CALL ALL YOUR FRIENDS, CO-WORKERS AND LOVED ONES AND TELL THEM YOU’RE DEAD BECAUSE YOU MIGHT AS WELL BE AFTER WATCHING THIS.
Here’s the thing: If you took Beyonce‘s “Crazy In Love,” Kylie‘s “Red Blooded Woman,” the Pussycat Dolls‘ “Don’t Cha” and threw them all into a neon-colored bucket of flawlessness and harem pants, you’d have the Anthony Mandler-directed clip for Cheryl‘s “Call My Name.”
Now then, let’s break this down.
THE SHEER ARTISTRY OF IT ALL.
Evidently Chezza’s been thumbing through titles in the Criterion Collection lately or something, because she’s kicking off the video with a mind-blowing, completely unrelated one-minute intro of pure HIGH. ART.
A chopped ‘n’ screwed instrumental! A Marquis de Sade quote about torment! What torment? I have literally no idea what she’s referring to, aside from dancing in heels maybe or memories of Sarah’s bum note. It’s a Calvin Harris song about some guy that makes you get all tingly inside when he says your name, Cheryl! But that doesn’t even matter, because EVERYTHING ABOUT IT IS STILL AMAZING.
HERE COMES THE SHOWDOWN.
Okay, nothing really ‘happens’ in this video per se (drop your complaints in the suggestion box by the door, which I will never read/set on fire)–EXCEPT for a mini-showdown with some dudes with cars. And what happens when she sashays over to pick a fight?
Well, exactly what would happen in real life when a group of menacing men surround a girl all alone in an abandoned lot…
THEY DANCE UNTIL THE SUN GOES DOWN.
The dancing! Oh my dear baby Jesus on the stairs…the dancing! So much shuffling to be had–so many breast pops, butt thrusts and delicious hand motions! She nails it. Kills it. Slays it. Murders it. Pins it down and stuffs a piping hot Nadine’s Irish Mist Burger RIGHT in its face.
Also, I was overjoyed to see Chezza engaging in the art of interpretive dance by putting a hand up to her mouth and quite literally CALLING HER NAME. Effective, evocative and illustrative.
I especially loved that furious sort of pound-the-alarming that happens. It reminds me of the 2010 BRIT Awards performance of “Fight For This Love,” when “Show Me Love” popped in out of nowhere and Cheryl just started kicking the SHIT out of the air, looking like a possessed pop boxing champion goddess.
There is no doubt that every live performance of this song will literally end careers.
GET SEXY RIGHT NAW!
Cheryl is The Most Gorgeous Woman on Earth (aside from Britney, but let’s not bring religion into this). This video helps to support that theory. The glamour shots against the mirror, that evening drive to go writhe against a metal beam or whatever–that was all très sexy! I mean…DAT ASS! I am aroused and confused! (Arfused?)
But the back bend against the wall itself is kind of all the video needed to be, right? The perfect curvature, the divine execution? It’s the kind of flaw-free back bend that I can assure you will cause me to slip a disc when I attempt to reenact it outside a club at 3 AM somewhere in the Lower East Side.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to continue gently rocking and sobbing in the corner with my Girls Aloud Singles Collection box tin tightly cradled in my arms…
2012: YEAR OF THE CHERYL.
“Call My Name” will be released on June 10 in the UK. (iTunes UK)
Thanks to Crichlowed and Don’t You Change for the GIFs!