Before
I go ahead with today's installment of the Sunday Jukebox, I should
probably offer up a little bit of a warning to you.
Today's
music spotlight features a music video that is quite...um...macabre
and gory. You might not expect it to be a gory music video, given
that the song itself is happy, lightweight, and has a great beat that
you can dance to (forgive my “American Bandstand” throwback
there), but some of the scenes aren't exactly suitable for young
children. In fact, this video garnered a lot of controversy and was
actually edited or banned in some countries.
For
all of you reading this though, I managed to track down the unedited
video. You're welcome.
So,
here's the funny thing about this song. It was a massive #1 hit in
the United Kingdom, and was a Top 30 hit in my home base of
Canada...but it never charted in the United States (well, unless you
count the club charts to be of some importance – in which case, the
song stalled at #24).
In
fact, I probably wouldn't have even known this song had ever existed
had fate not played a role.
We're
going back to the year 2000 for this story. It all began when I was
an optimistic nineteen year old college student who happily worked
for his school newspaper in hopes that the words he wrote would
eventually get him noticed by a high profile media firm and that he
would be making a living doing what he loved.
Well...I
suppose that I am still writing...even though it's more of a hobby
than a career right now.
Anyway,
as part of my volunteer work with the student newspaper, I had to do
a series of articles on a variety of subjects. I would sometimes do
human interest stories, write opinion pieces, and a couple of times,
I even had a front page article or two (I happened to attend school
during a possible faculty strike – which thankfully was averted).
But I have to admit that my favourite pieces to write about were
within the entertainment pages. As a pop culture buff, writing
articles about CD's, films, and other forms of entertainment was
right up my alley. Heck, I've already written almost 900 articles on
pop culture right here in this blog alone! But, of course, there was
another incentive to writing articles for the school newspaper
entertainment section.
Free
swag.
Yeah,
unbeknownst to me, when I started writing for the school newspaper, I
wasn't aware that all of the compact discs that I reviewed for the
paper were free to keep! I also managed to get free movie tickets so
I could review films for the newspaper. I tell you, that job may
have been voluntary, but the perks were definitely a bonus.
If
only the organization that ran the newspaper didn't burn me by making
me promises that they had no intention of keeping...oh well...I've
already told that story. I've moved on from those dark days and am
now seeing the experience at that newspaper as a mostly positive
experience. And, for what it's worth, I still have the vast majority
of the CD's I reviewed for the newspaper (even though many of my
favourite songs have already been downloaded onto the iPod by now).
One
of those CD's was the 2000 disc “Sing While You're Winning” by
British born crooner Robbie Williams. And, I'll admit that when I
agreed to review the album, I didn't really know that much about him.
As someone who watched MuchMusic quite a bit in my teenage years, I
knew that he had a couple of hit singles in 1999 with “Millennium”
and “Angels”.
And,
I also vaguely knew that he was one of the five original members of
the British boy band “Take That”, known for the singles “Pray”,
“Back For Good”, and their cover of Tavares hit “It Only Takes
A Minute”. So when I put the disc into my CD Player and listened
to it, I was going into it with an open mind.
Fortunately,
the entire album was a winner, and I gave it a glowing review. In
fact, I still happen to have the review that I wrote all the way back
in November 2000!
I just wish I remembered where I
put the scrapbook that I kept all of them in. I have it in a box
stashed in my closet, but I can't remember which box, and I don't
have the motivation (or the spare time) to go searching for it today.
I have a Skylanders display to set up at work early this morning
that simply can't wait.
Some
of my favourite songs from the disc were “Let Love Be Your Energy”,
“Better Man”, “Knutsford City Limits”, and “Kids” (the
last song being a duet that he did with Australian songbird Kylie
Minogue). Really, the album may be thirteen years old, but I'd still
recommend it. And, yeah, I know Robbie Williams has a somewhat
questionable reputation in his native UK. It doesn't take away from
the fact that when push comes to shove, he can churn out a wonderful
song.
As
it so happens, today's song selection comes from the “Sing When
You're Winning” album. And, at first, it sounds like a rather
decent club hit.
It's
only when you watch the video that you understand why I've featured
this video as part of the Halloween spotlight. Last warning, all.
ARTIST:
Robbie Williams
SONG:
Rock DJ
ALBUM:
Sing When You're Winning
DATE
RELEASED: July 31, 2000
PEAK
POSITION ON THE BILLBOARD CHARTS:
N/A
PEAK
POSITION ON THE UK CHARTS: #1
Okay,
so I'll give you a moment to take that in, get your jaws off the
floor and finish throwing up in the bathroom if you feel disgusted.
Believe me, I gave you several chances to turn back and not click the
video and you should have heeded those warnings if you have a
sensitive stomach.
Feeling
better? Good. We'll continue.
So,
as you can see, Robbie Williams does the ultimate strip tease. He
takes off his shirt, pants, underpants, skin, muscles, blood vessels,
and internal organs to become the waifest bloke in the entire club.
All to impress some gal who pays him no attention. I mean, the cover
of the CD single of the song provides a little taste of what you can
expect to see in the video itself.
IMPORTANT
NOTE: Never remove any part of
your body in order to impress a girl. It's painful and it's messy.
Trust me on this one.
(Not
that I have any experience in severing off random body parts. I've
just seen enough episodes of CSI to know that it appears to be
painful and messy.)
But
at least it's nice to know that “No Robbies were harmed in the
making of this video”.
But
let's take a look at the positives of this music video. The video
did win the 2001 MTV Video Music Award for Best Special Effects.
Regardless of how macabre the video appears, the make-up artists and
CGI gurus did a fantastic job with the special effects. And, in
2006, the video was voted by viewers of MTV as the seventh most
groundbreaking music video ever created.
But
as a result of the graphic imagery of the video, it was edited in a
few countries. Many European nations heavily censored the video.
Some versions cut out the scenes where Robbie is removing his skin
tissue and organs and replaced it with other footage. Some stations
would air the edited version during the day and after midnight they
would air the more gory version. Some stations would completely
ignore the gory video and instead play a version which just has
Williams singing in a recording studio. You can watch the second
version with just the click of a mouse below this paragraph if you
wish.
Perhaps
the most extreme form of censorship regarding this particular song
came from The Dominican Republic, where the video was banned because
people felt that it encouraged Satanism.
Yeah,
I can maybe see how Robbie Williams tearing his whole body apart
piece by piece to impress random roller skating ice queens by
showering them with his own blood could be seen as rather devilish
behaviour. But then again, how many times are you ever going to go
to a roller disco and see a man throw pieces of his own epidermis at
you while you skate around to music that predates even you? Not very
often, I bet.
Of
course despite all of the controversy the song brought when it was
released, it appeared as though Robbie Williams ended up with the
last laugh and sang while he won the battle. The single became his
third #1 UK solo single since departing “Take That” in the
mid-1990s, and as of 2013 has sold a total of nearly seven hundred
thousand copies worldwide. In 2000, the song was named “Best Song”
at the MTV Europe Music Awards and in 2001, the single won the BRIT
Awards for Best Single and Best Music Video.
You
know, I think back of all the controversial music videos that I've
seen over the past twenty-five years. I think the earliest music
video that I recall getting pulled from music video television was
Madonna's “Justify My Love”. Shortly after, a video by
French-Canadian chanteuse Mitsou was yanked. In both cases, the
videos were deemed too sexually provocative to air on television.
Robbie
Williams' video for “Rock DJ” took on a different approach, and
his video ended up getting banned for extreme gore and accusations
that he advocated Satanic rituals. But ultimately it didn't harm
Williams' career any. As of 2013, he is still making music and his
latest album, “Swings Both Ways” is scheduled to be released on
November 18.
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