THE WORST MUSIC VIDEO CLIP EVER

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.