I didn't watch the VMAs.  As a matter of fact, I hadn't seen any of the featured videos before this assignment. Why? Because I think that videos try too hard to make you think about a piece of music in one way.  I imagine that there are times where a video is a true representation of the artists intention in writing and performing the song, but more often a music video is an attempt to expand and deepen the demand for the song and artist as a "product".   What sells a product in a media-saturated market?  Controversy sells.  It sells more than talent, it sells more than social responsibility and it sells far more than research, focus groups and good marketing.  The problem with controversy is that it is a fickle mistress.  While hot button issues can be manipulated to provoke a response, an audience reaction to the provocation can never be fully predicted.  The response of the public to a pre-concocted controversy is completely beyond the control of a few human beings. What does this mean for the VMAs?  Artists try way too hard to be controversial and often completely miss the mark.

I chose to view the video for "Can't Hold Us" by Maclemore and Ryan Lewis for this assignment.  The song, when listened to casually, is a great hip-hop dance riff with abundant energy, beat changes, and a simply catchy tune.  The piece makes me want to dance, move around, and lifts my spirit.  I have listened to the song countless times on the radio and enjoy it.  The lyrics are fast and jumbled, so I never really bothered to try too hard to understand what the song meant and it never really mattered.   As a male teen, I am the target audience for this song.   The fact that I like it is testimony to the song's appeal to it's intended market.

Upon viewing the video, my impression of the song changed.  A collection of juxtaposing images including desert and arctic tundra scenes, dog sleds and camels, city and country, young and old, primal and modern, the video seems to be trying to convince me that the song has the power to transcend time, distance, age, and social experience to deliver a message.  This message is carried throughout the video in the form of a pseudo-American flag with zig-zagged stripes and the message "The Heist" in place of the stars.  This flag is carried throughout the video ostensibly across these extremes of time and space to land on the highest man-made point in America - the Space Needle in Seattle.  My guess is that the artist is trying to convey that he has the power to "rob" us of our sensibilities in the referenced "heist" and in doing so, bring himself to great heights.  The idea is controversial, no one likes to think that they are manipulated for the benefit of someone else.  The reality is that every attempt at advertisement is just that, a manipulation, robbing this artist of the very power he tries to yield.

In the end, it is just a song with a confusing video.  "Can't Hold Us" won it's category for Best Hip Hop video with this piece.  I don't think the video won because it was successful at creating the controversy it attempted.  I think it won because it is a good song.