Music Music Music (Video)
One of the things I love about the internet age is the democratization of music video. You no longer need a record label, a director, a budget, and a slot on MTV to get your video seen by millions of people. You just need a camera, an idea, and the willingness to put yourself out there.
This week I've been down a rabbit hole of music videos that caught my attention for various reasons — some because they're genuinely good, some because they're fascinatingly weird, and some because they represent something important about where music and media are heading.
Cosmo Jarvis's "Gay Pirates" is the kind of song that could only exist now. It's a sea shanty about two men in love on a pirate ship, and it's simultaneously funny, sweet, and genuinely moving. The video is low-budget and charming, and it's been viewed millions of times because it fills a niche that mainstream music has ignored for decades — queer love stories told with humor and warmth rather than tragedy and hand-wringing.
Then there's Cazwell's "Ice Cream Truck," which is essentially three minutes of attractive men in short shorts eating ice cream, set to a catchy pop beat. It's gloriously, unapologetically shallow, and I respect that. Not everything needs to be a statement. Sometimes a pop song about ice cream is just a pop song about ice cream, and that's fine.
The internet has made it possible for these videos to find their audience without gatekeepers deciding they're too niche, too gay, too weird, or too anything. The democratisation of creation means that there's room for everything now — the polished and the rough, the political and the frivolous, the serious and the silly.
We don't need MTV anymore, and our media consumption is no longer constrained by conservative standards. In among the Kylie flash mobs and the videos of waxed twinks lip-syncing to Miley Cyrus, there is room in our media for gays to fall in love. If these are videos that people want to share, then maybe one day they actually will stop blurring out the kisses on TV.
As Cosmo Jarvis sings; "We deserve much better than we've had".