy.

So here goes. These are the year's 15 most pointless MVs:

15. I Heart You - Toni Braxton (Video)

I stan for this broke bitch - and actually rather like this song - but her "I Heart You" video is unforgivable. Toni looks like a mental patient as she poses in a bunch of unflattering outfits while dancers half her age cavort in front of some kind of budget green screen. It would have been less embarrassing if she sat on the toilet and hand-danced like Kylie.

14. Crazy - Ricki-Lee (Video)

Sometimes I think it's impossible to make a decent music video in Australia. Ricki-Lee's label actually spent money on "Crazy" and ended up with a virtuoso display of bad photography, worse styling and embarrassing choreography. It didn't help that the star of the show was almost unrecognizable with unflattering blond hair and a selection of outfits picked up from the Tool Shed.  

13. Rocks Off - Daniel Bendingfield (Video)

Now don't get me wrong. I'm all for pop stars flashing their dicks in music videos - Frank Ocean, you're up next! - but dressing up an obvious cry for attention as some kind of edgy art piece is beyond insincere. Who could have guessed that Daniel would turn out to be the thirstiest diva in the game?  

12. Echo - Foxes (Video)

Foxes is one of the most promising female artists on the planet. I love every song she has released - including this one - but just can't get past the idiotic video. She looks absolutely demented sitting there with an eye mask over her forehead and the whole love-affair-with-a-crash-test-dummy storyline made me want to pull my eyes from their socket. An epic fail on every level.  

11. Waiting On You - Michelle Williams and Ultra Nate (Video)

I wasn't expecting "Telephone" but this has to be a pisstake, no?  

10. Do It Like That - Ricki-Lee (Video)

Ricki-Lee struck out again with this shocker. A cheap but not cheerful "Crazy In Love" rip-off that looks like it was filmed for $10 on someone's iPhone. That budget also covered the Supre fashion and five minute dance lesson that someone gave the former Young Diva before filming.  

9. Give Me All Your Luvin' - Madonna (Video)

Madonna did it for the kids on "Give Me All Your Luvin'" and made herself look twice as old in the process. For every good idea - the pram is funny - there's a ridiculous scene like the shenanigans in the vodka bar. And what's with Nicki and MIA? The latter looks absolutely miserable - as if she could sense her credibility melting away in front of her very eyes.

8. Call My Name - Cheryl Cole (Video)

I'm not even going to lie. "Call My Name" is the best song Cheryl has ever released and I grew to love it despite her terrible vocal. Which makes this video all the more annoying. Why would you give a club song the urban video treatment? More importantly, what is with this choreography? Chezza looks like she's been struck with epilepsy. Embarrassing.

7. Beauty And A Beat - Justin Bieber and Nicki Minaj (Video)

So 43-year-old Nicki Minaj hangs out at a children's waterpark "rapping" about a teenager's "wiener" and nobody bats at eyelid? Shame on you all. I'm calling the police.

6. Wildest Dreams - Brandy (Video)

Damn, Brandy. I know times are tough but this is the cheapest video I have ever seen from a mainstream pop star. It looks like rehearsal footage pieced together by an intern using Windows moviemaker. Seriously, why even bother? This was never going to be played on television. What a waste of a good song!  

5. Dancing With A Broken Heart - Delta Goodrem (Video)

I'm really not here to watch this cunt model evening gowns.  

4. Girl Gone Wild - Madonna (Video)

Madonna looks really good in this video. Shame she spends it dancing with a bunch of Ukrainian gays in high heels. I don't understand why Vadge keeps churning out these low budget shockers. She has enough cash to make an amazing video - why not spend it? And please stop pandering to the gays. I know we're the only people who buy her music but it's starting to get uncomfortable. Like an overenthusiastic car salesman.

3. Girl On Fire - Alicia Keys (Video)

It's not every day that someone releases a video so bad that it actually ruins a great song for you. Alicia's "Girl On Fire" is an epic track but apparently it's about fancy wallpaper and doing household chores if this shocker is any indication. So bad it's absolutely mystifying.  

2. Scream & Shout - Britney and will.i.am (Video)

There's really no excuse for how jaw-droppingly bad this video is. Everything about it is second rate. From the special effects to that horrible wig on Britney's head. It's like they were in such a rush to get it out that they filmed it in afternoon and edited it in the taxi on the way back from the studio. Watching this will give you retinal damage.  

1. Pound The Alarm - Nicki Minaj (below)

If you want to watch Nicki shake her fake tits for four minutes, then this is the video for you. Enjoy!

Read More

Britney To Tour Australia In July 2013

Britney is in negotiations to mime a one-off show in Australia next year. The extravaganza would take place in July and be part of a series of concerts from high-profile international guests. Also on the promoter's wishlist is Christina Aguilera! "Your Body" live? I would die.

Read More

Will.i.am + Britney = The Worst Video Of 2012

Seriously, what is this shit? I feel like I just watched the world's worst commercial for electronic goods. These two fools are all over Twitter carrying on like they just filmed The Matrix and then deliver this green-screen nightmare? BYE. I can't even be bothered reviewing it. Will.i.am looks embarrassed, Britney thinks she's doing a photoshoot for middle-aged women gone wild and the director just wants his name removed from the credits. Deluded Spears fans will love it. The rest of us will just scratch our heads and wonder why Christina is the one with having a career crisis. After all, she's never put her name to anything this tired, lazy and dated.

0/10

Read More

Xtina's Legendary AMA Performance

I know I'm late on this but I just had to pay tribute to the best live performance of 2012. Christina Aguilera's Lotus medley shook my world to its very foundations earlier this week. I didn't know whether to laugh, cry or fall to my knees and worship. The performance is such a piping hot mess that it transcends criticism and becomes something quite magical.

There's nothing wrong with Xtina's vocal. She sounded fine and I approve of her eating for two since becoming a TV host. You'd take solace in food too if you had to listen to those cunts on The Voice all day. But what was that outfit? Who is responsible for the Madonna-circa-1997 choreography? And which fuckwit picked the songs?

Christina has only performed "Your Body" once on Jimmy Fallon - acoustically with office supplies, no less. Someone needs to tell the lazy bitch that it's not 2001 anymore. The buzz is gone. She is going to have to work for a hit. The AMAs would have been a nice promo opportunity for the track but she sings the "Lotus intro" instead. What the fuck? And then teams it up with "Army Of Me" and "Let There Be Love". Why not just belt out a "Woo Hoo"/"Vanity" mash-up? It would have been just as relevant.

The performance is infuriating but absolutely mesmerising. I can't get enough of this and pray for a Lotus tour. You just know it will redefine so-wrong-it's-right entertainment for decades to come!

Read More

Britney & will.i.am = Big Fat Bass-ics

Is this it? Are you sure it's not an unfinished demo? No? Shit. I can't believe the intern pretending to be Britney on Twitter has been raving about this awful will.i.am collaboration for weeks. A high-profile feature is a good way of regaining some of the ground she lost when Femme Fatale tanked but this is the X Factor judge's worst single since... "Hold It Against Me". I thought it was humiliating for a legend like Nicole Scherzinger to sing about butt injections on another, vastly superior track from #willpower but "Scream & Shout" makes "Hoola Hoop" sound like something from 21. Eva Simons is laughing at both of these bitches right now while taking orders at her local McDonalds.

There's not a lot to say about this mess. I like the beat but it would have been better as an instrumental. The rap is uninspired and Britney sounds like she's leaving a message on someone's answering machine. It's just bad. The annoying thing is that will.i.am knows his way around a good pop song - Fergie's debut album is flawless from beginning to end - and his solo material can be decent (see the aforementioned Eva Simons collab for example). He should have just reworked "Big Fat Bass". At least that had a chorus. Who knows? "Scream & Shout" might be huge. Britney's fans are notoriously undiscerning and she is actually promoting the stinker unlike songs from her own album. But excuse me while I go and play some Ke$ha to cleanse myself of this musical abortion.

2/10

Read More

Beyoncé Interviews Britney & Rihanna - The Best Video I Have EVER Seen

Put your life on hold and watch this video! I haven't laughed this much since Keri Hilson performed for free in that Walmart carpark. "Bayonse's Quens Of Flop" is an animated talk show hosted by the legendary Beyoncé Knowles. It perfectly captures Bey's superiority to everyone else on the planet and pretty much leaves the rest of the game wigless and crying in a corner. In this episode, 'Bayonse' interviews Rihanna ('Rhenna') and Britney ('Brinty'). The quips about Rihanna's "tens of fans" and X Factor keeping Britney "off the pills" were perfection. There's even well-deserved Madonna hate. Who is the mastermind behind "Bayonse's Quens Of Flop"? You are my new best friend/soul mate and need to call me immediately! God bless the Beyhive. Which other fanbase could spawn something this ratchet? Bring on the next episode.

Read More

The 20 Shadiest Music Moments Of 2011

Is it just me or was 2011 shadier than usual? It seems like every ho with a record deal was caught doing something underhand this year. Perhaps we're just more observant and unnecessarily criticise artists for playing the game. Or maybe the music business is so cut-throat at the moment that you need sticky fingers and a Teflon conscience just to get ahead. In any case, there were no shortage of examples to choose from when I put together my list of 2011's shadiest moments. I'm sure I forgot some essential acts of thievery and bad behaviour - so feel free to remind me in the comments.

20. Kylie's pop-up book debacle

Kylie announced the $199 "Goddess Edition" of her album way back in June. It's now December and still nowhere to be seen. It can't have been easy for Dannii to cut and paste each copy herself between takes on Australia's Got Talent but this whole debacle is starting to feel shadier than a rain forest.

19. Britney's tweets

And the award for the most obviously ghost-written Twitter belongs to Britney. Who do they think they're kidding? We all know Brit is too high on Xanax and Vicodin to stand without assistance, let alone regularly update her social media platforms with tightly-scripted content. Many artists have admin staff running their Twitter - I met the guy being paid to write Taylor Swift's tweets when I was in New York - but Britney's lack of involvement is so obvious that it crosses into shady territory.

18. Lady Gaga inventing Madonna's support

Now this was awkward. At the height of Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" controversy (ie. that it's a blatant "Express Yourself" rip-off), the deluded one went on the Jay Leno Show and proudly announced that Madonna sent her an email declaring her love for the song. Unfortunately, the 97-year-old pop icon's publicist denied the exchanged ever happened. How embarrassing!

17. Madonna's mad YouTube skillz

Madonna is the Queen of shade - probably because she sleeps in a crypt and only comes out at night to feed on male models. In the year's shadiest click of a button, the once popular singer rubbed more salt into Lady Gaga's wounds by uploading "Express Yourself" to her YouTube account - a move that was interpreted as a clear jab at Mother Monster.

16. Lady Gaga thanks Whitney Houston

The not-so-subtle feud between Madonna and Lady Gaga continued at the Grammys when the latter thanked Whitney Houston for inspiring "Born This Way" - despite the fact that it sounds like everything Madge recorded in the '80s thrown into a blender. Acknowledging the pop legend's biggest rival was a particularly shady touch.

15. Kelly Rowland releases a greatest hits album - with no hits

Girl, please.

14. Rihanna's bargain bundles

While Katy Perry's price-rigging on iTunes generated loud criticism across the blogosphere, Rihanna's "buy my last album, get my new single for free" deal was inexplicably given a pass. By everyone but me.

13. Beyoncé's "Countdown" choreography

King B stole ten seconds of a dance routine from a random Belgian ballet in her iconic "Countdown" video and faced the wrath of the original choreographer. While I'm usually down with Bey's stunning homages, this particular example was more specific and detailed than usual. It's a clever reference and works brilliantly in the clip but someone could have cleared it with Teresa before the ungrateful bitch went ballistic.

12. Rico Love's beat recycling

It's a common dilemma - a song blows up and everyone wants a piece of the action - but how many times can Rico Love recycle Kelly Rowland's "Motivation"? First came Melanie Fiona's awesome "4am" and now Mary J's equally good "Mr Wrong". Ryan Tedder and RedOne have been doing it for years but this shit is still super shady regardless of the original's quality.

11. Britney's body double

Anyone with eyes can tell that Britney didn't dance in "Hold It Against Me" - I'm convinced her stand-in was actually a man! - but she vehemently denied it. The same accusations were made about Brit's "Til The World Ends" video but this time she was proven to be a shady liar when photos of her body double performing choreography surfaced online. Worst yet is using a body double to make out with her real-life boyfriend in her aptly-titled "Criminal" video. That goes beyond shady into the realm of totally fucked-up.

10. Onika's age

Nicki Minaj is possibly the oldest person nominated for a Best New Artist Grammy in the Award's history. Earlier this year, her cover was blown when a police report outed her as being 28 years old. Until then the poor man's Lil Kim had listed her age as 26. Whoops.

9. Lana Del Ray's entire career

I love Lana Del Slay. She is my new obsession and I still play "Video Games" on repeat. But all this crap about making her own videos and being discovered on YouTube is hard to swallow. This has been a carefully orchestrated exercise in record label shadiness from the beginning. And you know what? It worked. So now she can stop pretending that she does everything from catering to injecting her lips with filler between takes on her self-funded, self-directed and self-styled videos. Something in the tea ain't clean!

8. Flo Rida and Leona Lewis rip off Avicii

Avicii really needs to get a copyright lawyer on retainer. First Leona Lewis steals the Swede's hit instrumental "Penguin" for her gigantic flop "Collide" and then Flo Rida pilfers "Levels" for "Good Feeling". If nothing else all this shadiness has raised the DJ's profile and made him the go-to producer for singers that can't afford David Guetta

7. Jeff Bhasker trashing "Motivation"

Everyone should be able to express their own opinion on Twitter but there was something distinctly shady about the producer behind some of the hottest cuts on Beyoncé's "4" trashing Kelly Rowland's "Motivation" - particularly when Rico Love's production was riding high at #1 on the R&B chart at the time and Bhasker's efforts were getting a lot less love.

6. Kelly Rowland's recycled videos

Sarah Chatfield proved to be the music industry's greenest director when she recycled two videos for Ms Kelly. "Lay It On Me" was a scene-by-scene remake of Livvi Franc's "Now I'm That Bitch", while "Down For Whatever" re-visited Wynter Gordon's "Believer". I'm not sure where the blame lies but this is seriously shady. It's one thing to take an idea and make it better but this was just lazy.

5. Beyoncé's BBMA performance

I have never seen anything like King B's 2011 Billboard Music Award performance. That was next level shit that made your tired fave look like a dusty typewriter in comparison to Bey's shiny, new laptop. But it doesn't change the fact that elements were taken from a previous performance by Lorella Cuccarini. As it turns out the Queen of soul, pop and probably country (if she put her mind to it), hired the Italian singer's producers to re-create the technology - so she can hardly be accused of stealingit. The shadiness results from tarnishing such an iconic moment by using an old idea - regardless of whether she improved on it (she did) or not.

4. Lady Gaga's "Judas" debacle

Mother Monster's sticky fingers worked over time this year. Not only did she blatantly steal "WannaBE" from Loli Lux - using the sexy DJ's exact beats on "Judas" - but she then stole the video concept from Brandy! The similarities to that diva's "Afrodisiac" clip - also choreographed by Laurieann Gibson, funnily enough - are uncanny.

3. Rihanna rapes David LaChappelle's artistic legacy

In a bid to spread her creative wings Rihanna decided to co-direct her "S&M" video. So the Barbadian bonehead flipped through a book of David LaChappelle's photos and basically stole his entire aesthetic. He had the last laugh when she had to cough up the big dollars to keep it out of court. You would have thought Rih-cycle would have learned from stealing M.I.A.'s "Boyz" video concept for "Rude Boy". Shady lady.

2. Katy Perry's price-rigging

I kind of love Katy Perry's creative antics (iTunes discounts, celebrity videos and completely unnecessary remixes) to rack up number one hits in America but it is shady. Can't she just be proud of landing six top 10 hits from the one album? That's an insane achievement! I'm not sure if losing all credibility to squeeze out another couple of chart-toppers is really worth it. Having said all that, I really hope "The One That Got Away" makes it to number one just to annoy everyone!

1. Lady Gaga's 99 cent album deal

The majority of these entries have been tongue-in-cheek. I don't care that Nicki Minaj is a couple of weeks away from menopause and Bey can copy as many Belgian flops as she likes. However, Mother Monster's 99 cent album deal crossed all kinds of lines. At a time when illegal downloading has all but killed the music industry, Lady Gaga gave the year's most highly-anticipated album away for free. Or near enough. If people didn't think mp3s were worthless before, they sure do now. And for what? To get a bogus first week sales record? So lame, so shady, so Gaga.

Read More

Britney's New Video Is Criminal

I'm not here for a middle-aged prescription drug addict desperately trying to recapture her glory days by acting like a teenage slut.

1/10

Read More

Elen Levon Covers Britney

With her debut single set to drop on September 30, Australian pop princess-in-waiting Elen Levon is ramping up the promo with a series of shows around the country. I caught the first of them on Friday night at Sydney's RNB Superclub and the 17-year-old delivered the goods, overcoming the dodgiest sound system in Australia. The setlist was pretty much the same as her recent industry showcase. She belted out a note-perfect rendition of "Naughty", while burning up the stage with her trademark killer choreography. It was amazing to see the audience response. One guy was literally crying and shaking. Elen has her first stan! The Year 11 student also dusted off the James Ash-penned "Like A Girl In Love" and "Ooh Yeah".

The big surprise of the night was the aspiring pop diva's energetic cover of Britney's "Til The World Ends". It seemed an appropriate choice given the comparisons that have been made between them. Elen did an amazing job with Ke$ha's quirky lyrics and Brit's robotic phrasing. In addition to performing the song live (something Ms Spears has never accomplished), she also knocked out some cute choreography with a little help from her always-flawless dancers Morgan and Carly. Listen to a one minute clip of the song below. The sound and visual quality isn't the best - it was taken on my crappy phone - but you get an idea of how the teenager's version turned out. "Naughty" hits iTunes this Friday. Pre-order your copy now!

Read More