Last
February, YouTube celebrated its 10th anniversary. In these years, the website
has helped us in many ways: it has helped video-games players to get to the
next level, it has guided many people in the process of how-to-do things but,
above all it has provided many people with a ginormus amount of music from many
genres, origins and of course qualities. It has never been so easy to create
and upload a video clip to YouTube and this has encouraged many people show
their talents to the whole world. These people are a living example of one of
my life mantras: “Some people do it better and others worse, but everyone can
draw, sing and dance”.
I would
like to open this section with the one which is, for me, the worst music video
clip ever: Zlad’s “I’m the Anti-Pope”.
Even though
the clip can be catalogued as “music” video, since there is music in it, I
would prefer to place it inside the section of “narration with music in the
background”. Zlad tells us – I don’t use the word “sing” on purpose – the story
of the first Anti-Pope, Beelzebub the First. As Zlad is aware that there are
many people that sing better than him, he only does it during the chorus. The
rest of the time, he just tells, with certain rhythm, a story about the end of
Christianity as it is known. Taking into account the chorus, we may think that
Zlad chose “antelope” and “cantaloupe” because they were the only words he
knows that rhyme with “Pope”. Nothing could be more untrue, he provides us, at
the end of the song, with a list of four more words that rhyme with “Pope”. He
wanted to use them because of the power of the images that they cast. A hammer
smashing a cantaloupe and a lion chasing an antelope are vigorous images that
we can see in the background while the chorus is sung. The only problem is that
what the lion is chasing is not an antelope, but a zebra. To this extent, I
recommend the use of this
video, also from YouTube, where we can see a lion catching a real antelope.
On the
other side, I would like to highlight the great use of the chroma key composing
– or green screen – that supports the lyrics with a penetrating and, most of
the times, monochromatic image. Another valuable aspect in the clip is the work
of the costume designer who chose very accurately the silver boots of the
Anti-Pope, the plastic scythe, the pink
wig of the anti-nun and the crucifix of the mitre with the ring at the bottom
of it. It is obvious that the silver boots represent Belzebub’s reign as opposed
to the golden one of God. The plastic scythe is not there due to a lack of
budget, but to express the insignificance of death to Belzebub, the prince of
Hell. The pink hair of the anti-nun not only implies the new times coming, but
the power of human will versus God’s one, since we can change the colour of the
hair provided by birth. To finish with, I would like to stress the ring of the
crucifix that is glued upside down to the mitre. This small detail, is not just
telling us that it is a real crucifix that represents Christianity, but also
that it has been removed from the wall where it hung and it now serves a total
opposite cause, the Anti-Pope.
For all the
things mentioned and many other that could be alleged taking into account the
lyrics, the performance and Zlad’s biographical details, I do think that the
worst music video clip ever is “The Anti-Pope”.
To learn
more about the artist, you can visit this website.
