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Tag: Madison Beer Aerin Moreno

  • Endorphin Endorsement: Exercise Gets Madison Beer Feeling Flushed in Video for “Yes Baby”

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    Although it hasn’t been very long since the last time Madison Beer offered her fans a single, it feels as though years have already gone by in the period between now and the release of 2024’s “Make You Mine” and “15 Minutes.” That said, Beer more than likely had her reasons for wanting to release a particularly high-energy track amidst a climate that is decidedly, well, “high energy” in all the wrong ways. So yes, more than ever, something uplifting is appreciated. Even though, for those with body image issues, the video for “Yes Baby” might not be.

    In the spirit of Charli XCX’s style of “working out” in the “360” video (that is, in “hot girl” attire with tights, heels and a glass of red wine in hand), Beer takes a similar approach to her fitness regimen (there are even a few moments later on where she, too, bounces up and down to make her tits jiggle à la Charli) by walking in “model strut” mode on the treadmill while wearing above-the-ankle white socks paired with black stiletto heels. Needless to say, her workout ensemble is meant to channel a certain “coquette” aesthetic.

    So it is that Beer goes from the escape room of “15 Minutes” to the gym of her 80s-inspired dreams for “Yes Baby” (indeed, it seems many have been inspired yet again by the 80s lately). And while quite a few of Madison Beer’s music videos feature her in situations that either find her alone or with just one other person (e.g., “Home to Another One,” “Spinnin” and “15 Minutes”), “Yes Baby” stands out for the great number of other women in her midst who all seem to be “turned on” by exercising. Or maybe “animated” and “flushed” by it are the more euphemistic word choices.

    The presence of all these women is perhaps meant to emphasize Beer’s insistence that the song is one “you want to blast with your friends.” A feeling that came to the fore after the creation of the music video, co-directed by Beer and (as usual) Aerin Moreno. Something Beer commented on by noting, “‘Yes Baby’ is really just a fun and flirty song. After I shot the music video, though, it took on a whole new energy…” That energy being one of a matriarchal good time.

    And yet, clearly, everything about the song oozes sex (with a man)—in fact, the lyrics make it sound as though Beer is already in between the sheets on the verge of orgasm with the repetition of, “Yes, baby, yes, yes, baby, yes, yes, baby.” These two words being the phrase that makes up the majority of the song. Even though there are occasional verses of “poetry,” including the opening one that goes, “Speakin’ to me soft like silky sheets/Figures in the dark, two heartbeats/Basically a God, you pray to me/Whisper in the dark, you want me.”

    Beer sings these words as intercut scenes of the various exercise options in this apparently multi-faceted gym are shown. Seeing her and her sistren in ballet attire at a barre in front of a mirror wall-outfitted dance room, Beer also adds, “It’s a look/It’s a touch/It’s a dangerous kind of crush/Say it once/Say it twice/Come and say it another time.” The “it” she wants to hear another time being, of course, “yes baby.”

    As the beat drops (after building up for about the first minute of the song), co-producers Beer, Leroy Clampitt and Lostboy help to recall elements of Benny Benassi’s signature 2002 hit, “Satisfaction” (even lyrically speaking, with Beer repeating “yes” at times in the same way that “push” is repeated on “Satisfaction”). What’s more, the “Yes Baby” video also has a certain similarity to the one for “Satisfaction,” what with lots of women jumping around in a sexually charged manner even though they’re being featured in an “everyday” kind of setting (for the women in the “Satisfaction” video, that “everyday” setting involves the use of power tools).

    As the video progresses, Beer finds herself in a few other new “workout” scenarios, including being perched on the balancing beam with her fellow workout enthusiasts in leotards as she does little to indicate much in the way of “strenuous” exercise. Perhaps proving, yet again, that half the reason that women truly enjoy going to the gym is for the additional wardrobe it allows them to don (hence, Kate Hudson starting a clothing line called Fabletics just for “activewear”). As for the mirror wall scenes in the dance studio, it has a certain Madonna in the “Hung Up” video cachet (along with Dua Lipa in the “Houdini” video, itself a nod to “Hung Up”). To be sure, it’s likely that the Queen of Pop herself wouldn’t mind sweating it out to this particular song on the dance floor or in the gym—the two primary venues that this song was made for (apart from, one supposes, the boudoir).

    Incidentally, both locations are quite voyeuristic in nature, with everyone observing others—sizing them up (especially from a “physical beauty” standpoint). So it is that Beer’s lyrics, “Something in the way you’re watchin’ me/Talkin’ to me nice and slowly/Promise if you ask, you will receive/Come a little closer to me,” further amplify “Yes Baby” as a simultaneous club and gym banger. Both of these locations still struggling to make a full comeback since Covid.

    But at least Beer is doing her part to remind listeners of what Reese Witherspoon as Elle Woods in Legally Blonde once said, “Exercise gives you endorphins. Endorphins make you happy. Happy people just don’t shoot their husbands, they just don’t.” Hence, the reason why so many tradwives are fitness freaks. After all, you’d have to be to keep yourself from shooting some of the conservative husbands out there. So, in a sense, Beer is now picking up where Brooke Taylor-Windham (Ali Larter) left off with her own kind of “fitness empire.” One that is decidedly more, let’s say, “auto-erotic.”

    This much is made even more apparent by the non sequitur concluding scenes of the video, which find Beer outside on a lawn as the sprinklers go off. Naturally, she lets them drench her, perhaps a less on-the-nose “metaphor” than a scene of her drenched in sweat would be. Both scenarios indicating that exercise (whether in the gym or in the bedroom) makes her wet. Though that definitely isn’t how most people feel, ergo the success of Ozempic.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • In The Future, Madison Beer Will Make A Song Called “15 Minutes”

    In The Future, Madison Beer Will Make A Song Called “15 Minutes”

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    Andy Warhol was famously (and falsely) attributed with the often misquoted aphorism, “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.” But what no prophecy could have predicted back then is that, “In the future, Madison Beer will make a song called ‘15 Minutes.’” And that she has, with a video to go with it, co-directed, as usual, by Beer and Aerin Moreno. Granted, Beer’s song isn’t a commentary on pervasive “fame,” so much as how quickly one can fall down the rabbit hole when it comes to lust/love/attraction.

    Like many of Beer’s videos, it has a dreamy, surreal sort of quality, with the premise centered around Beer stumbling upon an escape room in the middle of nowhere. And, also like many of her videos (including the Jennifer’s Body-referencing “Make You Mine”), there is a certain cinematic air, complete with the action movie-ish titles that spell out her name and song at the beginning. A beginning that opens on Beer standing in a desolate landscape before she whips around to face toward the audience, staring at something else in the distance. That something being none other than the escape room that will dominate the entire “plot” of the video.

    As Beer finds herself being inexplicably pulled toward the structure (which looks like the type of place the Unabomber would feel right at home in), she sings the appropriate lyrics, “I couldn’t stop myself, I couldn’t help myself/This isn’t like me, can’t you tell?” It’s then that she gets closer to the ramshackle, bearing a sign that reads, “Got 15 Minutes? Try Our Escape Room.” It comes across like that meme of a creepy “black hole” of an underpass with the words “Free Drugs” and an arrow graffiti’d above it as a means to lure someone vulnerable and naïve enough. Beer, apparently, is just such a type.

    Continuing to sing, “Show me around this place/Take me in your embrace/It feels so right but ain’t it strange?” while getting closer to opening the door, the tension mounts as she leads up to the big breakout of the song (its chorus), prefacing it with, “In this moment all I know is…” before the LOSTBOY and Leroy Clampitt-produced rhythm picks up in time for Beer to belt out, “Fifteen minutes ago, I was layin’ in bed/Then I had a crazy thought in my head/So I took the keys and got in the car/Don’t know how I got here, but baby, here we are.”

    Speaking to an attraction so intense that she can’t fight or deny it—and is therefore unwittingly pulled to the object of her desire like a moth to a flame—Beer wields the metaphor of the escape room literally as she battles to free herself from this potent attraction. Even though, to paraphrase Radiohead, she did it to herself, it’s true, and that’s what really hurts.

    After resisting the wind that tried to push her back and warn her not to go any farther, the scene cuts to Beer suddenly being in the back of a truck that looks like it’s driving through that part of the L.A. River near the Sixth Street Bridge. Pulled back out for a moment to the exterior of the house, the sign informs her, “Your 15 Minutes Starts Now,” at which time she goes back into the house where a digital clock that’s already ticked down to nine minutes left looms behind her. Her outfit has also mysteriously changed to a white cropped tee and white booty shorts that are decidedly diaper-esque. And while she initially looked anxious/frightened to enter the space, she now seems rather excited and titillated by it, holding to a random wheel as she flexes her body and then going over to a pipe (it’s a very industrial space on the inside, evidently) to rub her back against it. Who knew escape rooms could be so “sexy”? Or at least make someone feel that way…

    In the next part of the escape room, Beer this time rubs her back against a row of lockers (the closest she’ll get to Britney in “…Baby One More Time” cachet)—because what could one want to escape from more than high school? After having enough of a “moment” with the lockers, she then goes into the next room, passing an analog clock as she does so. As she searches frantically for something that she cannot name, her eyes set upon a wrench that she uses to break the square glass window at the top center of another door, reaching her arm through it to pull on the handle from the other side. Now, in the next room, the clock has gotten down to six minutes (needless to say, time is elapsed in this three-minute-twenty-two-second video).

    For whatever reason, she arches herself backwards in something like a “Spider-Man getting kissed by Mary Jane” pose before whipping back up to smash this clock with a crowbar. She then runs back through some of the spaces she was already in to find a piled rope that miraculously pulls her by the ankles at rapid speed through another hallway as the beat crescendos to its most frenetic, EDM (or Charli XCX)-sounding vibe yet. At the other side of the hallway, there appears to be an industrial fan that looks as though it might suck her right into it if she reaches the end of that part of the escape room.

    Fortunately, in keeping with the disjointed, surreal nature of the video, before she (not shit) does hit the fan, Beer and Moreno cut to her in the middle of nowhere once again. Right back where she started from. And she’s even back in the same outfit she was in before as well. Because, ostensibly, the escape room unlocks some kind of “alternate dimension” Beer—the one who gives in to her basest, most carnal instincts. For, if you’ll remember, it’s her more moralizing superego self that says at the beginning of the song, “This isn’t like me, can’t you tell?” But in the escape room, all bets are off on “playing it coy.”

    Walking and running down the deserted road after “escaping,” she bears an aura not dissimilar from the sexually satisfied one Madonna has at the end of the “Justify My Love” video (she, too, walk-runs down the hallway of the hotel while smiling and laughing). And yes, Beer offers up some kinky lyrics in that spirit as well, at one point urging, “Show me how much you care/Touch me and pull my hair/Give me emotions I can’t bear/I want you to fantasize, and/Think of it every night/Never forget I made you mine” (that last line being an overt allusion to “Make You Mine”).

    Unlike Madonna, though, Beer has the lack of impulse control that leads her straight back to the escape room when night falls, the sign outside now suggestively asking, “Try Again?” Beer then looks knowingly into the camera before the shot cuts just before we see her leaning in the direction of the entrance. This after repeating the chorus one last time—which, in some sense, evokes the Lana chorus from “Bartender” that goes, “I bought me a truck in the middle of the night/It’ll buy me a year if I play my cards right/Photo free exits from baby’s bedside/‘Cause they don’t yet know what car I drive/I’m just tryna keep my love alive.”

    To conclude the song, though, Beer takes a page out of the Kylie Minogue playbook by repeating, “La, la, la-da-di-da, la, la-da-di-da.” And yes, “la-di-da” is the best way to sum up being inexplicably under someone’s spell, drawn into their world to the point where you feel like you’re in an escape room—that’s how difficult it is to pull yourself out.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Jennifer Check Continues to Inspire in Madison Beer’s “Make You Mine” Video

    Jennifer Check Continues to Inspire in Madison Beer’s “Make You Mine” Video

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    For the girl who once said, “I am bi, always have been, it’s nothing new,” perhaps an homage to Diablo Cody’s beloved 2009 “camp classic,” Jennifer’s Body was inevitable. And now, here it is in the form of the video for her latest single, “Make You Mine.” Co-directed with Aerin Moreno (who has previously worked with Beer on the Silence Between Songs hits, “Spinnin” and “Home to Another One”), the visual opens on a familiar scene from JB, one made all the more recognizable by the fact that, these days, Madison Beer looks more like Megan Fox than Megan Fox does. 

    The scene, of course, is Beer in a cheerleader outfit (the varsity letters on the front of her shell top read “MYM” for “Make You Mine”), prancing around as the Anita “Needy” Lesnicki (Amanda Seyfried) of the video, played by Sadie Scheufler, watches in awe and appreciation. Credited as “Best Friend,” Scheufler’s Needy-esque character isn’t the only one gawking. There’s also a jock in the crowd, referred to as The Boy (Nikolaos Madouras), staring at her with a lascivious look. As though to drive home the point that this is a video with nothing but love for 00s pop culture (something Beer also recently showcased in “Sweet Relief”), Best Friend is outfitted in a crop top with the Pepsi logo—except that “Pepsi” reads “Sexsi.” In other words, it’s a nod to Britney Spears’ 00s style.

    What’s more, there’s even a nod to another movie that Beer can’t help reference within the context of a cheerleader in a gymnasium: American Beauty. For there’s a moment when the gym goes slightly dark as The Boy fantasizes about the way Beer is touching and caressing herself in a manner similar to Angela Hayes (Mena Suvari) when Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey) has just such a fantasy while observing her from his own set of bleachers (Beer doesn’t get heavy-handed with the allusion by making rose petals start coming out of her chest though). 

    In the next scene, Beer does her best impression of Jennifer Check sauntering sexily down the hallway of the school while dressed in her own take on what the cheerleader-turned-succubus might wear instead of all-out imitating the pink, heart-patterned zip-up hoodie and jeans that Jennifer famously wears during this moment. And yes, Beer, like Check, relishes every second of knowing that she’s turning heads as she walks by. Apart from outfit distinctions, another crucial difference in Beer’s reinterpretation of the movie is that she actually has a willing partner in crime…in lieu of someone like Needy, who wants to stop Jennifer from something as innocent as “killing boys.” Best Friend, instead, is an eager accomplice in Beer’s pursuit of boys as literal sustenance. 

    This is exactly why, after Beer works some more seductress magic on The Boy while the two are alone in the locker room, Best Friend swoops in to help her ostensibly “clean up” once she’s made a meal out of him (though, really, the dastardly duo just leaves his bloodied body in the shower). Interspersed scenes of the two friends dancing together lesbianically in a sweaty nightclub also serve as an additional “flourish” on Beer’s part that deviates entirely from the movie. And that’s sort of refreshing considering that, whenever musicians make a specific film reference the core of a music video, it tends to be a shot-by-shot re-creation just for the sake of it (e.g., Jennifer Lopez’s “I’m Glad,” Iggy Azalea and Charli XCX’s “Fancy” and Ariana Grande’s “thank u, next”). Even though, not too long ago, Olivia Rodrigo also referenced Jennifer’s Body in an ever “subtler” way (i.e., that particular manner in which Jennifer swims in a lake after eating a boy) via the Petra Collins-directed “good 4 u.” Indeed, one might argue that Beer and Rodrigo have very similar “aesthetic tastes” considering they also shared a man in the form of Zack Bia. 

    As for Beer’s references to her own oeuvre, a discreetly placed flier for the “Did the World Stop Spinnin Astronomy Club” is taped to a locker next to where The Boy is standing and continuing to ogle Beer. Alas, those are in the fleeting moments before Beer gets him alone, flashes him her demonic eyes and then has her way with him. In truth, the lyrics of “Make You Mine” are far better suited to a Jennifer’s Body-centric video than the ones of “good 4 u.” After all, “Make You Mine” is a song of seduction (Circe, it would seem, has nothing on Beer). This includes titillating verses like, “See it in my eyes/How they never lie/Just a little bite/Are you dreamin’?/Now I got you up/Would you look at us?/Fantasy to life/And I’m screamin’, screamin’,” “Closer I get/Can you resist?/It’s relentless” and, of course, the chorus, “I wanna feel the rush, I wanna taste the crush/I wanna get you goin’/I wanna lay you down, I wanna string you out/I wanna make you mine.” 

    Unfortunately for the boys she wants to make hers in this scenario, it refers to making them her little snack. In the final portion of the Jennifer’s Body homage, Beer uses a swimming pool not only to allude to the prom night when Jennifer ate Needy’s boyfriend, but also to re-create her own “swimming sensually in the lake” scene (again, as Rodrigo also did with an actual lake). So it is that she swims “just so” with her head slightly above water as she stares both dead-eyed and determined ahead. Soon after, Beer and Moreno decide to go all out on simply making this a thirst trap opportunity as Beer continues to swim in a writhing/floating fashion that allows an overhead shot to take in the extent of her Jennifer Check-esque “assets.” From there, the video provides a montage of the shots we’ve already seen, including the ones that feature Beer “in da club” and cheerleading in the gym.

    The final scene is of Beer getting out of the pool and wrapping a towel around herself that reads “The End.” Thus, for now, it would seem her appetites are satisfied. But who knows when “the urge” to make another boy hers will come again? Because, obviously, she’s not about to target women for consumption (even if Jennifer herself declared on prom night, “I go both ways”). Or at least not consumption of the cannibal variety…

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Madison Beer Gives Alien Mad Men Vibes in “Home to Another One”

    Madison Beer Gives Alien Mad Men Vibes in “Home to Another One”

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    Being that Madison Beer’s entire “shtick” is essentially paying homage to Lana Del Rey paying homage to the 60s, it’s only to be expected that said decade would have a tendency to creep into her work. Even if by way of other pop culture zeitgeists’ interpretation of it. In the case of the video for “Home to Another One” that pop culture zeitgeist is Mad Men. 

    Co-directed by Beer and Aerin Moreno (who also helped Beer out with the video for “Spinnin”), it all commences with an image of the back of Beer’s head…topped by the same “alien antennae” we soon see her paramour, of sorts, sporting. Looking into the TV screen in front of her, the viewer is then permitted to see the same picturesque, snow globe-ready house she’s looking at before we find ourselves inside that very house. The one that looks like Don Draper’s (Jon Hamm) apartment circa his “married to Megan Calvet (Jessica Paré)” era. Which is fitting, considering that, for most of their marriage, Megan intensely felt the cold remoteness of Don’s personality, constantly wondering if he still loved her or, worse still, if he was cheating on her (which, yes, of course he was). For the “character” Beer is playing in “Home to Another One,” that same motif can apply. Though the song itself is meant to be about a failed relationship (the ultimate “muse” for most female singer-songwriters). Which also works when applying the Don and Megan comparison to the video.

    With a ribbon in her hair (again, the Del Rey influence) and a short black dress on, Beer stands alone in her apartment as a silhouetted male figure (with those alien antennae) approaches the door, placing his hand on it longingly while Beer sings, “Could’ve sworn I saw your face/Was it you?/Was it you?” All at once, a gust of wind blows her hair back, and he walks in with a suitcase. Perhaps trying to pretend as though he was never really gone at all (such is the Don Draper way). As he sits down calmly next to Beer (in front of the image of a solar system), they both seem to easily accept that he’s back as she then croons, “Say you hate me/It’s okay, boy, you’re not the only one.” This line serving as both a personal nod to what Beer has been through over the course of her career, as well as a nod to how women are generally hated by men (not to mention other women). Yet still seek their affection and love despite knowing better. 

    The scene then shifts to show us a montage of the two holed up in their 60s-influenced abode together, Beer now wearing the same white dress from her album cover paired with white go-go boots. The distance between them remains apparent despite being in the same enclosed space together—a reality made ironic by the realization that they’re also suspended in space together. If this wasn’t already showcased well enough by the backdrop outside the windows, a shot of Beer in another 60s-inspired ensemble posing suggestively atop a flying saucer ought to confirm it.

    More Don and Megan cosplay with an alien twist occurs in the next scene, as the two sit across from one another eating ice cream out of crystal stemware. The emotional chasm between them increasingly palpable, it seems as though the further apart that they grow, the more Beer wants to try to keep the relationship together. Ergo, her progressively more bombastic sartorial choices. 

    As the video comes to a close, Beer proceeds to dance in front of the control center (the one presumably operating the spaceship/house). Perhaps heavy-handed symbolism to connote that she’s finally the one in control. Flashing to more scenes of their claustrophobic relationship, Moreno then cuts to Beer picking up the same white telephone viewers saw at the beginning of the video and seemingly calling to her “replica” alien self (in this regard, the video reeks slightly of the premise for the Black Mirror episode entitled “Beyond the Sea”). Answering it, the viewer is finally able to see a frontal shot of Alien Madison answering, staring back at the TV screen where she’s now looking at Human Madison half-heartedly embracing her Alien Don Draper. 

    Appropriately, toward the end of the song, Beer remarks, “​​Now you hold her gently/Don’t you wish you saw us through?/‘Cause I do, I do.” Something about that echoing the lament-rage of Olivia Rodrigo’s “deja vu.” Alien Madison seems to inuit that Alien Don is still caught somewhere back down on Earth, so to speak, with Human Madison. Perhaps this is the reason why she flashes him a knowing, jaded glance as he walks into her parallel universe apartment now with a suitcase. Then again, it could just be a metaphor for how they’ve both become alien presences to one another as their love faded out. 

    Regardless, Don and Megan Draper vibes abound in the Mad Men-esque narrative featuring an intergalactic spin. With Don’s emotional stuntedness being all over this alien man…who isn’t so alien to most women thanks to his familiar behavior.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Madison Beer Gives Alien Mad Men Vibes in “Home to Another One”

    Madison Beer Gives Alien Mad Men Vibes in “Home to Another One”

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    Being that Madison Beer’s entire “shtick” is essentially paying homage to Lana Del Rey paying homage to the 60s, it’s only to be expected that said decade would have a tendency to creep into her work. Even if by way of other pop culture zeitgeists’ interpretation of it. In the case of the video for “Home to Another One” that pop culture zeitgeist is Mad Men. 

    Co-directed by Beer and Aerin Moreno (who also helped Beer out with the video for “Spinnin”), it all commences with an image of the back of Beer’s head…topped by the same “alien antennae” we soon see her paramour, of sorts, sporting. Looking into the TV screen in front of her, the viewer is then permitted to see the same picturesque, snow globe-ready house she’s looking at before we find ourselves inside that very house. The one that looks like Don Draper’s (Jon Hamm) apartment circa his “married to Megan Calvet (Jessica Paré)” era. Which is fitting, considering that, for most of their marriage, Megan intensely felt the cold remoteness of Don’s personality, constantly wondering if he still loved her or, worse still, if he was cheating on her (which, yes, of course he was). For the “character” Beer is playing in “Home to Another One,” that same motif can apply. Though the song itself is meant to be about a failed relationship (the ultimate “muse” for most female singer-songwriters). Which also works when applying the Don and Megan comparison to the video.

    With a ribbon in her hair (again, the Del Rey influence) and a short black dress on, Beer stands alone in her apartment as a silhouetted male figure (with those alien antennae) approaches the door, placing his hand on it longingly while Beer sings, “Could’ve sworn I saw your face/Was it you?/Was it you?” All at once, a gust of wind blows her hair back, and he walks in with a suitcase. Perhaps trying to pretend as though he was never really gone at all (such is the Don Draper way). As he sits down calmly next to Beer (in front of the image of a solar system), they both seem to easily accept that he’s back as she then croons, “Say you hate me/It’s okay, boy, you’re not the only one.” This line serving as both a personal nod to what Beer has been through over the course of her career, as well as a nod to how women are generally hated by men (not to mention other women). Yet still seek their affection and love despite knowing better. 

    The scene then shifts to show us a montage of the two holed up in their 60s-influenced abode together, Beer now wearing the same white dress from her album cover paired with white go-go boots. The distance between them remains apparent despite being in the same enclosed space together—a reality made ironic by the realization that they’re also suspended in space together. If this wasn’t already showcased well enough by the backdrop outside the windows, a shot of Beer in another 60s-inspired ensemble posing suggestively atop a flying saucer ought to confirm it.

    More Don and Megan cosplay with an alien twist occurs in the next scene, as the two sit across from one another eating ice cream out of crystal stemware. The emotional chasm between them increasingly palpable, it seems as though the further apart that they grow, the more Beer wants to try to keep the relationship together. Ergo, her progressively more bombastic sartorial choices. 

    As the video comes to a close, Beer proceeds to dance in front of the control center (the one presumably operating the spaceship/house). Perhaps heavy-handed symbolism to connote that she’s finally the one in control. Flashing to more scenes of their claustrophobic relationship, Moreno then cuts to Beer picking up the same white telephone viewers saw at the beginning of the video and seemingly calling to her “replica” alien self (in this regard, the video reeks slightly of the premise for the Black Mirror episode entitled “Beyond the Sea”). Answering it, the viewer is finally able to see a frontal shot of Alien Madison answering, staring back at the TV screen where she’s now looking at Human Madison half-heartedly embracing her Alien Don Draper. 

    Appropriately, toward the end of the song, Beer remarks, “​​Now you hold her gently/Don’t you wish you saw us through?/‘Cause I do, I do.” Something about that echoing the lament-rage of Olivia Rodrigo’s “deja vu.” Alien Madison seems to inuit that Alien Don is still caught somewhere back down on Earth, so to speak, with Human Madison. Perhaps this is the reason why she flashes him a knowing, jaded glance as he walks into her parallel universe apartment now with a suitcase. Then again, it could just be a metaphor for how they’ve both become alien presences to one another as their love faded out. 

    Regardless, Don and Megan Draper vibes abound in the Mad Men-esque narrative featuring an intergalactic spin. With Don’s emotional stuntedness being all over this alien man…who isn’t so alien to most women thanks to his familiar behavior.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • The Twilight Zone Stylings of Madison Beer’s “Spinnin” Video

    The Twilight Zone Stylings of Madison Beer’s “Spinnin” Video

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    Madison Beer’s sophomore album, Silence Between Songs, shows no signs of slowing down with the release of yet another single (the fifth one, to be exact). Called “Spinnin,” it also happens to be both the song that kicks off the record and something of a visual companion piece to “Home to Another One.” After all, both encapsulate Beer’s daydreaming aura and overwhelming ability to keep her head in the clouds as a coping mechanism. What’s more, in “Home to Another One,” she even refers to the lyrics of “Spinnin” with a magazine called SBS (that obviously stands for Silence Between Songs) that has the “headline,” “Did the world stop spinning?” In the “Spinnin” video, the answer is a resounding yes. 

    Although Beer is initially skeptical about whether or not time truly has suspended itself as she looks up at the clock/calendar that informs her it’s September 15th (a nod to Silence Between Songs’ release date) at “00” o’clock, she decides to go outside and see for herself just what the fuck, if anything, is actually going on. Her suspicions about something fishy going on are confirmed when she sees a deserted block (though, in all honesty, that’s kind of normal for suburbia), punctuated by a sprinkler whose water is frozen in midair. 

    Elsewhere, Beer espies a car with an open trunk and groceries half unloaded, as well as another car across the street from that with its driver-side door left ajar. Briefly letting it sink in that the world has effectively “faded away,” Beer makes a beeline for the cornfield (the one we see her running through on Silence Between Songs’ cover art—because, yes, it’s a still from the video). Running wild and free as the lyrics, “I woke up, fell back to sleep/‘Cause I’d rather live in my dreams” play over the scene, Beer perfectly delineates the haze and malaise of being caught in a depressive cycle. The one likely caused by being “the other woman” (to use a Lana Del Rey reference by way of her Nina Simone cover) in “Home to Another One.” This being an additional way in which these two songs feel inextricably linked. That and, well, their decidedly 60s sound. For Beer has made no secret of also taking the Del Rey approach to “borrowing” from the decade, taking particular inspiration from The Beatles and Beach Boys on this album. 

    Perhaps it’s no accident, then, that the sonic influence also bled into the aesthetic influence for her videos, with “Spinnin” coming across like something out of an episode of The Twilight Zone (which first aired at the end of 1959 and ended in 1964, later being rebooted in various ways). A staple of early 1960s broadcast television, Beer takes one of those “eerie-type” concepts and brings it into the morose realm of “Spinnin.” 

    Co-directed by Beer and Aerin Moreno (who also co-directed “Home to Another One”), things take on a faintly Pearl vibe when Beer pauses in a clearing beyond the cornfield. Only, instead of humping a scarecrow like Pearl, Beer simply lies down to stare up at the sky, further confirming that time has stopped when she sees a flock of birds also suspended in the air. The world, apparently, hasn’t really stopped spinning though, as we soon see day turn into night, with Beer making her way out of the field and back into “town.” Coming upon the library, Beer presses up against the window, as though yearning to find some sign of life among the fluorescently-lit stacks (or maybe she’s just fiending for a good book to read). Alas, no such luck. So she continues on her way, finding herself in the middle of a road filled with cars but no drivers…all the headlights on. In fact, all Beer would need to make it look like a full re-creation of Olivia Rodrigo’s “get him back!” video (itself mostly a re-creation of Alanis’ “Ironic” video) is for the windows to start shattering as she walks past them and for it to be daylight. 

    Too confused and hurt by the stoppage of time (or the collective abandonment of humanity), Beer decides to simply sit down on the ground, which provides a mysterious spotlight for her, in front of the cars and belt out some of the remaining forlorn lyrics: “​​The world has stopped spinning/The end is beginning and, ah.” For those with knowledge of the classic 60s cuts, this has more than just a tinge of Skeeter Davis’ “The End of the World.” A song Del Rey was also sure to call out during her interview with Beer by noting, “The first track kind of gave me Skeeter Davis vibes. Like ‘The End of The World,’ which I’ve sung [that final “by the way” sort of line helping to keep the focus on her].” Beer confirmed, “That’s one of my favorite songs of all time.”

    And that’s entirely obvious in the so-called overdramaticness of the single. With Beer expressing that time has either stopped since her breakup, or she’s living outside of it now that she’s been killed by love. Suddenly running away from the cars she’s been sitting in front of, Beer returns to her creepily empty neighborhood, met only by a fog hanging thick in the air that adds to the 80s horror movie feel. Reluctantly deciding to just go back to bed and hope tomorrow will be different, Beer concludes with the lyrics, “Oh, the world stopped spinnin’, nothin’ seems to change/I’m stuck at the beginnin’ and I’m still in pain/Why’d the sun stop shinin’?/Why’s the sky still gray?/Oh, the world stopped spinnin’ today.” In other words: “Why does the sun go on shining?/Why does the sea rush to shore?/Don’t they know it’s the end of the world?/‘Cause you don’t love me anymore.”

    Lying in her bed again at the end of the “day” (or whatever it was she just experienced), Beer looks out the window to see a bird still frozen in flight in her yard. But, just for a split second, we can see it start to move as the video goes to black and then gives the credits over the scene of Beer walking through her abandoned suburban landscape. It’s a small moment of hope, yet it’s enough to make viewers believe that Beer might just pull through this nightmarish, Twilight Zone-esque mourning period.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • The Twilight Zone Stylings of Madison Beer’s “Spinnin” Video

    The Twilight Zone Stylings of Madison Beer’s “Spinnin” Video

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    Madison Beer’s sophomore album, Silence Between Songs, shows no signs of slowing down with the release of yet another single (the fifth one, to be exact). Called “Spinnin,” it also happens to be both the song that kicks off the record and something of a visual companion piece to “Home to Another One.” After all, both encapsulate Beer’s daydreaming aura and overwhelming ability to keep her head in the clouds as a coping mechanism. What’s more, in “Home to Another One,” she even refers to the lyrics of “Spinnin” with a magazine called SBS (that obviously stands for Silence Between Songs) that has the “headline,” “Did the world stop spinning?” In the “Spinnin” video, the answer is a resounding yes. 

    Although Beer is initially skeptical about whether or not time truly has suspended itself as she looks up at the clock/calendar that informs her it’s September 15th (a nod to Silence Between Songs’ release date) at “00” o’clock, she decides to go outside and see for herself just what the fuck, if anything, is actually going on. Her suspicions about something fishy going on are confirmed when she sees a deserted block (though, in all honesty, that’s kind of normal for suburbia), punctuated by a sprinkler whose water is frozen in midair. 

    Elsewhere, Beer espies a car with an open trunk and groceries half unloaded, as well as another car across the street from that with its driver-side door left ajar. Briefly letting it sink in that the world has effectively “faded away,” Beer makes a beeline for the cornfield (the one we see her running through on Silence Between Songs’ cover art—because, yes, it’s a still from the video). Running wild and free as the lyrics, “I woke up, fell back to sleep/‘Cause I’d rather live in my dreams” play over the scene, Beer perfectly delineates the haze and malaise of being caught in a depressive cycle. The one likely caused by being “the other woman” (to use a Lana Del Rey reference by way of her Nina Simone cover) in “Home to Another One.” This being an additional way in which these two songs feel inextricably linked. That and, well, their decidedly 60s sound. For Beer has made no secret of also taking the Del Rey approach to “borrowing” from the decade, taking particular inspiration from The Beatles and Beach Boys on this album. 

    Perhaps it’s no accident, then, that the sonic influence also bled into the aesthetic influence for her videos, with “Spinnin” coming across like something out of an episode of The Twilight Zone (which first aired at the end of 1959 and ended in 1964, later being rebooted in various ways). A staple of early 1960s broadcast television, Beer takes one of those “eerie-type” concepts and brings it into the morose realm of “Spinnin.” 

    Co-directed by Beer and Aerin Moreno (who also co-directed “Home to Another One”), things take on a faintly Pearl vibe when Beer pauses in a clearing beyond the cornfield. Only, instead of humping a scarecrow like Pearl, Beer simply lies down to stare up at the sky, further confirming that time has stopped when she sees a flock of birds also suspended in the air. The world, apparently, hasn’t really stopped spinning though, as we soon see day turn into night, with Beer making her way out of the field and back into “town.” Coming upon the library, Beer presses up against the window, as though yearning to find some sign of life among the fluorescently-lit stacks (or maybe she’s just fiending for a good book to read). Alas, no such luck. So she continues on her way, finding herself in the middle of a road filled with cars but no drivers…all the headlights on. In fact, all Beer would need to make it look like a full re-creation of Olivia Rodrigo’s “get him back!” video (itself mostly a re-creation of Alanis’ “Ironic” video) is for the windows to start shattering as she walks past them and for it to be daylight. 

    Too confused and hurt by the stoppage of time (or the collective abandonment of humanity), Beer decides to simply sit down on the ground, which provides a mysterious spotlight for her, in front of the cars and belt out some of the remaining forlorn lyrics: “​​The world has stopped spinning/The end is beginning and, ah.” For those with knowledge of the classic 60s cuts, this has more than just a tinge of Skeeter Davis’ “The End of the World.” A song Del Rey was also sure to call out during her interview with Beer by noting, “The first track kind of gave me Skeeter Davis vibes. Like ‘The End of The World,’ which I’ve sung [that final “by the way” sort of line helping to keep the focus on her].” Beer confirmed, “That’s one of my favorite songs of all time.”

    And that’s entirely obvious in the so-called overdramaticness of the single. With Beer expressing that time has either stopped since her breakup, or she’s living outside of it now that she’s been killed by love. Suddenly running away from the cars she’s been sitting in front of, Beer returns to her creepily empty neighborhood, met only by a fog hanging thick in the air that adds to the 80s horror movie feel. Reluctantly deciding to just go back to bed and hope tomorrow will be different, Beer concludes with the lyrics, “Oh, the world stopped spinnin’, nothin’ seems to change/I’m stuck at the beginnin’ and I’m still in pain/Why’d the sun stop shinin’?/Why’s the sky still gray?/Oh, the world stopped spinnin’ today.” In other words: “Why does the sun go on shining?/Why does the sea rush to shore?/Don’t they know it’s the end of the world?/‘Cause you don’t love me anymore.”

    Lying in her bed again at the end of the “day” (or whatever it was she just experienced), Beer looks out the window to see a bird still frozen in flight in her yard. But, just for a split second, we can see it start to move as the video goes to black and then gives the credits over the scene of Beer walking through her abandoned suburban landscape. It’s a small moment of hope, yet it’s enough to make viewers believe that Beer might just pull through this nightmarish, Twilight Zone-esque mourning period.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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