Imagine that you’re The Cliks. Yes, I know it’s hard trying to imagine yourself as a whole band, but suspend disbelief for a few minutes, will ya? Alright, you’ve just submitted your hot, seemingly innocent new video to MTV, and they come with this:
What do you do?
- Make the necessary changes to get some friggin’ airplay
- Defend your art and tell them to go fuck themselves
- Try to point out the irrationalities, as well as the racism/sexism of having different standards for different genres of music
- Form a hip hop group
Being so vehemently against censorship, The Cliks would probably pick pick a combination of 2 & 3 – kindly explaining to the powers that be over in video(less) land how hypocritical they are, while keeping their middle fingers raised high. But I think a much more creative approach would be 4 – Form a hip hop group. If you can get away with shit like brushing your hand across another female’s back in a rap video, why not pull the carpet out from underneath them and cross genres? Hell, it worked for Jay-Z at Glastonbury over the weekend.
All The Cliks would really need to do is rent a low-rider, get some tough sounding nicknames (MC Clik, anyone?), and maybe have one or two members go to jail for a brief period of time. You know, to establish street cred. Then just ask Timbaland to remix one of your songs, and voila! You can show anything you want on MTV: Bare backs, guns, hand grenades, Bigfoot, bums brawling, people on fire falling off of tall buildings, childbirth. I once actually saw a guy on fire getting mauled by a tiger on MTV. I don’t even think it was a specific video, it was just 3 minutes of vicious tiger mauling with a random rap song underneath. You know, so they didn’t have to censor anything.
As sick as it may seem, I think The Cliks should do what MTV asks of them. They have the talent and the unique sound to make it big. That means big money. If money is not important to them, then by all means, they can do whatever the hell they want to do. But if money is important to them, which I believe it is to some extent…than they need to give a little, to get alot. Once the bands name is out there, and the majority of MTV viewers have heard of them, whether they are liked or not, they will be bringing in the big bucks. Once they begin bringing in the big bucks, than I bet they will be able to do whatever the hell they want to do for a music video, plus have a censorship story to tell the world that will probably get them even more publicity, and a little pay back to the MTV World. It’s all about the BENJAMINS unfortunately. They need to become a “player” and play the game. I bet being a rapper has more to do with playing the game and how much money they bring to MTV, than the music itself.
Oh, I also think The Cliks should come back to Maine and perform