the fire’s in your eyes, and the words aren’t really clear

I intend to depress you later this week with lots of political ranting, so I’d better get on your good side early.

First, c/o the comic geniuses at Overthinking It, here’s Chapters One through Five of R. Kelly’s Trapped in the Closet – running simultaneously. They describe it as “the music video equivalent of eating a bullion cube,” and I can’t fault the analogy:

Second, from our friends at BoingBoing, former Talking Heads frontman David Byrne turns a building into an instrument and plays it. Why? Because he’s David Byrne.

Third, here’s the YouTube Channel for Back Porch Videos, a cable access show from Detroit in the early 80s. Teenage and college-aged VJs played the latest and hottest alternative music videos. It’s almost bittersweet to watch it now, as you can’t find a cable channel these days that plays alternative music videos, or even music videos at all.

For instance, here’s Cheap Trick’s “I Can’t Take It,” one of my favorites:

Fourth, I bring you Amy Winehouse and Charlotte Church covering Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” in an October 2006 concert. Charlotte, a world-renowned opera singer by the age of 12, shoots Winehouse a death glare at 0:21 and it only gets worse. If you can watch the video all the way through, you have a stronger stomach for the humiliation of a human being than I do.