The B-Side 04.06.07: Fugees

Posted by Jeff Modzelewski on 04.06.2007

Strumming my pain with his fingers
Singing my life with his words

Thanks for stopping by again. Sorry I missed my last column. I was relaxing in Naples. The weather's never shitty in Naples. Yeah, I know I have two weeks to get a column done, and I could've put something together early so I didn't have to miss a week, but I was really busy. Plus, I'm kinda lazy. Hope you don't mind.

Not much of an intro here. Cavs are headed to the playoffs, which is very nice. Buckeyes make it to two national championships in the same year, and lose to Florida both times. Congrats to the Gators, but it's too bad that everyone will simply remember the fact that OSU lost twice in championship games, instead of remembering that they had a spectacular year as a sports program. The NHL playoffs are starting soon, which is my second favorite time of year for sports. So, good things are happening all around.

Brief political commentary. Bill Richardson from New Mexico needs to get some love. He's an extremely popular Democratic governor of a very red state, former member of Congress, former Energy Secretary, former U.N. Ambassador, and he has more foreign policy experience than the rest of the Democratic field combined. If there's one second-tier candidate that can make a run, this is the guy. Edwards is gonna fall off (he couldn't bring in a single Southern state for Kerry, he's not the guy), Obama's too young, and Hilary has plenty of likeability problems. In any other election year, Richardson would be the next best thing to a shoe-in. I hope he gets a fair shake this time around.

Enough of that, let's get on with the show.

Strumming my pain with his fingers
Singing my life with his words
Fugees "Killing Me Softly

I love a good music video. A good music video can convey emotion, tell a story, and add to the overall goodness of a song. Plenty of great songs have in turn had great music videos. R.E.M.'s "Losing My Religion" is one that always comes up for me. Odd, a little random (like the band), but emotional and powerful. Madonna's "Vogue" was a spectacular dance video, shot in black and white, very innovative. Aerosmith's "Janie's Got a Gun" told a story to go along with the song, and was almost as disturbing as the lyrics (if you chose to pay attention.) These are just three examples of my favorites, but they are also generally considered very strong music videos, and watching these videos adds to the experience of the song.

Then there's the bad music video. The video that has nothing to do with the song. The video that takes a good song and, by the poor quality of the video, makes you want to change the channel. That's what's bothering me here. Obviously not every music video is going to be as spectacular as the ones I've mentioned already, but there's no excuse for a well-known band to screw up a great song with a shitty video. There are multiple examples of this throughout the video age, and I was put back in touch with one of what I would consider the all time best examples of a great song being paired with a terrible video.

I was flying from Tampa to JFK a few weeks ago, with nothing better to do than watch VH1 Classic's countdown of the top 20 cover songs of all time (thank you Jet Blue for the free DirecTV). I love a good cover song, and I saw quite a few great videos on the list. I didn't even know that "Hard to Handle" by the Black Crowes was a cover song. I was very happy to see Johnny Cash's version of "Hurt" make the list (and I had forgotten what an amazing video they did for that song). But there was one that bothered me on the list. Not that the song made the list, but that the video was so bad it ruined the song for me. I present to you:



Now, I've always really like the song (which, for people who know my taste in music, is a bit of a shocker). Lauren Hill has a hell of a voice, and she uses it to full effect here. The song is a great cover, well done, and emotional. I didn't remember the video for the song, however. I was pretty excited to see the song on the countdown and to get to see the video. To be blunt, it is one of the most disappointing videos I've ever seen.

The premise of the video (as best I can make it out), is that Lauren and the band are singing the song in a movie theatre while throwing popcorn at one another and starting a fight. There's also a guy getting lucky in the bathroom with a hot chick, and snippets of the "movie" that everyone's watching (which featured a crowd watching a guy sing). That last part is about the only thing in the video that makes sense (even though that's also poorly done). Everything else simply takes away from Lauren's performance on the song.

For starters, save the first couple of lines, Lauren shows no deep emotion while doing the song. Starting at about 1:50 into the song, she's actually laughing and throwing popcorn instead of singing. I don't know about you, but when I hear this song I don't think of having a good time, throwing popcorn at a movie theatre. She's doesn't appear to be interested in the song at all as she sings it. Now, I know that musicians lip sync while shooting videos, but please help me suspend my disbelief for the duration of the video. There's no way that I can believe that Lauren Hill was joking around and having a gay old time while recording this song. Sorry, but I can almost guarantee it didn't go down like that. Why take away from the power of the song by making her performance seem so inconsequential in the video?

The rest of the band is no help in the video either. Wyclef seems intent on stealing the spotlight with his very unimportant contributions of "One Time" and "Two Time." Pras just wants to get his little cameos, despite, again, not being important to the song. I get that the band wanted to make sure that the video wasn't put out there as a Lauren-only song, but I they didn't have to go the route of minimizing her importance to the song in order to raise theirs.

As far as the rest of the video goes, there's nothing positive there either. The girl who pulls the guy into the bathroom stall for some action is completely irrelevant both to the song and to any other story that they're trying to tell with the video. The guy on the movie screen is singing at what appears to be a hip-hop show. That's not the premise of the song. The premise of the song is a guy singing with a guitar, not an MC making the crowd jump. The band throwing popcorn at each other again just goes to undermine any emotional content of the song. The pseudo-riot/crowd storming out scenes at the end again make no sense. And, the final insult that the video makes is the very "Hot For Teacher"esque subtitles at the end about the "future" of the band members. A stolen gimmick, and not even a good one at that.

The video as a whole leaves the watcher thinking "What a stupid video" instead of "What an awesome song." Of course, the song still did quite well, and deserves its spot as one of the best cover songs. Hell, Lauren Hill deserves even more praise than she gets as a vocalist. But the video belongs far away from the viewing eye.

What really bugs me is that I know the band can do much better. Lauren Hill is capable of being emotional, deep, and powerful on screen. Wyclef has skills that could've benefited the video. If he wants to be a big part of the video, there were other ways to have him involved. Hell, have him be the guy that Lauren's singing about. He could've easily pulled that role off. Find some bit part for Pras to play. But keep the focus on Lauren, and keep Lauren's role meaningful.

Here's an example that Aswad Ayinde (who directed this piece of junk) should've looked at before starting this project. Like "Killing Me Softly," it's a cover song. It's sung by a female, and it's very powerful emotionally. The video is still, in my opinion, one of the best videos ever. For your viewing pleasure:



If you don't remember that video, seriously, check it out right now. The song is not nearly as good as "Killing Me Softly," but the video is in another galaxy. Simplicity works wonders here. Director John Maybury knew that this song was a perfect showcase to display O'Conner in an emotional setting, and that's exactly what he did. Just her singing with a few random scenes spread throughout. If you can get over the "floating head" style (which I find a little off-putting myself), you can see that she's really putting everything she has into the video. Even if the single tear at the end is a bit corny, it still works to add to the realism and depth of the video. This is how I imagine her singing this song in studio. This video took a good song and launched it into legendary status.

By the way, for those who didn't know, the video for "Killing Me Softly" actually isn't the original video for the song. The movie clips that the band is watching are from the original video, which was directed by Earle Sebastian. While I know that I commented earlier that I didn't like the hip-hop nature of the clips in that appear in the official video, I would like to see what the original cut looked like. I'd appreciate it if anyone could get me a link to that original video.

The Last Word

Thanks for checking me out again this week. I know MM took of last week, and Ben is MIA this week, so no links for them. Emails are always appreciated. Hope you'll all be here in 2 weeks, where I'll examine something completely different.