PopDarts

Ace says:

I loved the idea of releasing the first two songs on this album and their respective videos together, Beyonce, but it’s getting a bit repetitive. Put Sasha in a cage and just tell her to deal. OK? Moving on.

B, I love you girl, but WTF? Is it me or is there something strangely familiar about the video for Diva?

Hmm. Lets see.

Black leotard: check.  Two female dancers: check.  Black and white video: check.  Basic backdrop: check.

If the dance for Diva was anything worth learning, this video would be a straight up duplicate of Single Ladies. I love that video (and the versions on YouTube of gay men, women and little girls duplicating it) but I’ve already seen this.

And were you getting nostalgic with hubby Jay-Z for the ending of this video? Was the lighter throw into a car under the bridge a throw back to your hubby throwing a lighter into A CAR UNDER A BRIDGE on the video he did with you for Crazy in Love? Just a coincidence? Laziness? Thoughts? (For those of you curious, it’s about 1:55 into the Crazy in Love video.)

Music Labels are back in the headlines — and not for the obvious reasons. Nope, it's not abysmal CD sales they're ODing over this week (though it should be — by all indications, CD's are lower on consumers' minds than warmed over cow dung this Chrismukah season). It's YouTube, Stupid! Dur!

For three years, YouTube has been collecting rips of A-list music videos and streaming them for free to the entire fraggin' world, which as we in the world of online marketing know, can never ever ever do good things for our brands. I mean — free?! 


No, seriously. What's that?

Those Rihanna videos I sneak in between conference calls are without a doubt illegal rips that the major labels don't want me to see, right? I'm sockin' it to the man when I download that Britney leak* every week, right?! And YouTube strives to foster a truly organic Web 2.0 experience, without the tarnish of skeezy corporate business dealings like third-party licensing agreements and partner commission fees...RIGHT? 

RIGHT, VIRGINIA??!?! 

Since  all of these things are positively, unequivocally true, why is the L.A. Times  vomiting up lies this morning about how the labels have supposedly been "licensing" all these videos to YouTube all along?! {Read it for yourself at latimes.com.]






To demonstrate exactly how useless YouTube is at furthering important long-term branding initiatives like increasing artist exposure, I've embedded an obscure, low-budget piece-o-shadoobs clip by Beyonce. Before you watch, you should know that you've probably never seen this video, because it never gets played at clubs — especially not the shiteous American Music Awards performance of the song — and hasn't done sheise on the Hot 100 and doesn't daily inspire a closeted teen boy to break out the uni and learn every step of Beyonce's choreography as if he were already standing up on stage with her at the Grammys. This song is nothing. No one's heard of it. 

L.A. Times: The removal of Warner Music Group's videos from YouTube over the weekend highlights the growing tension between music labels and websites over what is becoming an important source of revenue for the beleaguered recorded-music industry: advertising and licensing fees from music videos, the foundation that built MTV but which has now largely migrated to the Internet... Read More