-Music Videos on my Mind- Psy’s “Gangnam Style”

Fame is like a swift tornado. It comes with sudden force, fiercely shaking and rattling the windows and doors, renders a few dent marks and scratches, only to disappear as quickly as it arrived.

Psy is a South Korean pop star who's too old and unconventional looking to make it as a global pop phenomenon, yet that's exactly what's happened. His music video for Gangnam Style is racking up a billion Youtube hits every hour and is playing, at this very moment, on every radio station, in every continent, on planet Earth.

Everyone, and I mean everyone, has declared their love for Gangnam Style. Tom Cruise, Katy Perry, Nelly Furtado, Jay Leno, Simon Pegg, LMFAO and everybody and their mother has come out this week to venerate Psy's genius, announcing we should all worship him as our new God.

In true US style, media personalities immediately shipped Psy onto American shores so that he can do his gimmicky dance routine with both Ellen DeGeneres and Britney Spears, showing them that the emotional toils of messy breakups and tabloid scandals can easily be remedied by a bit of Gangnam. (The Americans pulled a similar stunt with the Slumdog Millionaire kids a few years back before jettisoning them back to their ramshackle existences when the whole act got boring and stopped being cute.)

Music novelty acts during a global recession are, it seems, a necessary evil, designed to distract us from the bigger problems in life. They are a reminder that when all seems lost, happiness can easily be gleaned by watching an awkward looking Korean guy dancing like a madman. What's more, personal joy can be brought by joining in and imitating the crazy dance moves. It seems to have done the trick for Mitt Romney.

-Music Videos on my Mind- Ellie Goulding's "Anything could Happen"

Tragically, legend has it that Ethel Goulish, a great ancestor of British singer Ellie Goulding, was burnt at the stake in 1782 by the elders of Herefordshire council because of suspicions that her big chin was a signifier of being a witch.

Fortunately, centuries later, Ellie Goulding's big chin is no longer a marker of being the Devil's concubine. Nay, Ellie is cultivating big money making pop records that have sold massively in all the markets that matter. Not only that, Ellie is the proud girlfriend of a famous American musician called Skrillex, who really should be burnt at the stake for making awful dubstep music.

Ellie is back with a brand new album called Halcyon and has released the first video titled Anything could Happen. As a song, the best praise that can be given is it's not as boring as some of her other stuff, but that doesn't mean it's much better. The video is a rather predictable affair, featuring car advert stylistics and pretentious pagan motifs (good luck getting that stuff on American television).

There's a strong suspicion that Anything could Happen may launch Ellie Goulding into the big time. It has all the hallmarks of song that will play from station to station. In fact, it's probably a song that sounds better on the radio without being compromised by its lackadaisical music video.

This may be the kind of music that plays better to women than men, but that's only because guys are scared of big chinned females. Had a pop star like Rihanna recorded this song, with her respectably sized chin, then everyone would buy it.

-Music Videos on my Mind- Delilah’s “Shades of Grey”

There's something really trite about pop acts putting out titles that are the same as some massively popular current cultural trend. Take for example Cover Drive's horrible single Twilight, a track that rocketed to the top of the British charts due to the fact young girls were reminded of their favourite vampiric brand.

Now comes a young London artist that goes by the name of Delilah (not her real name) whose new single Shades of Grey seems one numerical prefix short of targeting a lucrative market that consists of bored young mums who like to read about the absurd kinky happenings between a horny academic and a priapic businessman.

That kind of thinking may be cynical, though perhaps not too far from the truth, as methinks the marketing guys at Warner Music are hoping the popularity of a certain book may translate in decent music sales for the aforementioned single. Saying that, Shades of Grey is actually a very good pop song. What its music video lacks in ambition is made up for in a well produced and nicely sung track that is radio-friendly to the hilt, but in no way irksome.

Delilah describes her music as being "strong, dark, melodic, soulful pop." That's actually a pretty accurate description because, in the hands of any number of other young female vocalists, such a song could have turned out to be extremely pedestrian, which this one in no way is.

-Music Videos on my Mind- Bobby Womack (feat. Lana Del Rey) “Dayglo Reflection”

As a song, Bobby Womack's collaboration with Lana Del Rey, Dayglo Reflection, has been out for months now, however, my reluctance to report on it has much to do with the rudimentary video made to accompany the track, always hoping that XL Records may allocate a minor percentage of the many billions it's made from selling Adele albums to making a better video for this one.

It seems that's not going to happen. Alas, we have to make do with what is given, albeit it's not that bad, just that such a top song deserves much better.

Bobby Womack hasn't released an album of original songs for over 18 years now, so many had anticipated the release of The Bravest Man in the Universe, hoping it'd be the perfect antidote to the era of crap music we exist in. It turns out people are addicted to crap music nowadays as Womack's album charted at a woeful #181 in the US and a pitiful #49 in dearest old Blighty.

And to think Mr Womack was diagnosed with colon cancer and endured pneumonia during the recording of this album, meaning The Bravest Man in the Universe should not be reduced to just an album title. Whatever you may think of Lana Del Rey, her contribution on Dayglo Reflection is simply wonderful, as is Damon Alban's production work, all three artists sending it to another level of melodic brilliance.

-Music Videos on my Mind- Kreayshawn’s “Go Hard (La La La)”

Natassia Gail Zolot, or to use her performing name, Kreayshawn (get it?), is another one of those modern confections that drew notice through her homemade viral rap videos and went on to score a major record deal with Columbia. As a result Kreayshawn's music video for her latest song Go Hard (La La La) has received a serious upgrade and stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the most imaginative clips to be released this year.

Having been accused of exploiting black culture from rappers like Rick Ross and the Game, Kreayshawn is best thought of as a pop novelty, something that will, for the moment, extrapolate enough cash from her core Caucasian teen female market until the next product arrives to take her place. The problem is that the whole white girl rap act actually detracts from Zolot's real passion in life which is directing music videos. She attended Berkley Digital Film Institute on a full scholarship and was so good she landed the job of directing a video for the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, which the band then chose to bin and reshoot with another director.

For now, Kreayshawn is going to keep her day job as a rapper. Go Hard (La La La) does have its garish coloured charms, even enlisting the appearances of Zolot's former band members, V-Nasty and Lil Debbie, from her White Girl Mob days, evincing that what Kreayshawn may lack in credibility is made up for in loyalty.

The Magic of Mike

Magic Mike may be the most important American picture to be released in some time. It does something films aimed at young people have not done in thirty years: It expertly deconstructs the fallacy of the American Dream without drawing attention to it. Perhaps what is most beguiling about Magic Mike is how much it manages to say about the psychology of American economics without the viewer being overly conscience of its thematic diatribe.

You see, Magic Mike presents the entertaining story of a dysfunctional troupe of male strippers going about their business, but through its characters, the film subliminally speaks volumes about corruptive capitalism and the mindless pursuit of ambition. What is most remarkable about Magic Mike is that audiences may be none the wiser of how marvellously socialistic the film's message is, rather preferring to see it as a movie about buff strippers having a good time.

Magic Mike manages to say more about the current economic maelstrom gripping America than a dozen Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, Company Men or Margin Calls, but it does it in a way that is hard to pull off in this era of unthinking entertainment. Magic Mike is a rare product in that it dramatises the lives of young blue-collar Americans, exhibiting cocksure protagonists but unafraid to expose their anxieties and fears about the uncertainties of life. In that sense, Magic Mike has to be the most realistic American film to have been made lately. Not since Eminem's 8 Mile and, prior to that John Travolta's Saturday Night Fever, has a Hollywood studio released a movie about working-class young Americans trying to deal with life in such an alarmingly fascinating way. Magic Mike is a very important film and one that will retain a stronger cultural impact than most generic knockabout movies aimed at women. The paradox is that even though Magic Mike's core audience seems to be women (not to mention a lucrative gay market); it arguably says more about masculinity and male relationships than any other film since Fight Club.

Magic Mike cost $7 million to produce and has so far earned in excess of $100 million, a remarkable achievement for what is essentially a drama about the lost generation. But there may be countless folk reading this post thinking none of this correlates with the Magic Mike they saw in theatres. For them it was a fun flick about boisterous males who take drugs and screw horny women.

Films are as much about entertainment as they are about interpretation. Magic Mike is an American movie made by Americans, but it is playing to global audiences. For a European audience the film will trigger messages and themes that may not be so apparent to casual American audiences. After all, countries like Britain have a rigid social class structure and the films produced in the UK tend to incorporate such themes. Take the Hammer horror movies produced in Britain; horror films that were based largely on well known literary properties or folklore but always retained a very British metaphor of the rich feeding off the poor. For example, while an American studio like Universal Pictures may have made its Dracula into a gothic tale of terror and seduction, Britain's version of Dracula was more about a decadent aristocracy that feeds off the blood of peasants. In fact, British horror films have always had a tradition of demonising the upper-classes as creepy monsters that devour the working masses. Our culture has attuned us to such messages and as an audience we tend to gravitate towards the social message of a movie, hence why a film likes Magic Mike presents more wonders than readily meet the eye.

Of course, the UK has its own cinematic equivalent of the plight of working-class male strippers trying to make ends meet. The Full Monty was a comedic drama about a group of unemployed steel workers who embark on establishing a stripping act in the hope of making money during hard times. Unlike Magic Mike, The Full Monty focuses its attention on the struggles of largely middle-aged men as opposed to virile hunks. In true British style, it presents a grim scenario but breathes life into it through amiable characters and straightforward plotting. What The Full Monty lacks in glamour it makes up for in heart, showcasing the unlikeliest of men attempting to do the silliest of endeavours. The Full Monty was a startling success, even more so than Magic Mike. Made on a budget of $3.5 million, the film grossed over $250 million worldwide. A parochial movie set in the north of England, featuring characters speaking in regional dialect, was never meant to be anything more than a small British film, but The Full Monty scored massive success everywhere because it told a relatable story. The film's underlying criticisms about a post-Thatcher Britain in which manufacturing industries had been decimated by Conservative governance may have escaped the attention of American audiences; however, they embraced the movie's themes of male bonding and of men trying to be better fathers and husbands during difficult times. There was something in The Full Monty's core story that resonated so profoundly with Americans that they adapted it into a Broadway Musical, bestowing it with all the glamour and blue-collar pizzazz Britain would be uncomfortable with. In that sense, the Americans honed in on elements that spoke more strongly to them than what they may have done to us. Maybe that suggests that for American audiences social strife is more palatable if there is a sprinkling of brazen fun attached to it.

Britain has a rich film history of dramatising the struggles of working-class people, imbuing them with complexities and layers usually reserved for mythic idols. The British kitchen-sink cinema of the 1960s made heroes of proletariat men, turning them into angry young icons that defined a post-war generation. The popularity of angry young men in dramas seeped its way into British fashion and music, giving birth to everything from Vidal Sassoon to The Beatles. The Americans have been sorely lacking in working-class heroes, its cinema preferring to revel in middle-class aspirations and economically comfortable situations. Although blue-collar figures like Arthur Miller and Bruce Springsteen have international reverence, American popular culture has failed to create enduring art inspired by its poor huddled masses, instead wanting to peruse stories about the rich and famous. Perhaps that explains why the number one movie in America right now is about a fictional angry billionaire who dresses in a bat costume at night and beats on destitute hoodlums.

If Magic Mike has shown us anything then that is working-class Americans are a ripe source for inspired storytelling. What's more, it can be extremely profitable too. From the outside looking in it seems that American culture has never really been divided by social class as much as it has been defined by ethnicity and race. Whereas the UK has shamefully failed to convincingly dramatise the tribulations of its black communities, America has created powerhouse movies in which people of colour have been a potent cinematic force. It is often by focussing on race that American cinema has been able to make important statements about poverty, inequality and society at large.

Once again, it is perhaps because of cultural differences that we in Britain sometimes struggle to identify complex features of American storytelling which may be very obvious to its indigenous audiences but not so apparent to us.

-Music Videos on my Mind- Naseer & Shahab's "Za Sta Pashan Nayam"

Pakistan is the last place in the world you would identify with a grunge music revival, but that is exactly what seems to be happening, flannel shirts and all.

In a bizarre quirk of events, Pakistani pop music has gone back to the future, reluctant to accept that American alternative music circa 1991 ever went out of fashion.

Naseer and Shahab are a Pakistani - by way of Australia - rock act evoking the spirit of Eddie Vedder in their song Za Sta Pashan Nayam (I'm for Love). The duo sing in the Pushtoon language, indicating the spirit of Seattle lives on in even the most dangerous places on earth.  As there is no translation available, and frankly, even if there is then life's too short to bother seeking it out, therefore, the song has to be enjoyed for its simple anthemic qualities, demonstrating that an enjoyable tune can always transcend language barriers. (The Youtube video may offer a way to activate English subtitles but it requires too much clicking.)

It seems the Pakistani alternative scene is little more than a cottage industry, inhabited by musicians creating songs for the love of music without any misconceptions it will  ever become a way to make a fortune. There's a certain innocence to that, which is particularly striking because it comes from a place that has some really big issues to deal with.