Backstage

Madonna. Lady GaGa. Jay-Z. What do these three names have in common? Well, they’re all famous musicians and they’ve all made controversial music videos. Madonna was voted Queen of Controversial Music Videos in a 2006 MTV poll. Her videos, “Like A Prayer”, “Vogue’, and “Like A Virgin” all caused quite a stir when they were released in the 1980s and 1990s. Madonna continued to push these buttons with her tours and performances such as the “Blonde Amibition” tour. On Madonna’s Wikipedia page, she is quoted saying, “I know that I’m not the best singer and I know that I’m not the best dancer. But, I can f***ing push people’s buttons and be as provocative as I want. The tour’s goal is to break useless taboos.”

In essence, I believe that Madonna is saying that during the Blonde Amibition tour, her goal was to push the limit and have people look at sex and sexuality in a way they previously hadn’t. In my humble opinion, that’s fine. Some of the imagery may be a bit much for some to watch but it’s supposed to be that way. Madonna’s videos seek to portray art, life, love, and sexuality. Those things can be very uncomfortable topics and they mean something different to us all.

Current pop icon, Lady GaGa, is often compared to Madonna. In fact, she has been dismissed as a Madonna copycat by many of her critics. Her most recent video, “Alejandro” caused quite a stir in the blogosphere, the internet, and the media. Sites like the Vigilant Citizen claimed that the video was full of occult symbols and meanings. For those who don’t know, the term “Occult” means secret. Recently, the word has been aligned with devil worship and several bloggers and media outlets have started accusing music stars of being members of a secret society of devil worshippers.

Rap star/Hip-hop legend, Jay-Z is no different. He has also been featured on the Vigilant Citizen, for his “Onto the Next One” video. The video featured images like the dark joker (some say a play on Heath Leger’s portrayal of the character), a dancer on luggage, and diamond studded skull (reportedly worth 100 million) with paint poured over it. In January, when the video was released, everyone was seeking to define the video’s meaning. Jay-Z and Swizz Beatz (the song’s producer) both denied the rumors of devil worship on MTV. The video’s director Sam Brown was interviewed by Vibe.com and during this interview, he stated that he was responsible for the video’s imagery, although, Jay-Z did brief him but Jay-Z simply stated that the video should be progressive. In this case, Jay-Z is not directly responsible for the videos images since its visual concepts are a product of Sam Brown.

So what do these videos mean? What messages are the artists trying to convey? That’s a question that can only be answered by the artists and their collaborators. Steven Klein, director of Lady GaGa’s “Alejandro” told MTV, “It’s about a woman’s desire to resurrect a dead love and who can not face the brutality of her present situation. The pain of living without your true love.”

I believe that none of these artists or their videos can be directly interpreted. Videos are visual concepts that can be based on one image or several at the same time. Also everyone sees things differently so visual images will be interpreted differently depending on who you talk to. In conclusion, watch and enjoy music videos and make them mean what you think they mean. Additionally, do research and find out if the artist has commented on the videos meaning, then do your own final interpretation and you will have your meaning.