Comments on: ETV music video

ETV music video

tellurian — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 19:07:45 -0800

Fantastic dancing and singing.

By: FritoKAL

FritoKAL — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 19:12:30 -0800

The only way this could possibly be more surreal is if I'd just packed a Volvo station wagon full of all my stuff in the freezing cold. ... wait. Nevermind. Carry on.

By: miss lynnster

miss lynnster — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 19:14:11 -0800

I heart Bollywood. Muchly.

By: miss lynnster

miss lynnster — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 19:15:02 -0800

And don't anyone pick on this for being a one link post. More would make my head explode.

By: cazoo

cazoo — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 19:22:10 -0800

i love this video clip more than life itself.

By: sharksandwich

sharksandwich — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 19:22:30 -0800

The last Bollywood post on MF someone mentioned how all these songs have terrible audio. Distortion, screeching highs, etc. Hell, even the Indian restaurant I go to plays this stuff over their sound sytem and every song is distorted to the point of annoyance. I don't get it.

By: Dizzy

Dizzy — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 19:26:56 -0800

It's like PlushiePorn but with a fur shortage.

By: cgc373

cgc373 — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 19:38:19 -0800

How would you go about trying to determine the influences on this clip? I mean, it looks like some children's programming, such as The Wiggles, but it's from a long time before that stuff. It looks like the 1970s to me. So, where do the visual ideas come from? Psychedelics translated into a subcontinental context, the way the Beatles were interpreted?

By: cgc373

cgc373 — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 19:41:37 -0800

And as a gift, here's one of my favorite recent songs: "Lucky Lips". One of the catchiest things I've ever heard; if this were a western pop song, it would be a huge hit.

By: Dizzy

Dizzy — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 19:41:58 -0800

(too much masala in the hookah?)

By: Dizzy

Dizzy — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 19:45:37 -0800

And in all seriousness, cgc373--- you make an excellent point: why aren't our musicians/artists/creatives plundering Indian culture in all its tangy goodness? Ignorance? Bias? Other?

By: cgc373

cgc373 — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 19:48:18 -0800

It's a question of when, in my view, Dizzy. Western artists haven't "plundered" yet, but they will.

By: The Tensor

The Tensor — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 19:54:23 -0800

Bunnies! Bunnies! IT MIGHT BE BUNNIES!

By: BT

BT — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 19:56:34 -0800

Oh, very good. A little bit Bollywood, a little bit Sid & Marty Kroft, a little bit Wicker Man (that might be a stretch, but that's what the animal masks made me think of). (But haven't western musicians been "plundering" Indian music since, oh, I dunno...forty-odd years ago?)

By: cenoxo

cenoxo — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 19:58:46 -0800

Bombay Berkeley on a Bollywood budget. Fan-tastick!

By: Ambrosia Voyeur

Ambrosia Voyeur — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 20:03:07 -0800

My love of all things Indian is potent enough to threaten my relationship.

By: Bookhouse

Bookhouse — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 20:23:02 -0800

why aren't our musicians/artists/creatives plundering Indian culture in all its tangy goodness? One has. (excuse the lip synch video, it's that or a live clip. I guess he didn't do a video). That Lucky Lips is awesome.

By: hafetysazard

hafetysazard — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 20:26:45 -0800

I just couldn't stop watching it. I don't know if it was the animals in the moving wall or the spinning pompoms but I couldn't look away... or stop pressing play when it ended.

By: sourwookie

sourwookie — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 20:39:40 -0800

LOL XNDUSTANIS! Seriously, I half expect that the lyrics were translated from Ogden Nash or Saint-Saens.

By: Quiplash

Quiplash — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 20:50:06 -0800

For those of you who want the Lucky Lips tune, it is on iTunes (search for "Lucky Lips" by Asha Bhosle, 2005 album title "Lucky"). Now I'm working on the dance moves ;-)

By: cgc373

cgc373 — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 21:08:20 -0800

That heartbeat move in "Lucky Lips" works really, really well, in my opinion; as does the brief, suggestive guitar fingering near the end. The wax-on/wax-off thing is fun, but the heartbeat thing is where it's at!

By: Dizzy

Dizzy — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 21:17:19 -0800

Please forgive my flogging a dead Vishnu, but I meant when will Joe or Jane TrickleDownSixPack encounter a mass-produced "Indian" product, like the "Macarena" is known as a "Latin" product? Cultural Outliers, George Harrison fans and MeFites are all cutting edge--- I'm talking Mall of America.

By: Dizzy

Dizzy — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 21:20:05 -0800

Strike that bit about Harrison fans, maybe. But 30 years ago They Got it, and the fans of 1910 Fruitgum didn't. (I'm just sinking into complete referential obscurity, ain't I? Sorry.)

By: Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese

Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 22:08:47 -0800

I wasn't that impressed with the FPP clip, maybe because all the comments led me to expect more. They look like they're having fun, but the choreography is boring, the dancing is awful, the production design looks like it was raided from a shipment of discarded toys, not to mention the shitty audio and camera work. As for inspiration, and why Hollywood hasn't exploited this stuff yet, well, I'd say it's because the Indians were riffing off Hollywood to begin with. Check out the early Busby Berkeley stuff and other the great musicals from the late 30s and early 40s. THIS is HOW IT'S DONE: Carmen Miranda dancing in a forty-foot fruit hat. Shadow Waltz from the "Gold diggers of 1933" Nicholas Brothers do "Kalamazoo" in "Orchestra Wives" Hollywood quality production values, and they knew how to dance, too.

By: Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese

Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 22:10:59 -0800

The Lucky Lips song is wonderful, though.

By: Dizzy

Dizzy — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 22:21:10 -0800

Kraft...Cheese--- Yes! Tit for Tat! They "steal" and enrich it, then we "steal" it from the "stealer" and enrich it, and etc etc etc. I find that very satisfying on cultural, political, artistical and many other-al levels. I loves me some Golden Age of Hollywood, but I can appreciate the Bolly too. You?

By: cgc373

cgc373 — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 22:25:27 -0800

True enough, contemporary Bollywood pictures riff on (or even outright steal) Hollywood sources, but I don't know enough about the history of the medium to say how or whether earlier Hollywood classic musicals were used as material, KAC. And as far as choreography and staging and music go, Bollywood pics definitely hold there own, from what I've seen. They're frickin' glorious! And they make no apologies for how damned glorious they are, either. They're not ironic; they're just fantastic, plain wonderful! Clips like the ones you link have some of that same sense of freedom, of sheer fun, but if you want to feel it now, you're way better off with Bollywood, I think.

By: Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese

Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 22:50:58 -0800

I didn't say Bollywood actors can't dance, but the dancing in this particular clip wasn't too hot. I do like Bollywood movies, and I've seen a lot of them. I made a point of seeing Raja Hindustani when I was in India ten years ago. I agree, the good ones Bollywood flicks are unapologetically glorious, and I especially enjoy the very goofy ones. But this particular clip just felt a bit lacking.

By: cgc373

cgc373 — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 22:56:16 -0800

Yeah, I'm more or less with you on the technical aspects for this one, Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese. It looks under-produced. It's fun, for sure, and its weird hallucinogenic qualities make it interesting, but it's not very good, not professional.

By: tehloki

tehloki — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 23:25:37 -0800

what? this is just bollywood. nothing remarkable about it (in context) at all.

By: tehloki

tehloki — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 23:25:59 -0800

in context being the operative words here. i think i heard this song in a coffee shop.

By: ikalliom

ikalliom — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 03:14:46 -0800

"Lucky Lips" sounds like a Lady Marmalade pastiche.

By: Muddler

Muddler — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 04:46:26 -0800

Holy crap - I was going to start using acid today, but now I don't have to. Thanks!

By: LMGM

LMGM — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 05:23:40 -0800

By the way, if we want to talk about plundering/homage, Basement Jaxx had that video for "Romeo" a while back. I was never sure if this video was campy excess or straight-up homage. Either way, I loved it when it came out.

By: BeerFilter

BeerFilter — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 06:16:22 -0800

Mudder, a good trip is infinitely better than that clip.

By: Jody Tresidder

Jody Tresidder — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 09:32:57 -0800

"I wasn't that impressed with the FPP clip, maybe because all the comments led me to expect more. They look like they're having fun, but the choreography is boring, the dancing is awful, the production design looks like it was raided from a shipment of discarded toys, not to mention the shitty audio and camera work."< /em>em> Really thought you were sogging the parade with that one, Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese. But you're absolutely right. Everyone should watch cgc373's Lucky Lips instead. The little minxes are a total hoot. Thanks so much!

By: Sticherbeast

Sticherbeast — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 19:08:11 -0800

This is utter, screaming genius. It's like a cross between The Wicker Man, "Laugh-In," and what happens whenever I go dancing. No, wait, scratch those first two things. This is just a video of what happens whenever I go dancing anywhere, without variation.

By: squarehead

squarehead — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 11:23:08 -0800

Seems you can see the clip here now.