Monday, September 24, 2012

Music Video: Titus Jones "Dance Alarm" (Nicki Minaj / Eminem / Britney Spears / Dev / Taio Cruz / Lady Gaga / Owl City / Carly Rae Jepsen / Cascada / Avicii / Etta James)

So Titus Jones has a new "album"1 out, as of last Friday. I haven't had a lot of opportunities to listen to it yet, so I'm not sure which tracks, if any, will turn out to be my favorites, but this looks like it'll be one of them.2 Conveniently enough, this is also the only one for which a video has been made.

The video is a little . . . much, just to warn you.3



That was a pretty representative bit of the album as a whole, so if you liked that, you'll probably want to download the whole thing from Titus Jones' site. (It's free.)

-

1 Does the word "album" still mean anything? Discuss.
2 "Close to Blowin' in the Deep" is also an early favorite, as is "I Wanna Believe in Fire Love." It's possible that I may just like Adele.
3 Hell, Nicki Minaj's outfits alone probably qualify the video for "a little much" status, never mind all the strobe-light editing and effects and shit.
I suppose that puts the video as a whole somewhere in the "way the hell too much" category.
Perhaps I'm just getting old: I was warned that this sort of thing would happen.


5 comments:

Lew said...

Not that I know about your taste in music (or taste in video), and I still won't know based on just one song (video)... but I think this is just another carbonated beverage, lots of bubbles (which is fun and festive) and calories, but no nutritional value. In pop music, I yearn for something with vision and creativity. It's OK to be "too much" but I appreciate it if it has more than just being "too much."

Wait! I don't think you asked for my opinion.

But since I have started rambling, I might as well finish my thoughts. There are some recent pop artists that I admire tremendously. You may know them too. But in case you don't, you should check out their youtube videos (most of them can be described as "too much" in a different way):

Die Antwoord -- I fink you freeky
Die Antwoord -- Rich bitch
Die Antwoord -- Evil boy
Azealia Banks -- 212

mr_subjunctive said...

Lew:

Mashing up half a dozen different songs into a new thing doesn't involve vision or creativity?

"Too much" wasn't a compliment to the video: I thought it was a little too hyperactive and find it difficult to watch.

Die Antwoord does nothing for me at all. Azealia Banks might be okay, though they're both too repetitive (musically, if not lyrically) to catch my interest much.

But then, musical taste is more a function of how old you are and who you hang out with than anything, so you not liking Titus Jones or me not liking Die Antwoord really doesn't say anything beyond, you don't like Titus Jones and I don't like Die Antwoord.

I wouldn't say Titus Jones is particularly representative of my musical taste, but I do like what he manages to do with pretty shitty starting material. (In fact, the straw-into-gold aspect is the main reason I care about mashups at all. The hey!-you-got-your-chocolate-in-my-peanut-butter aspect is most of the rest of the reason.)

More representative of my tastes, not that you need to care: Lyle Lovett, Tori Amos, Radiohead, Cowboy Junkies, Beck, Janelle Monae, Massive Attack, Laurie Anderson, PJ Harvey, Aimee Mann.

Lew said...

Shaking like a schizo!

Diane C said...

I agree with the carbonated beverage train of thought. What I DID want to comment on was your wondering whether it was an album. I wonder how many generations it will take to replace that word seeing that we still use "type" even though most of us have never used a typewriter. We use comfortable old handles because we have no new ones where we can hang these new developments.

Melody said...

I actually said out loud, "Deadmau5's new album is out today," to a friend the other day, so I guess it's still a relevant term, even though we all know I'm talking about CD, not a record. Unless you're a DJ, in which case your probably referring to the record.

I end up listening to an excessive amount of pop music at my current job. What I think is most interesting about mash-ups like the video you posted is that all the current pop music out is so similar in beat/timing that it is so easily mixed together. There's so many mash-ups out there that are just the top 5-10 radio hits mixed into one song....perfectly.

I do like some pop music though, so I'm certainly not putting it down or anyone else that likes it. I'm giving you a thumbs up on Radiohead, Janelle Monae, and Massive Attack, though. Then again neither of us are exactly the target demographic of the chart toppers, lol, unless you are secretly a 14 year old girl.