The big video of the week is Madonna's "Hung Up" (Windows Media), the single off the forthcoming "Confessions on a Dance Floor" -- it's a roving dance video that features Madonna in full-on, legwarmers-and-heels "Fame" mode, with a bit of street slam and plenty of popping and locking thrown into the mix (and check out Madge's increasingly British accent in this TV interview (Windows Media) about the new record).
Also new this week, a video from Santana's new album, "All That I Am." "I'm Feeling You" (Real) features the never-without-a-hat guitarist in a poppy duet, of sorts, with Michelle Branch.
In video news: Apple announced this week that it has sold more than $1 million in videos for its new iPod -- a big feat given that it only started selling them Oct. 12. If the trend continues, as seems likely it's bound to have an effect on the making (and selling) of music videos. Though it's hard to tell from Apple's announcement what percentage of those sales were for videos, as it sells TV episodes and animated shorts as well, it's enough of a trend that a group calling itself the Music Video Directors Alliance has started a petition to the Directors Guild of America -- "the only entity that has the clout and infrastructure to do something like this is the DGA" -- to fight for some system of payment to directors whose videos are suddenly selling like hot cakes through iTunes: "Our feeling is that there has just been a paradigm shift in the music video business where our work has gone from being a promotional tool to sellable, revenue generating content ... As with every other format be it television, feature films, short films, internet films, etc where the work is being sold for profit, the director needs to be compensated on the back end sale of their intellectual property."
Movies and music videos have overlapped in some ways since the very first days of MTV, so it's surprising we haven't seen more "movie videos" like Jeff Yorkes' recutting of "Misery" (QuickTime) to the aptly selected "Pulling Teeth" by Green Day (warning, contains a brief shot of James Caan's ankles getting busted by a sledgehammer-wielding Kathy Bates). Another one, featuring the White Stripes' "Union Forever" (QuickTime) finds a natural companion in "Citizen Kane," as many of the song's lyrics come from the classic film. Things go both ways, of course: The seven-minute video for Tom Petty's "Into the Great Wide Open" (QuickTime) is a movie short in itself, and even features an all-star cast: Johnny Depp as Eddie Rebel, Faye Dunaway as his manager, and even a baby-faced Matt LeBlanc as the kid getting a tattoo right at the end.
-- Scott Lamb
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