I watched a lot of music television lateley and here are some of the things that occured to me. Actually, these are not more than some random thoughts that came into my mind the way these thoughts sometimes do, but I learned that some of you out there like to read this odd bits about stuff I remark upon. Well, carry on..

Is it just my own perception or is the hype of big-busted-big-bootied-rap-videos slowly declining. Some weeks ago, whenever you turned on television, you saw at least half a dozen girls shaking their barely clad asses into the camera, making you believe that rap-music is the most potential aphrodisiac ever (and also the best way to get really really rich as well) and life was just one big pool-party or party-cruise or night-life-party. Actually, all these girls really said was: c'mon you lazy bum in front of the screen, you'll never get to know us anyway, so wank off on your couch, you stupid geek. Or something like that. I am not a very conservative person, as you might have guessed, but thinking about the fact that the main target group of these videos are 12 to 15 year old kids, girls and boys alike, makes me wonder about the picture of the world (or the world as it should be) that forms in their heads. Does anyone want to see a 14-year-old girl dance like this? I remember, there was one rap-video that replayed all these scenes - luxury cars, girls in tight bikinis, rich and strong guys, and so on - with little kids. Some scenes looked a lot like pedophilia to me, but some people argued that this is all irony, so it is okay. Well, anyone has to draw their own conclusions in matters like this. Anyway, do you think that trend is over? I guess it is just a dent in the trend and we are ahead of something new and even worse.

Take for instance the video to "Bring it on" by Nick Cave (with some help by Aussie-legend Chris Bailey) where he, as he said in some interview, asked the production team what to do to make a video seen on music-television. Because, as is well known, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds have a very special viewpoint towards making videos, which consists of not liking to make videos, but knowing it is a necessity, therefore trying to make the best out of it and producing some good videos with meaning, which are then usually to artsy or too explicit for music television and not being shown there. And if you are doing something, that you don't like to do, very good, and then realizing that was contraproductive is very frustrating. The answer people gave them was: show black girls shaking their asses (see above) and so they did that. A lot. Very lot. Well, first their style of dancing doesn't fit the music at all, because, obviously, "Bring it on" is not a rap-song with a dance beat. Actually, it is a very aggressive song. Then there are two or sometimes three girls crawling over each other and constantly shaking their asses. This is all so over-done, I don't think a lot of people will find this very sexy, especially the style of the pictures is a very explicit, realistic one, and not the smoothed-down, play-boy-video-style of rap-videos. But there will still be some, I guess. It is a sick sad world.

Another video / band-project that plays a lot with sexuality is "tatu", that lesbian dance-music-duo from Russia which really gets their carreers kick-started with their double exotica-bonus (Russia & lesbian) and the looping of their one harmony-line. A perfect trick for getting air-play, but I don't think theirs will be a lasting career. It will be like some of the bands they are digging out now on "20 years on MTV" which are so much one-hit-wonders that I can't even remember ever having heard them before.

One of the best videos I have seen recently is "Hurt" by Johnny Cash, which gives you the old man at the end of his days picking his guitar at a table overflowing with food and remembering the old days, his youth, his loves, his brighter days. Anthony Kiedis of the Red Hot Chili Peppers said that it made him cry, and really this is a video you can't zap away from if it has started. The man himself has become such a living monument of surviving the highest highs and lowest lows that should make you shut up and listen when he talks and watch when he walks. And pray that he gets a few years to go on, still.

Another one I liked is the new one by Pink, I forgot the name of, but there is a little girl made up like Pink, singing with her and dressed in the same way and they are constantly interchanging roles, sometimes they are mother-daughter, sometimes the girl is a younger Pink and so on. The song and video are all about the wish for an ideal family life and the reality of never getting one.  Also the video to "Just like a pill" wasn't that bad, with all that gothic-goes-fetish-look, which, I guess, seems rebellious to US-society but is just another rip-off. But I heard that fetish-circles in Europe praised the video and song for the lines "I'll give rubber and you can kiss my ass" mistaking that for a fetish-role-playing-thing. Funny, how some things work out?

The worst videos at the moment are the dozens of pseudo-documentaries about Nirvana. God, those are boring and done bad, I can't believe it. Lately, I thought, that if you listen to a lot of current music, The Pixies and Fugazi were a lot more influential than Nirvana (if you count out stupid mainstream-rock.bands such as Nickelback or Puddle of Mudd, of course). Maybe I should stop watching music and start listening to music again, because most videos are really really bad. But at least there are some shows and hours were there are good bands and videos. And I am looking forward to see how Calexico will do on the market?

Then I had a strange vision: I saw the video by Zwan - the new band of Billy Corgan, world-famous via the Smashing Pumpkins with some semi-famous musicians from here and there. And their hit-song was a poppier version of a Smashing Pumpkins-songs, which is really no wonder. But there was something strange about Billy Corgan. And I watched him, and I wondered what it might be that struck me so strange. And then I realised, that there was something in his face, I had never seen before: a smile. Yes, it is true. Billy Corgan smiles. Nobody in the Smashing Pumpkins ever smiled. No wonder the band broke up, I mean, for how long can you be a million-dollar-earning recording artist and still keep up this facade of teenage angst, world-weariness and existential fears? Well, obviously quite long, but at some point you have to stop, start a new band and get all the good feeling going. I am happy for Billy. And I couldn't care less.