When I opened this window, I was really striving to write a thought provoking piece tying together pop culture hyper-saturation, internet celebrity, the age of the non-contextual edit, and metacommentary/postmodernism (I could link to just about any article Brent DiCrescenzo ever wrote for Pitchfork, but I'll go with this). The problem with this, however, is that I was merely attempting to provide intellectual window dressing before justifying spending an afternoon in my underwear drinking dopplebock, watching Jan Terri videos. Such an afternoon would've been "another winner"[1] regardless, but it achieved true transcendence when I stumbled upon the greatest merging of equal billing quasi-celebrities ever[2]: Jan Terri's "Losing You", and Tay Zonday's 2007 ANTHEM, "Chocolate Rain".
Since learning of her via the Found Footage Festival, I have been more than a little smitten with Jan "Voyage to My Labial Taj Majal" Terri. While it definitely helps her cause that she penned two of the greatest holiday songs of all time ("Get Down Goblin" and "Rock and Roll Santa" shit all over "White Christmas". Fuck a Bing Crosby), the ultimate draw is that, being entirely self-produced, the projects carry a humanism that extend the projects to an absurd degree of insularity. She genuinely has a more warped perception of what the public wants than almost any performer of the last two decades. The only difference between "Baby Blues" and "U Saved Me" is that Jan Terri doesn't have to pay her cohorts to pretend it's not bat-shit insane. THERE IS NO ONE ELSE INVOLVED! I mean, there's anonymous actors as window dressing, but it's not like there's a marketing department, the members of whom go home after work to pound bourbon and shake their head at what their Liberal Arts degree is being used for. Jan sings, Jan films, and then Jan distributes these videos to PASSENGERS IN HER LIMO! Fucking awesome.
Zonday, on the other hand, is at least in on the joke. I'll elect not to write a dissertation about "Chocolate Rain", since it's been done to death, often by far funnier people. I will go as far as saying, however, that even a cursory listen to his cover of "Rainbow Connection" verifies that lightning has struck more than once. Spending his days as a PhD student, and his free-time sharpening his peculiar musical gifts, Zonday clearly is cut from the Ollie Creekly cloth.
While there are literally dozens of people omniscient enough to realize the dual genius of these two entities, one magnificent bastard actually had the vision to wind them together into a staggering double helix of profundity. Granted, the precision of the editing could be improved, but the storyboarding is top notch, and it's really hard not to produce something life-altering with such fantastic source material. I'll won't list all of my favorite parts, because part of the fun is seeing them for yourself, but I openly wept joyful tears when the Zonday line "raise your neighborhood insurance rates" accompanies the visual moment in "Losing You" when Jan Terri and her mulletted suitor run a stop sign on their carefree motorcycle ride. For my entertainment dollar, a way better ride than fucking Alvin and the Chipmunks, I do declare.
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[1] I think I'm now going to sprinkle my praise of anything with David Manning quotes. I also consider my balls "this year's hottest new star!!"
[2] I specify "equal billing", because it would be unfair to pit any low-level montage against the juggernaut of pederasts making Alyssa Milano-centric "Who's the Boss"[3] tribute videos.
[3] And while we're on the subject of "Who's the Boss?", what's up with Italian language theme songs to 80's TV shows?? This one is as fucked up as the Fresh Prince joint from a couple weeks back. Bel Aiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiir!!
