Dear Beyonce,

I am a huge, HUGE fan of yours. I get giggly and excited every time you come out with a new single or video. I will watch even the most boring and endless award show if it means I can catch a performance of yours. And I gush to anyone who will listen about how great you are.

You’re one of the defining artists of my generation. I grew up with you during the Destiny’s Child days, and loved your badass girl power vibe. And you’ve only gotten better. You are a magnetic performer. I am constantly blown away by your incredible energy and your ability to engage an audience. Not to mention your talent for singing and dancing. You don’t fake it the way many pop stars do.

It’s for these reasons that I am so disappointed that you have developed a habit of copying other artists’ work. The most dramatic example of this problem came recently, when Belgian choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker pointed out that you had copied much of the choreography in your “Countdown” video from her earlier works Rosas Danst Rosas and Achterland. And not only choreography – you used costumes and camera angles that are almost identical to those in films of De Keersmaeker’s work. This video puts shots from “Countdown” and footage of De Keersmaeker’s company side by side: Read More »

Like Sarah Silverman, Heidi Montag is a comedienne. She’s got to be, because there is really no other way to explain why she is desperately reaching for a music career and releasing her music video “Higher.”

I wasn’t going to watch it for fear of losing my lunch, but let me break it down for you: remember that Paris Hilton video for “Stars are Blind”? Yeah, this is way, way worse.

When I hit play, I expected to fight the urge to scratch at my eyes or duck for cover if that chin got too close, but 37 seconds of beach frolicking, overly engineered pop sounds and then Heidi’s breathy voice instead caused uncontrollable laughter.

I missed about 40 seconds of the video because I couldn’t stop laughing, but I didn’t miss much.

Because the whole freaking video is this girl and her saline sandbags in the bikini. When she’s not laying on her back or on all fours, she’s doing these weird “Fosse” moves with her gigantic hands and I know that Jack from “Will and Grace” would be all ‘oh, no, honey’ over it. Read More »