Archive for the 'Pickard of the pops' category
Thursday, December 20th, 2007
The other day, walking down the street, we happened upon an unshaven old man asleep in a car. Gently, we shook him awake and, after a while he invited us back to his house, where he made us herbal tea and fed us herbal cake, showed us old photo albums of happier days, and told us a sad, sad story of grand gestures gone awry on a skiing jolly with a gang of happy yuppies…
When he passed out again at the end of his tale we nicked the photos and his stash and you know, a couple of DVD players and stuff, but only so we could run back to you and share the tale. Here - the self same sad, sad story, in the very words of the mumbling man.
“Yeah, this was my car. It was a jeep. I think.” These were his first words. We looked at our watches and hoped that either this story was going to get better, or at the very least his memory might improve.
“That’s me!” he said. “Hello me!!!”
We pointed out that with his big eyes and his feather-cut, he looked an awful lot like Princess Diana back then. He seemed really pleased, which is funny, because we didn’t mean it in a good way …
[Find the full deconstruction, with pictures - the only way it makes sense, really - here]
Humour, Pickard of the pops |
Wednesday, December 12th, 2007
… Here they are, the Fast Food Rockers, a band of three people and as many hits (ever) displaying all the things that can happen when you’re too camp for the campest market of all: Christmas.
But suddenly it all ended for them, The Fast Food Rockers were scooped up by a magical sleigh fllled with no presents at all, only a big blue dog. This is not Father Christmas’s sleigh: No, this is what happens when you haven’t been good enough for Father Christmas to come to your house. Instead, the Big Blue Dog called “Hot Dog” or something similar will come to your house and …
Well, you should just try to be good. That is all…
[Find the full deconstruction, with pictures - the only way it makes sense, really - here]
Humour, Pickard of the pops |
Wednesday, December 5th, 2007
… We are in a north London boozer. I know that mainly because I read it on the YouTube page, which says that this, the second video for this beautiful track by the Maccabees, planned for the post-mobile-phone-advert re-release of the song, was filmed in a north London boozer. I’m just assuming YouTube is telling the truth. That’s investigative journalism for you…
[Find the full deconstruction, with pictures - the only way it makes sense, really - here]
Humour, Pickard of the pops |
Wednesday, November 28th, 2007
‘Ello! We’re the Arctic Monkeys, and we’re here today to present a proper top-notch masterclass on How to Record a Hit Single. As we’ve done lots of singles now, and a couple of top-selling award-winning albums and that, we thought it would be a bit nice to pass on that knowledge to up and coming young bands who might need a bit of help…
[Find the full deconstruction, with pictures - the only way it makes sense, really - here]
Humour, Pickard of the pops |
Wednesday, November 21st, 2007
Arrrrr, me hearties, and welcome one and all to this week’s Pickarrrd o’the Pops. This week, we be sailin’ the open seas with Vampire Weekend, on the good pirate ship Mansard Roof. Or the good pirate yacht Mansard Roof, perhaps? Or, perhaps it be a pirate sloop. I be not sure, though they certainly be dressed like them thar pasty landlubbers the Beach Boys, so perhaps it be so. Arrrr.
We seem’t've just caught young, bloodthirsty pirate gang Vampire Weekend. We know this be them, because just before we joined them on said ship/yacht/sloop, a large screen flashed up, announcing who they were…
Although we be only thinkin’ that from readin’ the top line. Bein’ pirates though, we may well be wrong, for we can’t read lower lines that well, as we only ‘ave the one eye. So perhaps this is Pirewee Kenvampi and his merry band of pirate indie popsters, as the fourth line suggests.
[Find the full deconstruction, with pictures - the only way it makes sense, really - here]
Humour, Pickard of the pops |
Wednesday, November 14th, 2007
A darkened room. Dust coats the walls of what would appear to be a grand old country estate. The kind of country estate bought in a time of great wealth, and then slowly left to ruin as the money ran out. For, like, ten years or something.
Silence. This is because we are building up to a big TA-DAH!-type entrance. Are the walls suddenly going to morph into the Girls? Will they grow out of the embers of a dying fire? Or, in the most prosaic alternative of all, are the doors simply going to open?
Yes. There, that was easy. Emma Just-had-a-baby Spice is first in. Then, taking up half the frame, Geri leads the way for the Heat-exclusive heavy-hitters, looking bolshy and smug.
Thus arises the most intriguing question this video might hope to answer: after all the years away, who’s the bigger star, Posh or Ginger?…
[To find out, read the full deconstruction, with pictures - the only way it makes sense, really - here]
Humour, Pickard of the pops |
Wednesday, November 7th, 2007
… It’s just the five beswimmingsuited women we have already seen, standing in a line. Phew. That was a close one. Why are they in a line? Are they queuing? Ah yes. They are queuing for food. We see lots of different types of food flashing by in quick succession. Burger, chips, chocolate bars, cake, cake, cake, hot dog. This is terrible food. Very bad.
This must be why the outcry. At a time like this, with warnings of an obesity epidemic, to present such glamorized and unambivalently sexual images of groceries is simply beyond the pale. As are these young ladies’ table manners.
What kind of a way is that to eat peanut butter, for example? Both uncouth AND unwise. The only thing you’re going to get that way, my girls, is a claggy mouth. And bad indigestion. And unless you know someone with a hose full of jelly - and no, that’s not a euphemism, no matter what godforsaken genre of video you are in - then you will have no joy with that peanut butter…
[Find the full deconstruction, with pictures - the only way it makes sense, really - here]
Humour, Pickard of the pops |
Wednesday, October 31st, 2007
Day. Two men sleep in the back of a car.
It is !!!. Which, we understand, is pronouced “chk chk chk”. Though that’s the most common way of saying their name, according to their website they could just as easily be called “Pow Pow Pow”, “Bam Bam Bam”, “Uh Uh Uh”, etc.
So now we’re pronouncing punctuation, are we? Fine. Every time I enter an ellipsis - … - please don’t pause, as is traditional, but instead growl like a little angry dog, as that is how those three periods are pronounced. Thank you.
[Find the full deconstruction, with pictures - the only way it makes sense, really - here]
Humour, Pickard of the pops |
Wednesday, October 24th, 2007
As music conspicuously doesn’t start, the camera pans down a very long, very black limousine. The atmosphere is charged. The quality is filmic. The band is… Duran Duran? Hang on, aren’t they dead?
Apparently not. They have survived to become the only band EVER to have featured in both Classic Pickard of the Pops and, now, the regular kind. And they have brought us something really, really special.
Yes. It’s two people in a car. With drinks.
One wears a pair of glasses so big they look like an advertisement for a new brand of armoured face shield, able to protect the wearer from fire, nuclear strikes and tigers. The other is either rubbing his gums with cocaine or scratching his nose. We understand what this means: these people are young, hip and famous. So, what are they doing in a Duran Duran video exactly?…
[Find the full deconstruction, with pictures - the only way it makes sense, really - here]
Humour, Pickard of the pops |
Wednesday, October 17th, 2007
… Suddenly, the camera flips around and we see that this whole thing has been taking place in the back room of a fast food joint! The whole thing is ACTUALLY a brilliantly biting satire of consumerism, fast food and sexual appetites and …
No, it’s no good. I’m lying. Nothing changes. There’s just some more pole dancing.
I give up …
[Find the full deconstruction, with pictures - the only way it makes sense, really - here]
Humour, Pickard of the pops |