Choreographed Pop Performances: C or D?

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Dancing is nice, but phalanxes of professionals stepping in unison through a series of specified dance moves is a snooze. All agreed, or does anybody here enjoy watching this?

― Curt, Saturday, 9 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

_________ TO THREAD!! (I'm sure I've read people speak up for this, I just can't recall who right now.)

― Curt, Saturday, 9 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I think it's hilarious. Especially on Making The Video when the "artist" gets frustrated because he/she has "too much choreography" in their wittle heads. I hate it. Can't we all blame Janet Jackson-didn't she make it popular?

Super-Dud.

― Lindsey B, Saturday, 9 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Can't we all blame Janet Jackson-didn't she make it popular?
Oh yeah, and Michael Jackson invented IDM.

― helenfordsdale, Saturday, 9 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

It works so well with Fischerspooner. Maybe because they're not all that professional. And the variety of body shapes is nice. Unfortunately, it's a not that big a part of the show. They spend way to much time indulging in this lame, scripted "breaking down the 4th wall/madness behind the magic" bullshit-constantly stopping songs before they've begun, pretending there's all sorts of All About Eve machinations going on behind the scenes, just blabbing about nothing--when they should just give in to all their grandest Seigfried & Roy/Rocky Horror impulses and deliver the stunning Broadway/Vegas revue they're capable of.

Also, I wish life really was like the Spike Jonze video for "Praise You". I wish I saw that sort of thing on the street every day.

― Arthur, Saturday, 9 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Also, I wish life really was like the Spike Jonze video for "Praise You". I
When my life turns into a Spike Jonze directed clip, I am going on Prozac.

― helenfordsdale, Saturday, 9 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Janet Jackson's 80's videos made every artist they should do it too. Perhaps MJ was on too much of a musical pedastal to have mere mortals dance like him (which still sucks) so he needed his funky little sister to bring it to the asses-I mean masses.

What's IDM?

― Lindsey B, Saturday, 9 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

IDM is intelligent dance music, comprised most notably of Aphex, autechre, Squarepusher, PLaid, &c. And yes, the term "intelligent" does color other genres as "stoopid."

― Lee, Saturday, 9 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

They're OK. Not really classic, not really dud. Usually they're just background noise.

Classic: The folks dancing to Technotronic on Saturday Night Live. Unholy ten-second walking gyrations.

Dud: The folks dancing to Bob Dylan on his Grammy performance of "Love Sick". Somebody's idea of herion chic.

I have nothing to say about the Solid Gold dancers. I hated the show, so I never paid attention.

― Michael Daddino, Saturday, 9 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I was just telling my man Phiiliip (who 'broke through' last night at the Luxx in Williamsburg with members of Fischerspooner there to witness it) that he should extend his act to formation dancing. He had some fake groupies clutching at him at Luxx, but I think he needs to have a line of dancers adept at mimicry following all his improvised body posturings, which range from Iggy semi-dressed self-abasement, through Tom Waits hunchback camel moves, to Ian Curtis epilepsy. Having professional dancers copying his totally spastic improvised positions would be very powerful.

In general, performers use their bodies far too little. There's no reason why only pop acts (or rather their stolid choreographers) should be allowed to have bodies and use them.

― Momus, Saturday, 9 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Am I the only person who enjoys choreographed pop dancing?

P.S. Don't knock Janet. That dance routine in "If" changed my life!

― Tim, Saturday, 9 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i like mass synchronised dancing. but what i don't like is crappy NZ rock bands like fur patrol who have synchronized dnacing in their videos cos its "ironic". NB julia deans, frontwoman, also sporter of the "ironic mullet". AAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHH!!!

― di, Saturday, 9 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Dancing is nice,
Back when Janet|Michael Jackson did it, it was amusing. Now its a cliche.
...but phalanxes of professionals stepping in unison through a series of specified dance moves is a snooze.
They aren't professionals....they're robots. And they want you to be a robot. Do Not Resist. They have determined that your weaponry presents no threat to them. Resistance is Futile. You will be assimilated. All agreed, or does anybody here enjoy watching this?

― Lord Custos, Saturday, 9 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

They aren't professionals....they're robots. And they want you to be a robot. Do Not Resist. They have determined that your weaponry presents no threat to them. Resistance is Futile. You will be assimilated. All agreed, or does anybody here enjoy watching this?

thats why i like watching it... cos its robotic fascistic eery fantastic.

― di, Saturday, 9 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I like robots and I wish pop stars resembled them more. What's dud is high school kids trying to replicate the maneuvers at their school dances. They aren't robots... or are they?!

― Honda, Saturday, 9 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Honda controls the currency - that dance routine to Fatboy Slim in She's All That was the third most horrifying cultural lowpoint of the nineties.

Lord Custos - I take it you don't like Kraftwerk then?

I said before on a thread that I prefer dance routines to rock & roll swagger and everyone thought I was making some smart-ass anti-rockist joke, but I was utterly serious. Of course, that's inventing a divide that doesn't necessarily exist: the dance routine at the end of Pink's "Get This Party Started" *is* rock & roll swagger.

― Tim, Sunday, 10 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

"invented by janet jackson" er hullo? zz-top? the four tops? busby berkeley? the tiller girls? the can-can?

yeah i like it: as with all important pop it's as much as anything about the war between the (fetishised?) individual physical body and the encroaching robotic (as in, which is better?) (which do you REALLY desire?)

one of the reasons i stopped going to watch live music was i got bored with *looking* at musicians who dressed badly and boringly running through a pitifully tiny set of quasi-natural rock ordinaire poses (eg dances that pretend they aren't dances) (outfits which DIDN'T use guitars were worse of course: dance as the bobbing bald pate over the keyb)

― mark s, Sunday, 10 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Hey Finney: don't diss Christopher Walken!!

― mark s, Sunday, 10 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

1st Markee S post: he and I are on same wavelength.

2nd Markee S post: ?????

― Tim, Sunday, 10 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

(i got the wrong fatboy slim vid maybe?)

― mark s, Sunday, 10 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Who said "invented by Janet Jackson". Not I-ever. I said she made it popular. Music video dancing-Pat Benatar "Love is a battlefield" and all that. Pop people of today still talk about those videos of hers. She didn't invent it, she made it acceptable for other artists to do which led it to be popular-so we can blame her.

― Lindsey B, Sunday, 10 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

totally classic:
check out classic 60's quebec group Ceasar et les Romains. They dressed in complete Roman regalia and played ripping numbers while the whole band steped in sync to inane yet wholly complicated steps.

― ddd, Sunday, 10 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

You know, nearly all the Motown acts were rigidly choreographed and I never hear anybody complaining about those.

― Ian, Sunday, 10 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Sometimes I like it, sometimes I don't notice it, sometimes it pisses me off.

Geri Halliwell's dance routines are always terrible. Atomic Kitten's ditto even when I like the songs. Britney's are generally pretty good, Kylie's dance routines make me think Kylie is sexy which usually - shock horror - I don't. So they're best!

― Tom, Sunday, 10 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I was just about to post an answer concerning Kylie's supremely appealing choreo-robo-ography and then I scroll to the bottom and see that Tom's already posted my post.

― Mitch Lastnamewithheld, Sunday, 10 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Believe me, Ian, there were plenty of complaints 'bout Motown acts in their time - from rock fans, Stax fans, some from the acts themselves. They might have snickered that it was corny, but not _numbing_ to watch. Only the group members usually danced the routines, and obviously they weren't constantly all over the TV signals like Janet et al. In the U.S., once a week, if you were lucky, you might catch one of the groups on Ed Sullivan or Bandstand, and without replays ad nauseum. So, the preceding + time = no complaints heard.

― Curt, Sunday, 10 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I'll watch for Kylie's video. Nobody in the states knew who she was before this, her first hit here since....GHW Bush was it? I guess I just don't see very much interesting dancing in these videos, whether there's one or 400 of them going at it. I can go to a club any night and there will always be at least one kid on the floor whose moves would put all of Orlando to shame. I think any of us who aren't living in a cave could make the same claim.

― Curt, Sunday, 10 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Kylie's dances are of course urgent and key. Also: any Aaliyah video.

Mark, She's All That is a teen romantic-comedy, not a Fatboy Slim clip. In the middle of the requisite prom scene, "The Rockafeller Skank" comes on and the entire school spontaneously start doing a dance routine - although scarily not one from the video clip!

― Tim, Sunday, 10 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Lord Custos - I take it you don't like Kraftwerk then?
Huh? Where are you getting this from? I never dissed Kraftwerk.

― Lord Custos, Sunday, 10 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I'm waiting with baited breath for their "Album Created Entirely Through Thought Transference.

No. Seriously.
If theres anybody alive who can pull it off, Ralf Hutter or Florian Schneider *will* be the ones to do it.

― Lord Custos, Sunday, 10 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

You use the put-down "they are robots" uncritically = you dislike Kraftwerk.

― Tim, Sunday, 10 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Okay, I just saw Kylie's video, and indeed it is ROBOTASTIC!! The costumes and sets are cool and used with imaginative flair. All of which probably spells commercial doom here. And I like how Miss M. acts the hornbitch without feeling a need to include a single doe eyed "am I really doing this" look at the camera like Janet or Maria do when they cut loose sexually.

― Curt, Monday, 11 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Perhaps if we were to change the choreography a little, Stonehenge wouldn't be in danger of being trod upon by dwarves.

― Dave225, Monday, 11 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i.e. dud.

― Dave225, Monday, 11 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

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