In It Was a Good Day by Ice Cube he describes a good day for a black man living in South Central Los Angeles. The second verse ends, “Plus nobody I know got killed in South Central LA. Today was a good day.” This has more power than a song lamenting a dead friend or describing all the terrible things that can happen. For Ice Cube, the best he could hope for in a day is that no one he knows is killed. That is grim.

Shania Twain in Man! I Feel Like a Woman uses a similar approach to describing what it is like to be a woman. She keeps repeating, “The best thing about being a woman is the prerogative to have a little fun.” This is like saying that the best thing about being a Hispanic man in Arizona is that some days you don’t even need to show your birth certificate to the police. She describes a woman going “totally crazy” by wearing a man’s shirt with a short skirt and coloring her hair. A woman’s role is so constrained that anything actually fun or fulfilling is denied to her. The best she can do is have a tiny bit of fun. Only on a special night, though.

Man! I Feel Like a Woman by Shania Twain:

The video opens with Shania Twain going “totally crazy”. She seems to be wearing a combination of men’s and women’s clothing. Wow! That’s wild!

She is standing in front of a band that she pays absolutely no attention to. The band is made up of models, just like a Robert Palmer video. The twist is that the models are men.

They are wearing a ton of make-up and goggles for some reason?

Check out these guys’ chests. Man. Also, no one showed them how to pretend to play their instruments so they just move their hands around aimlessly. It’s pretty great.

Shania Twain is hiding her face for some reason. Is it because she is trying to “forget I’m a lady”?

According to the Wikipedia page for this song, she is wearing a veil because her entire family was killed in a freak hog stampede the day before they filmed the video. The show must go on, though. As a fan of New Criticism I’ll ignore that fascinating and true fact and try to interpret it in the context of the video. Since the best she can hope for is to have a little fun, maybe the veil is meant to show that, even while trying to have a lot of fun, she has to remain serious and composed. Everyone is counting on her to take care of them. She can’t just go out, get shitfaced, contract a social disease, and spend the next week in jail. She is only allowed that little moment of fun.

Here we get to see the short skirt that she has been hiding.

Tantalizing. Throughout the video she becomes more and more undressed. This represents her struggle to free herself from patriarchal shackles. Every time she exposes herself further, though, she reveals that she represents the traditional role of a woman: thin, perfectly coiffed, an object.

Here at the beginning of the video she is still intriguing dressed.

She takes off her jacket, though.

And suddenly the models who were objects have become objectifiers.

Maybe he doesn’t find her sexy. Licking your lips implies that you are imagining tasting her. So he might be a cannibal. Is this video secretly about cannibalism? Maybe it’s meant to imply that eating meat is like being a cannibal. Did you know that Shania Twain does not eat meat? Did you know that her real name isn’t even Shania Twain? It is Shania T. Wayne. She changed it to Shania Twain after hearing the shouts of workers on the Missippippi river. Note: Since Shania Twain isn’t even American they don’t even have the Mississippi river so she did her best to pretend with the Missippippi.

She continues to show more of herself. First she unbuttons her shirt.

Then she removes it entirely. The models think this is a somber event.

She removes her hat, revealing that she has red hair.

All of her men’s clothing removed, she waves her arms around in a decidedly carefree manner.

So is this actually a feminist video? Probably not. At least this song is about being a woman and doesn’t mention a man. So maybe in the country world we can consider it progressive. But maybe secretly Shania Twain is showing us just how terrible it is to be a woman in our society and that’s pretty cool.

-PTD

It is the final day of Minnesota Week here on Another Flavor and that makes me very sad. To cheer myself up I am writing about a truly upbeat song by the most Minnesotan band in existence: The Hawaii Show. Now, you might think that it is strange that the most Minnesotan band has a different state in their name, but no matter. Check out this line:

“His mom is a slut and his dad is a dude who you always see hanging out at Deja Vu.” Deja Vu is a strip bar in Minneapolis. I looked it up on Yelp and the first review starts like this: “The Vu is the only strip club I have ever been to, and my review might be bias [sic] because I was there with a gang of Norwegian exchange students.” That is extremely Minnesotan. This is from the song “Super Fucked Up” which I will not be writing about.

What I will be writing about is a video from The Hawaii Show’s video called The Hawaii Video. The guy who does all the music for The Hawaii Show used to be in the best Minnesota band so far, Lifter Puller (also called Lftr Pllr, which is awesome). You may know them as the band where the singer and bassist went on to be the singer and guitar player in non-Minnesota band The Hold Steady. The drummer of Lifter Puller became a photographer whose work has appeared in Rolling Stone and other publications. The guitar/keyboard player from Lifter Puller started The Hawaii Show. I saw them once at the Weisman Art Museum for an event called “Funk at the Fred”. The Hawaii Show’s live shows were all lip synced. That is core to their performances. At one point the singer bit the head off a stuffed bat and spit fake blood into the audience and some got in my hair. Is that why I’m frequently disappointed by live performances? Probably.

Anyway, the slogan of The Hawaii Show is “It’s not just a headset, it’s a mindset.” I think you’ll see what that means here:

The video looks super washed out, but I’m pretty sure that’s just the way it was made. Maybe the wall behind him wasn’t really white and he was trying to correct for that? He does say in a song not appearing in this video, “That’s right, I’m white. You know, whiter than off-white.” It doesn’t matter. This isn’t technically only a music video. It’s part of a approximately 12 minute long video that includes songs, skit-type stuff (including Mr. Hawaii Dude making a booty call and then promising to arrive in seven-and-a-half minutes), and some other weird things. I’ll be writing about the video for the song Choaderin’ that appears at the beginning of this video.

The video consists primarily of a single man singing and dancing.

He’s a good looking guy, similar in many ways to a Minnesotan Tom Cruise.

The singing and dancing is interspersed with shots of the man doing aerobics in front of an aerobics video that he is clearly not too familiar with.

He keeps looking over his shoulder to make sure he is doing whatever the people in the video are doing.

At the beginning of the song there is a keyboard solo and we get some air keyboard from Mr. Hawaii Dude.

Then the song starts with “Aloha!”

“It’s time to say goodbye.” There’s some really good literal and semi-literal interpretation of the lyrics in this guy’s dancing. I also like that he works aloha in since it is The Hawaii Show.

While singing, he starts looking through his pockets.

This is awesome. What is he looking for? I don’t even care.

That’s not it.

While he does this he gives a real Minnesotan shout-out. The lyrics are, “It’s so easy to get up and go. It’s so easy to choad. I really think so, Minneapolis, Saint Paul. There’s plenty of girls and guys right here in the land of 10,000 booty calls.”

We get some good pantomiming here. “It’s so easy to hit the road.”

He’s really knocking that one out of the park.

Then he gets into it.

“Yo. It’s Friday ladies and yesterday’s gone and tomorrow’s gonna bum you out if you don’t make out today. Do you remember last year when it started to rain and we took cover in the parking garage and dudes with mullets were trying to parallel park next to chicks with heavenly souls?”

Are those the best lyrics every written? Probably in the top 5. Especially if you look at the make-out music genre. He also throws in a reference to Minnesotan sex shop Sexworld.

Now we get a great series of dance moves. We get the action hands.

This is followed by a little kick.

Into some important clothing-related prep work.

And finally the pay off. He has arranged his clothing to properly flow in the breeze while he puts his hands out like Jesus.

That fan is really doing some work.

There is an extended outro that ends with a solid finger point.

“Ladies call me later!”

I’m not sure if I can describe how happy this video makes me. It certainly has done more for me than any major religion or intoxicant. It is ridiculous and funny and catchy and beautiful. It looks homemade (and certainly is) but doesn’t seem to be half done. You couldn’t make a video like this with a big budget. Having a guy prance around in front of a fan is a decidedly lo-fi and lo-brow venture but it really works here. If you watch his face throughout the video he is really trying to be maximally entertaining.

I’m entertained and so should you be. Join me next week when we return to the 49 other states.

-PTD

Welcome to Minnesota Week here at Another Flavor! It’s day four and things are starting to heat up. Literally. Hahahaha! Haha!

Suicide Commandos are another inexplicably loved Minnesota band. I’m just realizing that this blog makes it seem like I don’t really like Minnesota music. That is preposterous. I love it. But maybe just writing a love letter to a video is not that interesting? I don’t know. Analysis of my feelings is definitely not a part of this blog because I’m a Minnesotan so we won’t dwell on this.

Suicide Commandos are an old school 1970s punk band. They have an affinity for the music of the 1950s and are bad at their instruments. They are also not too concerned with things like “song structure” or “melody” or “quality music”. Those things are not important. What is important, though, is making a pretty sweet early music video.

Burn It Down by Suicide Commandos:

I really like this video. It has a great, lo-fi energy that really connects with me.

It opens with a title card, which I love.

Cleverly, the title card starts on fire and then is all burned up.

Then, the song is introduced by a talking dog. In this case they use a dalmatian because of the fire theme.

Note: Talking dogs are extremely common in Minnesota.

Then, we get a series of people wearing firefighter hats who also introduce the song, or at least say the name of it. There’s this woman who is very angry.

I included a picture of this next woman because I love how her shirt really doesn’t match with the hat.

This guy looks really familiar. Is he an actor? Let me know if you can place him.

This guy seems a little out of it.

The comments for this video on YouTube are probably the only YouTube comments on any video ever that contain helpful information. According to these comments most of the people in the firefighter hats were local winos who were recruited for the video.

Then we get to see the band rocking out in front of a burning building.

These are not high tech special effects. The band is standing in front of a real building that is actually on fire and are recording this video. That’s what passed for special effects in the old days. Apparently that building, which was Suicide Commandos’ rehearsal space, was being demolished using fire (is that something cities do? Burn buildings down on purpose?) because it was condemned. The band wrote a song for the occasion and decided to film a video in front of the burning building. That is awesome. I think this might be the first case of a band writing a song specifically for a video, rather than the other way around. I don’t see why more bands don’t work this way. That’s probably the only way Rob Zombie works.

Look at these dudes! I can’t get over it.

The singer looks like a math teacher who creepily convinced some of his students to play in a band with him.

And sorry ladies, he’s married.

Sorry the picture quality is so terrible, but he is wearing a wedding ring there if you look really hard and squint. He’s a balding man with a beard wearing a button-up shirt and playing music in front of a burning building. I’d marry him if he wasn’t taken. Minnesotans clearly understand that looks (for men) don’t count.

By the end of the song and video the building is mostly burned down.

They add an ending title card as well to let you know who appeared in the video.

That’s sweet. Plus you get to see the band’s logo. I love that the title cards are off center as if they are literally holding cards in front of the camera. I assume that is what they are doing.

This video is pretty sweet. I’d like to think that if I knew when and where a building would be burning, or when a where a clock tower would be struck by lightning, that I would know what to do with that knowledge. I’m not sure. There’s a saying that you can’t know if the wind will come, but you need to make sure your sails are up to catch it. Or something to that effect. Maybe it’s that you can’t know if a wind will come unless you are standing behind a donkey.

Anyways, Suicide Commandos had their sails up and caught this fire. To burn it down.

-PTD