#1: Tanika, Bad 4 U
6.8/10
Why start with Tanika, Bad 4 U?
It’s a great song, a great video and greatly under appreciated IMHO.
The song revolves around Tanika’s walkaway statement of ≈ ‘I’m Bad 4 U, so this goodbye now’ …although her delivery suggests she’s neither convinced nor content with this decision. The music translates this inner conflict with a bassline that revs up and speeds into an emergency-stop sounding chorus. It lunges forward and pulls back erratically, punctuated by subwoofer stylings that sound like sudden swerves to narrowly avoid some sort of dubstep sound crash.
The video amplifies each of these features and weaves them neatly into a weird but wonderful urban burlesque performance — with song, styling and story all equally bold throughout.
DANCING WITH A LOVERTRUCKER
The first thing we notice is there’s a popstar lying on a concrete floor. Momentary intrigue. But before you know it there’s an lorry edging into shot and creeping up along the back wall.
Alarmingly, it seems the lorry might mow down our songstress before the first chorus comes in.
But Tanika’s not scared of this ominous oppressor…in fact, she seems quite friendly. ‘It’s complicated’ might be an accurate summary:
The initial cat and mouse storyline soon gets tethered as Tanika takes control and stands up to her stalker:
HOLD UP
BACK UP
DON’T TRY IT
From a lyrical perspective, we hear Tanika being quite frank with her friend — she’s no good for this truck, whether she’d wish she were or not. With all the vacant space around them, there’s little room to misinterpret Tanika’s intentions or the truck’s wilful ignorance towards them.
STRONG AND SOLO
It’s always a bold move to stick a singer in a video all on their own, just in case their charisma doesn’t quite come through. It’s an even bigger gamble when you plonk them in the middle of a massive empty space and shrink them in over-sized surroundings.
Certainly the proportions of Tanika < Truck < Warehouse are designed to diminish her physical size because in effect they actually end up emphasising her strength (in David-and-Goliath fashion).
For instance, you can drive Tanika to the back wall…
But that won’t mean she’ll back down…
WEAPONS OF MASS DISTRACTION
In terms of projecting her strength through style, Tanika keeps it to the bare essentials: a holy trinity of hoops, heels and high pony — weaponised with the right choreography.
IF HOOPS COULD KILL
HIGH PONY POWER-PLAITS
While the choreography is sparse, it’s striking and leaves room for the concrete to step up as a deadpan dance partner, contrasting cooly with Tanika’s rhythmic posing.
The added effects of the swooping and swirling camera work cutting up her movements only serve to exaggerate the differences between them:
Tanika also takes the (often career-defining) close-up for a test run:
(see Nothing Compares 2 U, Take A Bow, Wrecking Ball):
A MURDER MYSTERY?
Throughout the video we see singer and sixteen-wheeler in several near misses but as the song turns a corner (into the final refrain) so does the truck, lining up for a head-on Tanika takedown:
Don’t just sit there…
…uh oh…
…where’d she go?….
First reaction says Tanika’s been squashed so hard she’s been absorbed into the floor. On second thought, it seems more likely that with lovertruck refusing to get the hint, she chose to play dead and slink away before they make another pass.
RECAPPING THE MATH:
<1 = NOT GOOD // 1–2 = GOOD // 2–3 = GREAT
SONG POWER = 2.6 / VIDEO MAGIC = 2.6*
*Choreography/Movement = simple but strong = GREAT = 0.8
*Visuals/Styling = Tanika, truck & warehouse all look REALLY GREAT = 0.9
*Narrative/Direction = a J.G. Ballard Bad Romance = REALLY GREAT = 0.9
OVERALL SCORE
= SONG POWER x VIDEO MAGIC
= 2.6 x 2.6 ( ≈ great song x great video)
= 6.8/10
…which looks like a somewhat harsh score but leaves room either side for what comes next.
Take a look!
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If you liked this, then please consult…
…both provide solo ladies strutting in vacant concrete spaces.
