This is the second time I'm writing about this today.
The first time the story was how the mainstream press was completely out of it on this one, how this was truly a Web phenomenon.
Now the story is how Alanis herself is completely silent, how the story is the story, what exactly happened here?
Was it an April Fool's joke? Did she get permission? Hell, you need permission to synch music with video. Or do the Black Eyed Peas not even care? Then again, the RIAA issued take-down notices to sites that NIN leaked its songs to.
Where's the press conference? The late night TV appearance? Shit, even lonelygirl15 went on "The Tonight Show". Then again, that actress needed the publicity, she was a nobody, whereas Alanis Morissette is a somebody. A badly tarnished somebody who's seen as a one hit wonder. Aren't unknowns supposed to use the new tools? Aren't the stars always guilty of manipulation?
This video appears on YouTube out of nowhere? How did people find out about it?
E-mail.
Have you gotten the one about the Turtles video?
It's astounding to those who haven't seen it, Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan reciting their managerial woes laughingly, in an honest way so different from today's pampered media-savvy rock stars as to single-handedly show why the sixties were so magical (www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JHN5HaUg28).
But I've seen this video. God, was it January 2000 when I went to a screening room in Beverly Hills to see Rhino Films' Turtles movie? What ever happened to that movie? Harold Bronson stopped updating me on it. But suddenly, an excerpt is a hit on the Web, it's gaining momentum. I get an e-mail link every day.
But this "My Lumps" thing is a juggernaut.
Earlier today, during my first unpublished attempt at delineating this phenomenon, there were only 64 references total on the Google News. And not a single one of them was in a mainstream print publication, or its Website, until hours previous, days after the video phenomenon broke.
But if you did a straight Google on "Alanis lumps" there were references to the Websites of VH1 and other entertainment media. Then again, who pays attention to that media?
Hell, the very first link, the very first news story, was on April 2nd, from the Wired News. Who reads the Wired News?
Believe me, I seem to consume more media than anybody I know. And I often feel like I know nothing. There's no one place to go to graze and get a hit of everything. Hell, the mainstream press didn't cover this "My Lumps" story until today. You rely on your peeps.
It's all a matter of how many friends you have. Not fake friends on MySpace, but real friends, whom you trust, who'll you follow a link sent by. Have no friends then you're out of the loop. Have friends and you don't even need to leave your house to be part of the community, on the pulse, to the degree anybody can be on the pulse anymore.
In other words, we no longer live in a top-down society. The mainstream comes to the party last, after the public has delineated what's important. Hell, we saw this a year ago when the blogosphere made Stephen Colbert's appearance at the White House Correspondents' dinner a story, which the mainstream press previously ignored, and then ran with. Same deal with the firing of the U.S. Attorneys, in fact.
As of this writing, Alanis Morissette's "My Humps" video has 2,120,369 plays on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W91sqAs-_-g). It's not on her Website, which hasn't been updated this year. Who knows if it's on MTV.com,, who wants to wade through the Flash and search through the ultra-busy site to look for what one can find instantly on YouTube.
I can't find "My Humps/Lumps" on Yahoo Music. I could search AOL Music too, but how many places do I have to go to when I can go to the one where they have everything?
So what was her intention? Does she hate the Black Eyed Peas? Does she want to make a statement about the vapidity of today's pop music? Was she just having a laugh?
And she could have shot this on the cheap and had the same effect. But a ton of money was spent. Whose was it, hers or the label's?
And if you step into the public eye, you've got something to hawk. That's why you're on TV, that's why we see you in all the magazines. But we haven't heard about a new Alanis album. And she's not swooping down to claim her crown and maximize the effect, profit on this publicity, it's just sitting there. And the less she does, the bigger the story is.
I don't actually find the song and video that great. But the conception! Great art is all about conception. It's what's in the mind more than what's in the fingers.
If she's smart, Alanis will never tell us what went on here, what she was thinking, what she was intending. Kind of like Bob Dylan wouldn't explain his songs. Oh, maybe months down the line, a year. But now, she's suddenly got momentum. The doors are open to her. The public is primed for a comeback from someone it had already forgotten. There are already parody videos, and radio airplay...
Meanwhile, check this out:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLQRv0RjBBM
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