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Tag: Madison Beer music videos

  • Madison Beer’s “Bittersweet” Video Consoles the Broken-Hearted With a Parade for Breaking Up

    When it comes to capturing the sadness that lurks just beneath an idyllic suburban setting in a music video, Madison Beer continues to have most others beat (even, perhaps, Lana Del Rey). And the video for her latest single, “Bittersweet,” is no exception. Co-directed by Beer and Iris Kim, the stage is immediately set at the end of a cul-de-sac as the camera, panning forward at a fairly rapid pace, lets the viewer know, almost right away, just where we are. Indeed, “Bittersweet” instantly connects itself to the video for “Spinnin,” during which Beer is in a much more concretely depressed state after a breakup while chillin’ in suburbia. In said video, Beer awakens in her already “sleepy” suburban neighborhood to find that everyone else has seemingly disappeared (hence the question, “Has the world stopped spinnin?”). Needless to say, such a concept has some very Twilight Zone-esque vibes.

    As does, in its own way, the video for “Bittersweet.” But before the surreal aspects of the video take hold, the viewer is made privy to the fairly average scene of Beer knocking on the door of her now ex-boyfriend (played by The Summer I Turned Pretty’s Sean Kaufman, doing his best impression of a douchebag here). When he answers, wearing a shirt that reads “Button Your Fly,” he regards Beer with eye-rolling annoyance. Even so, there are a few moments there where Beer looks at him almost hopefully, like she wishes he would call off their already established breakup. Instead, he coldly tells her, “Yo, we’re done” (rivaling Britney’s acting in the “Stronger” video when she says, “Whatever”) as he thrusts a box of her shit at her. The opening notes to “Bittersweet” then begin to play as he slams the door in her face.

    Turning around to face the street—and the world—Beer chokes back tears as she starts walking to her own house. However, the initial “sadness” of her mood is interrupted when she turns around to see that there are fireworks going off over her ex’s house. This being the first indication of the universe’s unyielding support of her relationship’s demise. Then there’s the sight of confetti on the ground, prompting Beer to drop her box of personal belongings before the camera cuts to a marching band and various “revelers” holding up a sign that reads, “It’ll be okay!” in giant block letters. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg for reassuring signs.

    Soon after, Beer also notices such encouragements as, “An angel gained its wings,” “Newly Single,” “Congrats on your breakup,” “Just the beginning” and, the coup de grâce, “Mom I am a rich man” (the famous Cher quote that’s gained increasing traction over the years, to the point where it also appeared in Taylor Swift’s “You Need to Calm Down” video).

    So it is that Beer’s frown is turned upside down as the parade effectively “goes through” her. And yet, that happiness seems to disappear just as quickly as it came while she sings, “Right now, I’m bittersweet.” That mixture of emotions still inferring that, at any given moment, she can become just as overpowered by her sadness as she is by her “sense of liberation.” Thus, in the midst of that melancholic emotional overtaking at the parade, she scurries back over to her house to seek refuge. Slamming the door behind her, a quick change of light indicates that some time has passed before she reemerges to the sight of various paparazzi and news representatives snapping photos and getting her “hot take” on the breakup (with the caption “Hear How She’s Really Been Doing” when the footage suddenly turns all “90s news-y”). Beer’s response? “One day, I’ll wake up sad/But go to bed so glad/Knowing you know what you could’ve had/Now I’m choosing me/It wasn’t so easy/God forbid forever on my knees.”

    Beer then takes the microphone from the reporter to sing into it, “Know you won’t make it right/Can’t look me in the еyes/Good for you/I always think I knew.” In the wake of this statement, a flash of images of Beer and her ex in various moments of heated tension occur before she’s “headlining” the very parade she walked into at the beginning of the video. But, once again, it’s not all embracing “being free” as, in the next scene, Beer is shown lying in her bedroom clutching the heart-shaped locket she’s wearing as its mirrored interior shines a bright light outward that ends up projecting scenes of her past with this ex onto her ceiling (in a scenario that is very reminiscent of Ariana Grande’s Brighter Days Ahead short film—which only adds to the overall “Grande-ness” of this song anyway, in terms of sound and lyrical motifs). Which would, of course, make it even harder for anyone to get over the person they once (thought they) loved.

    However, at the end of the video, just to lighten the mood—the bittersweetness of it all—Beer is shown in the same scene with Kaufman as the viewer saw at the beginning. Except, this time, Beer sweetly says, “Hi,” to which Kaufman answers rudely, “What do you mean ‘hi’?” He then breaks character to start laughing along with Beer who then imitates his line to make fun of him. It’s a “tag” to the video that adds more levity, rather than just concluding with the scene of Beer heartbrokenly lying in her bed (a “finale” that would have only mimicked the ending of the “Spinnin” video), reflecting back on these better times with her ex. The kind of times that make her wish it wasn’t over instead of realizing it’s for the best. As the parade goers reminded her with no subtlety.

    And yet, sometimes a person (and, let’s face it, especially a woman) who has just endured a breakup needs to be “hit over the head,” so to speak, with that kind of reminder in order to wake up from the sadness that’s enveloping them. This to shed the bitter in “bittersweet.”

    Genna Rivieccio

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

    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.

    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”

    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.

    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

    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…

    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Madison Beer Retreats to the “Sweet Relief” of the 2000s, Corroborating That There’s Little Relief in the Present

    Madison Beer Retreats to the “Sweet Relief” of the 2000s, Corroborating That There’s Little Relief in the Present

    As is the case with most of “Gen Z pop culture,” it’s usually grafted from the 2000s. The latest addition to that truism comes in the form of Madison Beer’s “Sweet Relief” video (marking the sixth single from Silence Between Songs). In many ways, it picks up where “Spinnin” left off, in terms of offering viewers a suburban milieu that Beer inhabits/generally frolics through. This time around, however, things are much brighter (and less desolate) than they are in “Spinnin.” For a start, the sun is actually shining for most of the video, save for during the “requisite” shower scenes of Beer (who seems to want to channel a bit of Miley Cyrus in “Flowers”), which serve no real purpose other than for her to memorex her “hotness” for future generations. 

    However, when she’s not parading her soaped-up body for the camera, she’s actually playing the part of a “nerdy” shy girl. Which, of course, per “2000s law,” simply means donning a pair of glasses. And, if anyone had a doubt that this “little narrative” wasn’t meant to be set in the 00s, one of Beer’s besties proceeds to take photos of the group in Beer’s room with her Canon digital camera. The fact that Beer and her friends are just hanging out in her room together also harkens back to videos of the 00s, when “room culture” was at a peak (see also: Mandy Moore’s “Candy,” Britney Spears’ “From the Bottom of My Broken Heart” and Jennifer Lopez’s “If You Had My Love”—all released on the brink of Y2K). Not to mention that just about the only thing to do in suburbia is hang out in your room…unless you have a car, in which case, you can proceed to do donuts in an empty parking lot. 

    So it is that Beer and her friends, often inexplicably holding stuffed animals (like a teenage Britney for her 1999 Rolling Stone shoot), keep taking “prehistoric selfies” with each other, employing what would later be called a “MySpace angle.” Trying on clothes and putting on makeup—the usual “girlie things” that women in their teens (and beyond) are supposed to do when they congregate—it seems they grow bored enough of that to switch locations to another classic suburban backdrop: the yard. Complete with a trampoline and tire swing. And also—gasp!—boys. Some of them even smoking—double gasp!—cigarettes. And that’s also how you know this is supposed to be the 00s: no one is vaping. In fact, Beer has her “dweebish” eyes on the smoking dude as they all sit in a circle in front of the white picket fence (here, again, the Del Rey influence on Beer is present). And this is where the chorus of “Sweet Relief” applies to the “secret” glances being made as she sings, “It’s just something only we know/Baby, I can’t help myself/I’m seein’ you everywhere I go/I don’t dream of anyone else/All I need, sweet relief [obviously, a sexual euphemism]/It’s just somethin’ only we know/Something only we know.”

    Or so they would like to believe. But at the next cliche suburban location change—the parking lot of a mall—the two are talking in such an obvious “I like you” way that it would be hard not to notice the attraction. Plus, Beer has taken her glasses off so that he can suddenly “really” see her. The moments of fucking around in the parking lot (including Beer being pushed along on a skateboard) channel many a 90s video (see: The Smashing Pumpkins’ repertoire). Not to mention the parking lot driving scenes from Lana Del Rey’s “Bartender” portion of the “Norman Fucking Rockwell” video. And then there’s even a dash of Madonna’s 1983 “Borderline” video as the two talk in front of a sign post together…except that Beer has more luck than Madonna at endearing her love interest to her in this particular scene. 

    The picturesqueness of it all stems from the simplicity of a group of youths actually doing things together, however seemingly banal, that don’t involve the distracting prop of a phone. Because sure, plenty of teens had cell phones “back in the day,” but never used so pervasively as they are now. After all, there weren’t even enough options on a phone to warrant being sucked into it so readily (unless you count playing Snake on a Nokia).  

    And yet, beneath the surface of this being a “quaint” town in the middle of nowhere, the reality is that the group is roaming the streets of North Hollywood. Getting ice cream as night falls, the innocence of that act is mitigated, to the trained eye, by the fact that they walk past a dance studio called Ararat. Conveniently located just across the street from VIP Gentlemen’s Club…which makes for a perfect transition for the little girl taking “dignified” dance lessons to eventually transition into the nearby strip club. Because, as David Lynch has taught us repeatedly, anything “innocent” is always belied by a seedy underbelly. Especially in California. 

    Getting slurpees at a convenience store and “messing around” at a car wash then serve as the precursor to the “grand finale” of the video: jumping into someone’s pool while fully clothed. All of these “millennial” activities (though the latter trio of scenes smacks more decidedly of Gen X) seem to further emphasize that maybe Gen Z kind of hates it here, in this era. Even in spite of constantly mocking those who are even five years older than them for being “boomer.” Sure, every generation tends to romanticize the time period of the one that came before it, but something about this feels different. As though Gen Z inherently knows they got the fuzzy end of the lollipop with regard to experiencing youth. Like, actually experiencing it…instead of just seeing it acted out on their phones. 

    And so, like most Olivia Rodrigo videos, Beer’s “Sweet Relief” offers yet another clear case of hauntology in pop culture. Not just because capitalism creates the conditions in which nothing can ever be new, but because it’s never been more apparent that, as Francis Fukuyama would say, we’ve reached “the end of history.” Or, perhaps more accurately, the end of human history, with nothing new left to say or do, as made increasingly evident by offerings like “Sweet Relief.” Yet even with the AI infusion that’s been infiltrating (and likely to infiltrate all the more) art, the “bots” are only repurposing (e.g., getting AI versions of singer’s voices to sing songs by other musicians) just as much as Madison Beer, or anyone else of her generation. Those who are caught between showing contempt for the narrow-mindedness of the past while still romanticizing it because the present is so utterly dystopian.

    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Whether Emulating Lana Del Rey, Ariana Grande or Olivia Rodrigo, Madison Beer Gets Loud on Silence Between Songs

    Whether Emulating Lana Del Rey, Ariana Grande or Olivia Rodrigo, Madison Beer Gets Loud on Silence Between Songs

    The story of Madison Beer’s rise to fame is already well-known by now. And, in a nutshell, it goes: Justin Bieber tweeted, among other links to her videos, Beer’s cover of Etta James’ “At Last” circa 2012, resulting in both worldwide attention and an expected backlash from his jealous female fans. It didn’t take long for Bieber to help get her signed to the same label as him, Island Records, as well as sign a contract to be managed by his own Svengali, Scooter Braun. 

    By 2013, Beer was assuring the media of her work on a debut album that would include “slow songs, sad songs, happy songs, songs about boys and songs about being who you are. I’m making sure I’m happy with all of the songs, because if I am not happy with them, I can’t expect anyone else to be, you know?” In the end, that album was scrapped, but it seems Beer took the same philosophy into the future with her sophomore record, Silence Between Songs. An album she decided to revamp entirely after already turning it in a year ago. The name of the record, however, stayed the same. And it’s a fitting moniker considering how much silence there has been between her various releases. Granted, Beer has more or less offered up a consistent flow of singles since 2013, starting with “Melodies.” It was only during the three years she spent recording her EP, As She Pleases, that the singles dissipated (with “Something Sweet” being her last release of 2015 before disappearing into recording mode).

    Returning to the music charts with the release of “Dead” in 2017, it felt pointed that Beer should only reenter the spotlight upon turning eighteen. While other pop stars like Britney Spears and, later, Billie Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo, would have no difficulty commodifying their girlhood, it was almost as though Beer wanted to wait until she was “legal” to belt out ditties that consisted of lyrics such as, “For now I am not, not gonna sleep with you/Stop now (yeah)/Stop now (yeah)/Have some respect/Don’t act like I’m blind/I can see your intent/Spent way too much time I have/Listening to this, listening to shit/From a player, you get no love.” Sure, Brit might have alluded to such sentiments in her earlier work (namely, with lyrics like, “I’m not that innocent”), but she had already turned eighteen when the Baby One More Time record was released. And yes, even Rodrigo, whose lyrics were always more “boy-oriented” than Eilish’s, waited until turning nineteen during the recording of Guts to sing things like, “And I told my friends I was asleep/But I never said where or in whose sheets” and “I just tripped and fell into his bed.” 

    Del Rey, who influenced (a.k.a. “raised”) all three Gen Z musicians, wouldn’t have to worry about such forms of “tact,” as she was twenty-six when her debut came out. Practically “ancient” by current Gen Z standards (hence, the TikTok trend that used “Young and Beautiful” against her). Maybe that’s why it was so easy for her to sing such “cocaine carols” as, “He loves me with every beat of his cocaine heart” and “Light of my life, fire of my loins/Be a good baby, do what I want” (that last line alluding to, of course, Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita). For Beer, such sentiments came much sooner in life, as was revealed by most of the tracks from As She Pleases, including “Tyler Durden” and “Home With You.” As for Beer’s film reference on the former track, it’s apparent that, as is the case with Del Rey, her vocals tend to lend themselves to the cinematic. Indeed, that’s why Beer was adamant about the videos “matching up” to the high-level emotionalism of the singles she’s released thus far. ​​So it was that she stated of the “companion” videos, “Home to Another One” and “Spinnin,” “I wanted people to be able to put headphones in and close their eyes and they could see everything. When I listen to those songs, I can see movies—the colors and aesthetics and the videos perfectly capture the essence of my lyrics, the instrumentals—it all comes together then.” Spoken like a true synesthete (à la Eilish and Lorde).

    Or perhaps someone who simply has Del Rey’s knack for aesthetic…the word that’s been buzzing for millennials ever since the Tumblr heyday. And now grafted from them by Gen Zers like Beer…who also happens to have the same Del Reyian love of 60s-era music. This, needless to say, extends to The Beatles and Beach Boys (with Pet Sounds in particular being an album that Beer and her producer, Leroy Clampitt, were “obsessively” listening to at the outset of recording).

    In fact, Beer admitted that “Spinnin’” was influenced by The Beatles’ “Yesterday” to none other than Del Rey herself, who chimed in, “I heard a lot of Beatles influence throughout the whole thing, amongst about six other influences [also calling out Skeeter Davis’ “The End of the World”]. I’m so on that 60s, 50s tip. I thought it was the perfect record.” As many girls Beer’s age and beyond feel that Born to Die is the perfect record. Funnily enough, Beer (fourteen years younger than LDR) would become famous the same year Del Rey “officially” did, with the release of said debut in 2012. Beer would one-up that title with the simple directness of the aforementioned “Dead.” And no, she’s not afraid (anymore) to cop to Del Rey being a primary influence on her work. Not after Del Rey herself came up to her at Urth Cafe one day to tell her what a fan she was. From there, a friendship was quickly forged, with Del Rey not only doing an interview with Beer for Interview magazine (whereas Beer’s contemporary, Billie Eilish, would give the interview for Lana’s own Interview cover this year), but also turning to her for guidance and advice whenever needed. 

    Feeling relieved that Del Rey wasn’t a case in point of the old adage, “Never meet your heroes,” she would also tell her in the same interview, “I want to be able to show other artists, and just females in general, that we have to be there for each other, and we have to love one another. Life is too short for envy.” Beer learned something about that from the moment the army of “Beliebers” turned on her for being, to them, nothing more than some “hot bitch” Justin was paying all of his attention to. It took her a while to realize that “comparison is the thief of joy in every sense.” Adding to that Olivia Rodrigo-on-“jealousy jealousy” sentiment, Beer also noted, “For a long time, I was someone who would compare myself: for example, when Billie first caught fire—it felt as though she had quickly popped off and was already 100,000 times more successful than me. I was jealous or upset by it but now, I couldn’t be more proud of the work that I have out.” Acknowledging that she has just as many insecurities as any “normal” girl, Beer does come across as being more comfortable than ever in her own skin with this album. 

    Starting with “Spinnin,” the fifth single from the album (even though it was freshly released on September 15th), Beer sets the stage for a world of her own. And yes, as she said, a large part of creating that world is the visual that goes with it. Set in a suburban neighborhood where time has seemingly stopped (but, then again, how can you really tell in suburbia?), there’s a Twilight Zone-meets-Groundhog Day vibe to her sense of overpowering depression in the wake of losing a relationship.

    With an album cover pulled from the video for “Spinnin,” Madison Beer establishes a fraught, escapist tone immediately with this image of her whooshing through a cornfield. Stealing away to secure some of that “silence between songs” she refers to with her reasoning for titling the album as such, specifically stating, “I got started really young doing this, and I feel like I’ve had a very busy twelve years or so in the industry and I kind of convinced myself that the moments where I was making music and when I was on tour and when I was my busiest was when I was growing… As I’ve gotten a little bit older, I realized it’s actually been the moments that I’ve been able to tune out the noise and I’ve been able to be alone, really reflect and be more isolated where I’ve grown the most. So, it’s the silence between songs and when the noise is turned off is when I feel like I’ve learned who I am the most.”

    The slow, malaise-oriented tempo of “Spinnin” gives way to the more rhythmic “Sweet Relief.” Something that Beer describes not being able to get in the chorus as she laments, “I’m seein’ you everywhere I go/I don’t dream of anyone else/All I need, sweet relief/It’s just somethin’ only we know/Something only we know.” The last line harkening back to the way Keane sang “Somewhere Only We Know.” Her earnest obsession with the person she’s so focused on that she even starts seeing him in her dreams affects her health, to boot, as she also adds, “Can’t eat, can’t sleep/No, you’re not makin’ this easy on me.” But such are the drawbacks of having a crush (as Alicia Silverstone could tell you). Perhaps that’s why Beer turns to more nature-oriented sentiments on “Envy the Leaves.”

    For those who feel the song sounds only too familiar, that’s because it seems as though Billie Eilish and Finneas peered inside Beer’s mind while coming up with the melody for “What Was I Made For?” Indeed, when Beer sings, “I envy the snow” it sounds just like Billie Eilish saying, “I used to float.” And yes, in her lyrical reverence for Mother Nature, Beer ends up creating something of a knockoff of MARINA’s 2019 single, “Handmade Heaven.” A song that, incidentally, also starts with the phrase, “I envy.” Except, in MARINA’s case, she envies the birds, opening the track with, “I envy the birds high up in the trees/They live out their lives so purposefully/I envy the spiders, the squirrels and seeds/They all find their way automatically.” Beer expresses a similar view with her own opening verse that goes, “I envy the leaves/That grow from the trees/They’re all so carefree/Through the seasons, unaware of the fall/If only I’d see/It’s quite easy to be/A drop in the ocean, with no worries and no questions at all.”

    Abruptly changing sonic tack at the end, the song’s musical denouement is almost like an explosion of the carefully-controlled emotions she’s been holding for the majority of the song. Devolving into an all-out jam session-y feel, it smacks of Tame Impala, which Beer also cited as an influence on her work. 

    The music shifts abruptly to something more bossanova-esque on “17.” The age so many women in music like to mention, perhaps even more than “sweet sixteen.” And yes, not only does MARINA have a song called “Seventeen” from back when she was Marina and the Diamonds, but Del Rey also refers to that age in one of her most iconic songs, singing, “Only seventeen/But she walks the streets so mean” in “Carmen.” In “17,” Beer also alludes to that kind of jadedness. Specifically, her own. How she was made to grow up too fast after coming into the spotlight so soon in her life. Thus, Present Madison consoles Past Madison with the lines, “I hope she knows that I would never blame her/‘Cause all she did was all she knew.” And, of course, there are plenty of “Del Rey keywords” (which Olivia Rodrigo also serves up on “lacy” from Guts…namely, “daisies” and “ribbons”), including “cherry” and “summer” in the context of “cherry ripe” and “summer skin.” 

    Bemoaning on the chorus that, “All my life I’ve never had the chance/To stop and smell the flowers/All this time, I never got to sit/And dream away the hours/No memories, like black and white TV/And everybody says it’ll be okay/Like life is just a game/But I don’t wanna play,” Beer can’t help but ask, “Oh, is it too late now, to slow down?” The rosy answer being that it’s never too late to do anything. And, if nothing else, perhaps the next global pandemic will force everyone to “slow down” again, no matter who they are. 

    Del Rey’s favorite song on the album (apart from “Spinnin”), “Ryder,” fittingly sounds like a vocal cross between her and Ariana Grande’s stylings. To be sure, it would be wrong to discount Grande’s marked influence over Beer’s vocal stylings (de facto, it would, in a roundabout way, be wrong to discount Mariah Carey’s). Like Grande, Beer also has a brother…except hers is younger. His name, of course, is Ryder, and that’s who the song honors as Beer makes an apology for the effect her fame undeniably had on his own childhood. So it is that she sings, “Our youth down the drain/And I’ll take all of the blame/For all of the countless/Times that you cried.” Del Rey’s affection for the song, she admitted, has to do with her commitment to sibling relationships, telling Beer in their Interview magazine exchange, “When I was younger I remember thinking, ‘If my siblings can’t come with me, I’m not going anywhere. I have to do whatever it takes to make sure that they thrive.’ It’s a beautiful sentiment.” One that Beer conveys to this striped-down melody that understands how forgiveness between siblings can so often be tacit (unless we’re talking about Blanche and Jane Hudson). Nonetheless, Beer wants to declare, “All that’s unspoken/All the years that werе stolen/You were still in that housе/I shouldn’t have left you behind/And I fall to pieces [Del Rey also uses this Patsy Cline lyric in “Cherry”]/Sometimes all that you need is/A shoulder to cry/And I’m lucky that you’re mine.”

    “Ryder” then easily transitions into the ethereal “Nothing Matters But You.” Delivered like a siren song lulling a sailor into her underwater lair, Beer croons, “You belong to me tonight/Hold me while I cry/Swimmin’ underneath moonlight/Taken by the tide.” At the same time, it’s a track that speaks to how she herself is surrendering to the powerful magnetic force of some bloke, announcing in the pre-chorus, “If you never stop me/Then I’ll just keep fallin’.” She also gets self-referential in the chorus itself by alluding to “Spinnin” (“Make a girl think the world’s only spinnin’ for you/Nothing matters but you”).

    The jaunty, uptempo “I Wonder” (which, at times, reminds one of the notes to Kylie Minogue’s “2 Hearts”) marks Beer’s retreat from the sadness that weighed her down in “Spinnin.” Placing it as the midpoint of the album, therefore, marks a palpable shift in tone as the listener continues on their journey to the end of the record. Beer remarked of “I Wonder,” “Spinnin was always first but we didn’t know what for sure was going to be the last. And this was my intention… for this to be the response to ‘Spinnin.’ [The lyrics to ‘Spinnin’] are ‘Did the world stop spinning? Nothing seems to change.’ This one’s like ‘I woke up happy, I wonder why.’” Or, as Angela Chase (Claire Danes) once said of Jordan Catalano (Jared Leto) in My So-Called Life, “It was like Jordan Catalano had been surgically removed from my heart. And I was free!” The same way Beer feels free from the burden of anxiety-inducing and/or unrequited love. Which is why “now each breath of air is sweeter/Birds are singin’, grass is greener/Suddenly, the world is bright again/I used to live to die by/Somebody else’s side/But now a new day breaks and I feel fine/I wonder why?” Perhaps because, after a certain amount of time, the human ability for total denial of all previously felt emotions as a means of self-preservation kicks in. It’s a kind of “self-cleaning” (a.k.a. self-lobotomy), if you will. 

    Even so, Beer is back to addressing some cad of a figure (likely her own father, the root of all issues with men) in “At Your Worst,” lamenting, “I hope I never hate myself/The way I know you hate yourself/It hurts to see you hurt/The ones who love you at your worst/I’m sorry you don’t trust yourself/Enough to trust somebody else.” As the one who “wants to help,” Beer has clearly reached her breaking point in terms of wanting to keep trying. By the same token, she knows that this person who she’s been attempting to “lead to water” like a horse against its will has only infected her with the same issues (further leading the listener to believe it’s about her dad). Hence, she concludes the song by changing the pronouns in the lyrics to, “And sometimes I still hate myself/The way you made me hate myself/It hurts to know I hurt/The ones who love me at my worst/I’m sorry I don’t trust myself/Enough to trust somebody else.” This emotional expression also leads perfectly into “Showed Me (How I Fell in Love with You),” the third single from the record. 

    Wanting to exude the same closed-off nature as the man she was referring to in “At Your Worst,” “Showed Me (How I Fell in Love with You)” finds Beer asserting, “How I wanna be like you/Oh, oh-oh, it’s true I’m gonna be like you.” The accompanying video accordingly shows Beer clocking the conning behavior of a crooked billionaire who runs a high-stakes underground poker game. And in it, Beer is also sure to include a pool scene of herself that channels Del Rey in “Blue Jeans” and “Shades of Cool.” Sampling The Turtles’ 1969 hit “You Showed Me,” Beer again parades her Del Reyian flair/love for all things 60s in the sound and visual. As she also does with the following track (and fourth single), “Home to Another One.”

    Serving alien Mad Men realness throughout the video she co-directed with Aerin Moreno, the song doubles as being about “the other woman” and as being about mourning the end of a relationship and realizing one’s ex has moved on to someone new. Either way, Beer is sure to take advantage of 60s-inspired sartorial visuals in getting across the aura of the song in its music video format. 

    The dreamy, otherworldly tone persists on “Dangerous” (a title that, of course, reminds one of Ariana Grande’s “Dangerous Woman”). A self-reflective track that has the same dramatic, Piscean pizzazz as anything out of the Olivia Rodrigo songbook, Beer stated of its writing, “I’m currently in my third long-term relationship and I’ve done a lot of self-reflection over the last two years—a whole lot of therapy… and just learning about myself. Part of that, for me, has been to reflect. There have been times where I was like, ‘Is it me?’ When you’re, like, the common denominator in something, am I the trauma? It’s one of those things where I had a moment of self-reflection. Being the dramatic Pisces I am, I definitely had times thinking, ‘Maybe I’m unlovable?’ and I think we all go through phases of that.” Incestuously enough, both Beer and Rodrigo have dated Zack Bia, the supposed inspiration for Beer’s “Selfish” and Rodrigo’s “Vampire.” “Dangerous” is equally self-pitying (the Pisces way) as “Vampire,” with Beer belting out the chorus, “Tell me the truth/What did I do?/Look at me/Why can’t I see?/No, it can’t be this easy/To let me go/But if you say so/Guess I make love too dangerous.” 

    As she apparently did for the boy she refers to in “Reckless,” which served as the first single from Silence Between Songs back in 2021. This, too, being extremely “Rodrigo-esque” in subject matter. More specifically, it has the same tone and thematic focus as Rodrigo’s “traitor,” with Beer rehashing, “Each day goes by and each night, I cry/Somebody saw you with her last night/You gave me your word, ‘Don’t worry ’bout her’/You might love her now, but you loved me first/Said you’d never hurt me, but here we are/Oh, you swore on every star/How could you be so reckless with my heart?” Rodrigo similarly accuses, “You betrayed me/And I know that you’ll never feel sorry/For the way I hurt, yeah/You talked to her when we were together/Loved you at your worst [a Beer song title no less], but that didn’t matter/It took you two weeks to go off and date her/Guess you didn’t cheat, but you’re still a traitor.” As for the “Reckless” video, co-directed by Beer and Amber Park, it borrows more from the Taylor Swiftian love of all things “storybook”-oriented. 

    Beer then once more switches easily from her “wounded side” to her “saucy side” on the eponymous “Silence Between Songs.” But just because the upbeat rhythm gives her the vocal license to sound more confident and vindictive than saddened and betrayed doesn’t mean that the song isn’t still fundamentally about feeling bereft. Ergo Beer’s announcement, “I can’t be alone with my thoughts/When the music’s off/No, I can’t turn them down/Tune them out/Don’t know how/Oh, I never knew/That the silence between songs/Could ever be so lonely and so long.” And yet, as Beer said, it is the silence between songs (a.k.a. the album releases that place her squarely in the spotlight) that she’s come to cherish the most. 

    Once more giving Del Rey a run for her money—this time on the topic of daddy issues—“King of Everything” concludes the album. While some speculate it could be about Beer’s patriarch, Robert Beer (hey, look at that, Del Rey’s dad is also named Robert), many feel the likelier inspiration is Scooter Braun, who Beer had little choice in capitulating to after Justin Bieber was the one to make her go viral (cue the sound of Ye shouting, “I made that bitch famous”). Making his manager her manager, Beer eventually cut ties with Braun before releasing her debut album, Life Support, in 2021. Bieber, on the other hand, is still technically under contract with Braun despite the rumors of their business breakup.

    Based on the lyrics of “King of Everything” (which is perhaps far more incisive than Taylor Swift’s “Karma,” also purported to be about Braun), it seems like Beer barely got out in the nick of time. At the two-minute, forty-seven-second mark, the song offers a decidedly 80s guitar riff for added melodramatic cachet. Seemingly repurposing Beyoncé’s “Sandcastles” lyrics, Beer mockingly sings, “Baby, you’re the king of everything/Buildin’ castles in the sand/That crumble in your hands/Baby, you’re the king of everything/And right now you’re thе man/But no one gives a damn/When thе rain comes pourin’ down/To wash away your crown/You’re the king of nothin’ now.” Meanwhile, with Silence Between Songs, Beer is starting to become more and more of a queen of everything in the music industry. Even if her competitors, whether contemporaries like Rodrigo or “mentors” like Del Rey, are mostly saying the same things she is.

    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”

    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.

    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”

    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.

    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

    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.

    Genna Rivieccio

    Source link

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

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

    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.

    Genna Rivieccio

    Source link