A Monday/Tuesday Combo: Snakes on a Blog

Howdy folks. You may have noticed (but you probably didn't) that I did not post anything Monday morning. I decided to take the night off last night, a "personal day," you might call it. Or you might call it "I decided I'd rather watch Camp Rock than waste my time writing about something I'm not really interested in so a bunch of people who don't really care one way or another can have something to read tomorrow morning." Yeah, I think that has a nice ring to it.

Anyway, I'm back to plague your browsers with another round of my insights. Today, we'll be dealing with music videos; more specifically, awesome music videos that you need to see right now. For the record, this is not a list detailing the best music videos ever made (I'll save that for a Top 10 feature sometime). For one reason or another, most of these videos won't even land on my Top 10, but that doesn't diminish their awesomeness, and since they are awesome, you need to watch them immediately.

The first video is "Snakes on a Plane (Bring It)" by Cobra Starship:

Cobra Starship - New Music - More Music Videos

Note: I had to use the MTV.com version because the edited one is not on Youtube anywhere, and I can't, on behalf of this blog, condone the use of F-bombs, even if there is only one at the very beginning of the song. Sorry about the commercial.

While the video itself is not entirely amazing, the song, which was the theme song of the movie of the same name and played over the end credits, is epic and catchy as all get out. The video is worth watching just to hear the song, and it's cool enough in its own right (regardless of how you feel about the movie, the music video's tie-ins are nifty). This is the perfect song to listen to while you're, say, trying to drop your brother off at work in a hurry because you're late for work yourself. Trust me.

When I first heard of Cobra Starship, I thought they were a novelty super group that wasn't ever going to put out any real material other than this single to promote the already notorious movie Snakes on a Plane. Because this video features so many people from other bands (William Beckett from The Academy Is..., Travis McCoy from Gym Class Heroes, and Maja Ivarsson from The Sounds), I didn't realize that Cobra Starship was actually its own band, so I didn't pay much attention to them until recently. The namesake for this blog comes from Travis McCoy's inexplicable line at the end of the song. I'm not sure why he said "snakes on a blog," but he did, and this is a blog, so there you have it.

Also, as an added bonus, this isn't a music video, but I thought you might enjoy this hilarious clip of the FX edit of Samuel L. Jackson's infamous line from the aforementioned movie:







Since that last music video featured William Beckett, I figured that's a great transition to our next video by his band, The Academy Is..., "About A Girl"







Again, it's the song itself here that really shines, but the video does enhance it, particularly during the "to be loved" bridge, where William starts out making an earnest point and ends up in snide mockery of the concept he touted just a few seconds ago, aptly demonstrating the progression of the train of thought of one who is in such a position as the narrator of this song. The hefty doses of denial and irony are what make the lyrical content stand out, and musically I love the way the vocals and chords harmonize. I'm not a huge fan of The Academy Is..., but this is a great song.

Our final video features not one guy entranced by a female, but every guy in it, Weezer's latest offering, "(If You're Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To"







Weezer usually has cool videos, and this one is no exception - I like the Weezerville concept and the kid bodies with the heads of the band members on them. My favorite thing about the video, though, is the way that its message departs from that of the song, which is striking, because I usually don't like when music videos do that. The "bros before hoes" attitude exemplified at the very end of the video, though, actually somewhat aligns itself with the lyrics (at least in terms of how Rivers Cuomo interacts with the girl at the end), making it suitable for the song and bringing a wacky video to a very satisfying and unexpected conclusion.

I hope I've drained your time in a culturally enriching fashion today. If you don't like these videos... well, your taste sucks and I can't help you.

-Billy