Friday, January 14, 2011

Alesha exposes 'Every Little Part of Me' ft Jay Sean - watch the premiere now!

Are you paying too much for YOUR car insurance?
It's no secret we have a little love affair with former Mis-Teeq member/failed solo artist/Strictly Come Dancing champion/successful solo artist Alesha Dixon.  It was super exciting when she finally capitalized on her Dancing win with a Platinum album and mega hits 'The Boy Does Nothing' and 'Breathe Slow,' but since then things have.....not gone terribly well.

Her third album (her second as an ACTUALLY POPULAR PERSON) 'The Entertainer' came out earlier this year, slid off the bruised and broken back off its disastrous lead single 'Drummer Boy,' and collapsed into a heap of sequins and broken dreams with a dainty thud.

At number 84.

At that point any other artist would probably get told off by their record company, spend their liquid assets on drugs, and have their agent start shilling a reality show to one of MTV's satellite stations.  But not our girl Alesha.  No, Miss Dixon stared down "the haters" and hauled out the heavy artillery for a big-ass relaunch in the form of 'Every Little Part of Me.'

The song features no less than Jay Sean, who had some hits once, and it (thankfully) is pretty listenable in a poor-man's-Rihanna kind of way.  All in all, it's probably the song that should have served as the lead single, but that's all in the past and there's no changing it now even though some poor recently-unemployed record exec is probably drinking himself to sleep right now wishing that he could.

For its part, the video is alternatively BRILLIANT and INCOMPREHENSIBLY BAD, and quite often is both all at the same time.  It's not that it's terrible quality or anything, it's just that it commits one of the cardinal sins of music videos by raising far more questions than it answers.  For instance:

1.  Why is Alesha dancing in a parking garage in a ball gown?  Is this some sort of creepy audition for an "independent film" where the director just wants to "see you dance"?  Because we've been on those auditions and let us tell you - those movies NEVER end up getting the financing to actually get started.

2.  Why are Alesha and Jay wearing scarves over their faces in order to, presumably, commit some crime without exposing their identities?  In case they haven't read the news lately, the authorities can see your ovaries through your clothes if they want to.  And it's not like they are wearing full face masks anyway - their eyes are completely exposed.  And if prime time television has taught us ANYTHING it's that any dumbass with a computer can pull CCTV footage and say the word "enhance" over and over until a crystal clear image shows up and gets run through a database that inexplicably contains the headshots of everyone who has ever lived.  Maybe, you posit, it is chilly where they are?  Yes, this could be it, but none of the principal players' other clothing suggests this, so we're left with our original preposition that Alesha and Jay's characters are well-dressed-but-not-very-good criminals of some sort, stealing something, for some reason that we are supposed to care about but don't.  In scarves.

3.  Why is it 'To Be Continued?'  They were arrested.  Is the next installment going to detail their trip through the penal system?  Or will they somehow escape from TWO DOZEN HEAVILY ARMED POLICEMEN?  It seems highly unlikely, don't you think?  Also, we don't care.  Just end the damn thing. You're not Lady Gaga.

Perhaps the biggest question this whole thing raises, though, is whether this rather obvious attack on our senses will resurrect Alesha's career.  It certainly has the stench of "last chance"-ness about it, so here's hoping it at least improves on her last single's #46 placing.  Otherwise Alesha won't be able to get arrested anymore. :-(